Change is Difficult

People have trouble with change, but so do old dogs. Hence the saying about old dogs and new tricks--which completely underestimates the ability of old dogs, but there is some merit in it. We have been actively in the process of moving for about three months and then actually changed houses a month ago. Our dogs are just now getting into the routine and (finally) not waking us up in the middle of the night wandering around trying to find out where the heck they are.
It all started for us about 9 months ago. We weren't really looking for a house--we had a plan. We would stay in the house that we raised our kids in another 10 years, and then we would move into the house we bought for them to finish off their education in. Easy, and sensible. It would give us time to start the process of substantially downsizing our possesions and the transition could be smooth and simple.
Then came the wrench. Two, actually. The first was that when son #3 moved out, our "raise the children" house went from being big to gargantuation. Uncomfortably so. There were whole wings of the house that we didn't get to on a weekly basis. Then came the crowning blow--we saw a wonderful old house become available--much smaller than our current house and yet enough bigger than our kid's house to seem like a real transition plan. An "almost empty nest" house. Within a week of seeing it, we bought it, and then the hard part started.
It turns out, moving after almost two decades is really hard. There is so much to get rid of it almost overwhelms you. So we tackled it one room at a time, and in fact, moved out of our bedroom and into the empty wing of the house to make the process easier. But it confused the dogs to no end. They wanted their old routine, and even though there was not a stick of furniture in our old room, that was where they wanted to spend the night. Turns out the furniture is irrelevant to them--they can't use it, so it kind of makes sense. What's all this stuff taking up floor space, they wonder. See how much bigger the room is now without it cluttering things up.
Well, now they are settled--long before we are, as it turns out. We still have a long way to go to get ourselves totally out of one house and into the other. Watching them struggle was strangely conforting because of how hard the move has been to pull off (thank goodness I did not wait another ten years