1. The Purchase. This is the process that requires you to drive to a building in another city and give several thousand dollars to a perfect stranger, all the while suspecting that if you return to the same building the next day, it will be an empty lot.

2. The "God help us, it's ours" Shock Inspection: It takes place when you visit the house for the first time after you purchase it. You find that since your last visit, saboteurs evidently same in the middle of the night and made it smaller.
Suddenly, the living room, once the size of a small bus station, can only accommodate your furniture if you stack it in a pile.

3. Packing: There are three stages to packing, First, you keep a meticulous record of each item you pack. Second, you misplace the meticulous record. Third, when you are done, you stand back, gaze in awe at 5,000 or so filled cartons, and then realize one of your dogs is missing.