A lot of what is left will just go in the dumpster as my son and DH finish clearing out the house… 9 months ago

with a sign that said “free” – and everything went to new homes. Including a lamp, some garden tools, an oil heater, and more.

Now that a lot of things are boxed (43 boxes, ironically), I am beginning to see the volume of stuff. I’m going to have to rethink taking some things with me. Cheaper, in some cases, to give it away instead of burning the fuel to haul it – and just buy new stuff on the other end. 10 months ago

Doing it! A few more boxes to donate. Several more bags of stuff not nice enough to donate – so donating to the trash bin. A fresh start, 2200 miles away. Yay Team! 10 months ago

And a box for the burn pile – taxes from the 1990’s : good-bye!

Lots of old, useless magazines (I now get my favorites electronically! Yay for technology!)

Gave away a lot of good stuff.

Still more to go… but, looking much better. Trying to stay motivated. 10 months ago

Preparing meals based on what is left – hopefully will be down to not much left by the time we are ready to move.

Continuing to throw things out. Now that I am done studying for my PMP Exam, a bunch of papers and related junk can go away. Also, all events requiring dressing up are gone, so I can pack my good clothes and most of my shoes.

Kitty and chickens are all re-homed. Moving along… 10 months ago

We can put up to 10 black trash bags out with our trash as long as they aren’t too heavy. Took advantage of that!

Also have 5 boxes of stuff for goodwill tomorrow. Nice stuff – not just raggy stuff. The raggy stuff I threw out. 11 months ago

Just realized that this has to be done within THREE months. Less than 90 days. OMG, is it time to panic yet??!? 12 months ago

Crock pot, soap making supplies, canning jars, and other stuff that they wanted. Equalled about five filing boxes full. Slow going, but it’s going. 12 months ago

I am trying to have only ONE pickup truck full of “my stuff” – such as books, clothes, house-hold essentials – since we have a whole CRAP load of cars, a few ATVs, a tractor, a boat, and all of these VERY LARGE toys. If I can pare it down to that, then those could live in an apartment with me and we wouldn’t have to pay storage for them… then after my other half arrives, we could move to somewhere bigger or rent storage for all the big toys. This is going to cost us $$$. I hope we never move across the country again. 16 months ago

Off to a good home with you. Two 4ft x 7ft book cases. I’ll miss them, but I’m not hauling them! Went to one of our daughters, though, and she will love them, so I’m not overly sad.

Still, sooooo much left to do. 30 boxes packed, and more and more still to gooooo.

Also, decided that I really don’t use my crock pot or deep fryer enough to justify bringing them. I’ll just buy new ones when I get around to needing one. Ditto for our turkey fryer. Toaster, too. Microwave will go to our son.

Yes! Let’s DO this! 16 months ago

Yields boxes for packing. Got a little stash of packed boxes in the corner of the dining room. After Christmas, all my baking stuff gets packed. Going slow, but it’s going. 17 months ago

But, none of the ones I really want and love. Clearing out the weeds! 17 months ago

A whole set of books that I like, but do not love enough to take on another move with me!

Also, when my girls visited for Thanksgiving, I let them choose books from my collection of good books. I will bring some of them with me, but the rest will get donated. Slowly weeding out stuff. 17 months ago

Why do I insist on keeping broken things that I am never going to repair or that cannot be repaired?! One large black trash bag of broken, useless stuff – in the trash can!

Also set up another box of items to donate. Really, I am NEVER going to fit in those size six jeans that I bought on sale for “some day.” The size eights, I am keeping – THAT is a possible goal.

Feeling accomplished today! 18 months ago

Got rid of a huge number of things – and they all went to people who will love them! Still, far from getting rid of everything I need to – but definitely major steps towards what we need to do. 18 months ago

Tattered clothes that I don’t wear anyway? Not good enough to give away, even. In the trash!

As for a mumu that my Dad gave me 10 years ago on his last trip home (to Hawaii) – it is falling apart now. I am keeping that and will make little jewelry bags out of it. I have a need for those, and was going to spend $25 on buying them – and now I will spend $0 and remember my Dad every time I use them. Win-win. 19 months ago

the rest of my shot glasses; threw out my broken shoes (they are cheap, and no, I’m not going to ever fix them!!!!); and a ratty tshirt. Dumped a bunch of old papers; shredded bills. PRODUCTIVE weekend! 20 months ago

and other junk. A few black trash bags a week and I might make a dent in things.

Also, brought home some used bubble wrap and boxes from work. Going to pack some of my collections of things that I won’t actually need. Like the 100 or so shot glasses that I’ve collected from my travels (or that family and friends have sent me from their travels). 20 months ago

I have decades of STUFF that I’ve been dragging around with me – much of which I haven’t seen in 5 or more years… if I ever want to move across the country again, I will have to be BRUTAL with decluttering my life! BRUTAL, I tell you, BRUTAL. 20 months ago

It turns out my brother stayed up all night. He didn’t think he’d be able to wake up in the morning if he went to sleep, so he just pushed through. He was a trouper all morning, now he’s crashed – dead asleep. He needs it. We have a ways to go yet.

The two guys with the truck were not really movers. The guy with the truck was just a guy who owned a truck. His friend was more industrious. They did a good amount of work, of course, but when I’ve had movers before – they run around like crazy, carrying stuff out. These guys, not so much. They had us pitching in half the work. We were so panicked that we wouldn’t finish, that we just kept going.

The truck was smaller than anticipated and we couldn’t fit everything.

Post-moving-guys status:

ALMOST ALL of our furniture is now in storage. Almost everything. We’ve still got a couple of tables that I can take the legs off of and get into the car. And two chairs. And my curtains. And a wire rack in the kitchen… And a bunch of odds and ends.

We’ve NOW got 26 hours until the landlord comes to check the apartment. There are still a LOT of things remaining to do.

It’s been back-breaking work already… thinking about ROUND TWO of getting stuff piled into the car and making trips back and forth to the apartment… and then spending tomorrow doing repairs and deep cleaning on this place is not my idea of a picnic.

It’s nearly over, though. It’s really endgame from here.

• TAKE DOWN CURTAIN RODS and BLINDS
• SPACKLE WALLS
• SWEEP AND MOP ALL FLOORS
• CLEAN STOVE
• CLEAN REFRIGERATOR
• PACK UP ALL FOOD and BRING TO NEW PLACE
• PACK TECHNOLOGY
• SEVERAL TRIPS TO GOOD WILL.

I’m weary just thinking about it. But it’s all gotta be done. 20 months ago

Got to bed about 2AM… it’s 6:15 and I look like I aged about 10 years since yesterday. Holy COW do I look bad.

Oh well. Nothing a few nights of rest won’t fix.

The packing isn’t finished. But it’s done well enough. It’s mostly done. I’m just going to have to chase around while the movers are moving stuff, kind of clearing additional things.

Boy… I’m so beat. First thing to do is make sure I put the kitty litter, cat food and cats out on the porch so they don’t escape when the movers get here. 20 months ago

I’ve been up since 3:40 or so, which SUCKS, because I haven’t been up DOING anything, just lying awake wishing I were asleep. I’m going to go to the 6am meeting. Then try to be productive. Maybe I’ll take a nap later.

MONDAY MORNING STATUS – 24 hrs to go

BEDROOM – Pretty much done. Just need to finish packing two last shelves of books, and some odds and ends. Maybe half an hour’s work?

OFFICE – Made a good start. Need to tackle the big bookshelf. PACKING BOOKS makes me want to give up and get a kindle. They are so heavy, and no two are the same shape. Why do I think I love these things?

KITCHEN / PANTRY – Haven’t started.

BATH – Not too much to do.

LIVING ROOM – Need to box up some art supplies and odds and ends. 20 months ago

SUNDAY AFTERNOON STATUS

• 1 big box of CDs/DVDs/casettes
• Paintings/Prints
• 1 Box of jewelry and knick-knacks from the bedroom
• 1 garbage bag of clothes

Jeez… 4 1/2 hours. Is that all?

WHY IS THIS SO HARD???

I suddenly realize that not only is this the first time I am moving into an apartment COMPLETELY my own and untainted by negative energy of family relationships or complicated romantic encumbrances…. it’s also the first time in my life I’ve ever packed by myself.

Every other time, I had my mother (who stampedes around, controls the process and stresses me to the max, but gets the job done). This time, because I was trying to create boundaries with my mom, I told her not to come. She offered several times, and now I wonder whether I ought to have accepted.

But, no.

I CAN DO THIS. I am far more relaxed than I would be if she were here. In fact, this is not a bad process at all. I just need to step it up a bit. 20 months ago

We got this nice guy, Dave, from craigslist – who’s got a burly friend and a truck. They’re going to come over on Tuesday morning, 7AM, to help us move everything. That means I’ve got today and tomorrow to finish packing.

So far all I’ve done is dump a bunch of things out of the dresser, and out of the pieces of furniture I sold last week, and tape together a few boxes. I also put some clothes in garbage bags and two blankets in a garbage bag.

That’s it. THERE IS BASICALLY NOTHING PACKED AT ALL YET.

I’m… whoooo. I need a game plan of some kind. I just keep looking around and shaking my head. It doesn’t SEEM like a lot of stuff… but I know it IS a lot of stuff and I don’t know how it’s going to get packed in 2 days. I was planning to put everything SOFT in garbage bags, my clothes and bedding and all. Drive that over to the storage unit myself.

This .. I need some kind of a plan, STAT. Or, maybe I don’t need a plan. Maybe I just need to start DOING stuff. 21 months ago

1. Two boxes need to go to UPS – mail order stuff I need to return

Returned the zappos box (which has been in my office for 3 months) – easy! The other box, something I ordered for a work project and then turned out not to need, my boss told me I could just give to him and bill him for it. I’m grateful because I didn’t want to deal with the returns lady and their 15 day return policy.

2. Textbook I need to mail off to someone who bought it from me on Amazon
All done. easy peasy.

3. Have to drop the signed lease off at the real estate agent’s house.
Squared away

4. Then, I need to buy tape and packing materials at U-Haul, so I can get the boxes from the basement put together.

My brother, miracle of miracles, deigned to go get tape and packing materials.

We’ve had the box spring on the back porch for two and a half years, ladies and gentlemen…. Classy, I know! So, we just hurled the damn thing over the side of the porch and ran downstairs, hauled it out of the yard and up to the curb. Funny how it can take 2 years 8 months (to be precise) to carry out a 10 minute action.

This moving is a wonderful thing.

The slightly less wonderful thing is that Hurricane Irene’s preliminary showers are beginning to fall, and we’re anticipating the worst this weekend. Maybe the worst hurricane in a couple decades? So…. what’s this going to mean for all the people planning to move this weekend? and then what’s that going to mean for us mid-next week? Will our movers be available or will they be moving the people who were supposed to be moving this weekend? Is it just going to be a giant traffic jam????

My brother, in times like this, feels it’s best to scream at me about all the hell that’s going to break loose, and scream some more, in case I don’t fully understand. That makes this whole process just that much easier! 21 months ago

Sometimes it’s EASIER to do things, than I think it will be. Sometimes it’s harder. And sometimes it’s just more complicated.

Yesterday I jumped into this with gusto.

This morning I woke up and looked around at the SHEER MAGNITUDE OF THE CHAOS I HAD UNLEASHED:

Journals
Papers
CLOTHES
Bedding
Notebooks
Office type things
Art supplies
CDs / DVDs / VHS tapes

It turns out that when you make a mad-dash effort to get rid of all the ugly furniture you acquired because you didn’t have money and someone else offered it to you, and all the mis-matched baskets and boxes and bins for clutter you acquired from you mom who is bin-obsessed and constantly offering to help you contain your chaos with one or another ugly container…... It turns out if you do that, you end up with a CRAP LOAD OF STUFF ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE.

So I felt really overwhelmed by that this morning.

And two other things happened.

1) I sold my first guitar, which was a gift, for less than it was worth, and this made me feel like I had done something bad to the person who had given it to me.

2) I sold something else – an actually quite nice container my mom had given me last year as a storage box for my journals. I’d never actually gotten around to using it, because all the journals were kept in so many sundry other baskets she’d given me at different times. I sold this quite nice large painted wooden box for much less than it was worth, too. And, it happened that my mom was being quite nice to me on the phone this morning. As I was talking with her, I happened to be looking down at one pile of journals that I had nowhere to put, and suddenly I wanted to have the box back, and I felt terrible for having sold it for such a stupid paltry sum. I let this girl have it for $20. It’s a big ornate wooden box on legs, so that you could use it as a side table if you wanted. It was really quite nice. And I suddenly thought how horrible it was that I just let her have it.

Somehow in this process – I want to go about it with a sense of pure non-attachment, but I find myself collapsing into sadness unexpectedly at different turns.

It may have had a lot to do with how exhausted I was, and feeling alienated by my brother. I had to wake up early to disassemble my bed for the young couple that bought it. They were coming to pick it up at 10am. My brother wasn’t in the mood to wake up to help. I wrestled with it for 40 minutes and couldn’t do it so I asked him to help. He pulled apart one piece and then left me to try to do the rest.

After a lot of scrapes and bruises and banging and hammering the pieces apart and hauling them down for the couple, I was really tired, but mostly I was feeling let down and alone with all the chaos because my brother didn’t help with the bed.

Everything is complicated.

The guitar becomes the girl I was when I was 24, and the potential I had then, and the relationship I had with the person who gave it to me. My selling it for too little, the small cash I now have in hand, I start to think is the nothing that’s come of that relationship, or the nothing that’s come of my life in the last 13 years, and it seems like an affront to have thrown it away, to me and to him. All that potential adds up to $65. It’s terrible when you look down and you see that a thing that’s symbolic of a long time now is gone and there’s an amount of money in its place that’ll be gone in no time.

And the box my mom got me for my journals being gone feels like my failure to value my mom. And it brings up feelings about her mortality all of a sudden. She gave me this nice box and now I don’t have it anymore. I just got rid of it because I was on a getting rid blitz.

And the sheer disarray, and in particular there being no place for the journals feels like there being no place for ME. No container or shape for my life. Except these hideous plastic bins that are left. Nothing with character. Or history. And the fact that now EVERYTHING just looks like GARBAGE makes me feel like everything IS garbage. Which is overwhelming. And I feel broken hearted that my brother won’t help me even when lumber is falling on my f$%^ing head because I’m trying to flip a queen size wooden bed frame over to get the pieces un-stuck, and ripping lamp fixtures out of the wall while I’m at it….

I think this is why moving is supposed to be stressful. Everything means something.

I need to just roll with the damn punches. A box is a box. An unfixable guitar is not a relationship. Time and relationships and mortality are completely unrelated to cash and objects and assembly and disassembly tasks.

Or, as Cher so eloquently put it, “SNAP OUT OF IT!” 21 months ago