You know what they say about moving house….

It always looks that you have more stuff than you remember when you have to pack it all into a truck and drive it away. When we first moved into the apartment, it took us one trip with a Tacoma, and we were done. Only three years later, it took me two trips in my ten food U-Haul and about twelve trips in my brother-in-law's truck; I still had enough junk to fill and entire dumpster. Where did it all come from? It is not like we went to IKEA or to garage sales every two weeks. I am taken aback by the way all this junk seemed to increase over just a few years.

Then, even after you move everything, there is still the cleaning up that needs to be done to make sure that you get you deposit back. There are the grease stains on the rug from your bike that can be removed by degreaser, those small holes in the wall that need spackling, windows with mildew, a bathroom with even more mildew, And then there is the range top of the stove. Oh, please do not even let me get started on those drip pans caked with three years of accumulated grease and grime.

My theory on ovens was that they are all kind of self cleaning. I figured if I turned the burner on blast and let it burn long and hot enough, that it would magically incinerate all the muck beneath it. How wrong was I? In fact, apparently the longer you go without cleaning those drip pans, the more impossible they become to clean. I tried soaking them in heavy duty degreaser overnight. I did assist a little bit, but not the amount I was hoping for. It only took about half the grease off. I gave up and did the smart thing; I bought new ones to remove sticky grease.