In which I make fun of my sister a little bit and hope she can take it. Love you sis!

My family ties are really complicated. No, not that show with Michael J. Fox and Elizabeth Baxter-Burney (or whatever her name is...), although did anyone else have the odd crush on Skippy? Just me, then? Okay.

What I'm really trying to say is that I have a complicated family. I'll give you the short-hand version (if I can).

My mom and my dad had sex. My mom got pregnant. They were then forced by their conservative Baptist families to get married and nine months or so later, I arrived on the scene. I just want to point out here that my mom got married at SIX MONTHS PREGNANT and she had a 22-inch waist. Chew on that for a second. I don't even think I was born with a 22-inch waist. As you can imagine, that marriage didn't last long. They were children and all.

When I was four, my mom remarried. A year and a half later, my sister was born. She cried all the time and I wanted to put her back because I liked being the center of attention and she was sooooo taking that away from me. I still remember standing over her crib at night (while she screamed...endlessly) telling her to "shut up shut up shut up" because I had a rough day ahead of me in first grade the next day. First grade was tough, y'all. Also, in our house (at that point) "shut up" was akin to "fuck off."

Meanwhile, my father got remarried and presently has seven other children. I'm getting twitchy just thinking about it.

Mom and Dad #2 got divorced when I was 12 and Mom married her current husband about a year later. Dad #2 remarried and now sports his own seven children in Montana, though two of them are adopted (it's still seven mouths to feed, yo). Dad #3 already had one son, who is older than me. He's married and has three children.

If you were keeping up, you can see why the question "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" is kind of complicated in my life.

However, I really only grew up with one sister. She's about six years younger than me and we are complete polar opposites. In most ways.

We had a tumultuous (look at me, using big words!) relationship growing up, but we're friends now and I can't even tell you how happy that makes me.

Of course there are times when I just look at her and shake my head in confusion. Her move from one apartment to another a couple of years ago was one of those times. I actually didn't help out with this one, so I wasn't there for the move itself, but my mom sent me the schedule my sister wrote up for the move because she thought it was "too hilarious." I don't think that even begins to do it justice.

See, here's the thing. My sister is incredibly organized. It's possible she also has some control issues, but that's neither here nor there (I love you, sis, don't kill me). I could only wish to be this organized...except, well, I don't.

If you haven't read LiLu's post this morning about pooping diamonds, go read it. I mean it, go. Just don't forget to come back!

I can totally relate, because I always think I'm organized. But really? I'm not. My clothes are often found strewn all over my bedroom or closet (or both, let's face it). I'm forever losing my jewelry or my hair thingies or my left eyeball (okay, that never happened. But only because it's attached in there really well). But that's part of what makes me fun and interesting. Yes, I just called myself fun and interesting. Deal with it.

My sister reads my blog, so I'm kind of taking a chance here. But I just couldn't resist sharing her moving checklist with you guys. All pertinent information has been blacked out and I've omitted the pages that had train schedules and room layouts on them (because the room layouts didn't show up on my copy). So these are just five of the twelve pages...yes, I said twelve pages.

It begins with a note and a table of contents:



Isn't she adorable? And organized? Personally, I take the "how much of my crap can I shove into my car every trip" approach to moving.



That's possibly my favorite page. I love how she stated everyone's role as though someone might get confused and start trying to pay for things and a fight would break out and all her stuff would end up in Harlem or something. Just for reference, David is my sister's boyfriend (who I suspect had no clue just what this move was going to be like...), Ginger is our mom, and Dana is our aunt (Mom's younger sister) and also The Queen of all Things to do with Moving. Do not question the Dana.

Next we have the actual schedule. You'll notice that my sister has more faith in movers than anyone on the planet. Also, I have no doubt that she sent them this schedule and threatened their first born children if they were more than thirty seconds late (not really, she used to be a social worker and stuff. She would never threaten children. Testicles maybe...). Aunt Dana, on the other hand, will cancel your movers three hours before they're even supposed to be there because she just knows they'll be late and it would be easier to just do it ourselves. What? Your family's not neurotic?



Now, for the cherry on the cake. The "unpacking checklist." There was even a plan for David's underwear. Totally cracked me up.





I should also point out that this entire schedule was made by a 22-year-old. Not a 45-year-old, as you might suspect. At 29, I'm nowhere near this responsible and organized. The move, as you can imagine, did not go off without a hitch. But I think it was far better than her previous move, in which, after driving her stuff halfway across the country, they realized that not only would her stuff not fit through the doors or in the elevators to get it up to her apartment, it also wouldn't fit in her apartment. So she had to get all new stuff to replace the new stuff she'd already gotten. And her old stuff had to be driving back halfway across the country. Good times.