Getting All My Ducks in a Row

I have GOT to get things packed up and ready to go.  Once I had a clear time frame to work inside of it seemed to bring things into focus for me.  Maybe that's what it takes.  Maybe you really need that kind of framework to be able to see things clearly.  Obviously I do.  So, I now I have made a plan, and the very first day that I implemented it, it worked amazingly well!  Usually when I make plans like this I bite off too big of a chunk and realize later that no human could possibly do the amount of work I laid out for myself, but this time, now that I have the proper motivation, it has all been going according to the plan.

I decided to blog about it, because one of the biggest obstacles I faced during this whole confusing process was discerning where to start and what to start with.  Now that I'm beginning to write it all down it sounds so obvious.  I have probably had people tell me to do some of these things, at least in part, but just couldn't see it.  Now I do, so maybe I can help sort it all out for someone else.

Certainly the number one thing to start with is obvious.  Clutter.  Old stacks of mail, magazines, the craft supplies that haven't been sorted through since the oldest child was a toddler, you get the idea.  I didn't start these little chores because it seemed pointless until I was ready to actually start packing and getting ready to go.  After all, they will continue to pile up, be used, etc...  My #1 tip for getting started is DO NOT wait for some nebulous future event or day or time to start with the obvious things.   You CAN do these things now.  It WILL save you time later.  It WILL help.

On this list would be going through your family's clothes.  I got rid of SO many items of clothing it was amazing.  Between us there were probably a good twenty boxes that now don't have to be packed, stored and moved.  The same with books.  The same with the kid's toys. The same with dishes and other kitchen items.  The stuff in the back of the kitchen shelves, the appliance in the extra closet, the dusty bakeware; they aren't being used.  Pack 'em!  "Well, I might need it.  I just know as soon as I pack it away I will need it."  No, you probably won't, and if you do you can either make do (which is my suggestion.  You can do without a lot more things than you think!) or go ahead and find it and unpack it.

Which leads to the next rule:

CLEARLY mark all boxes.  You will be glad you did.  If you need to find something again before you leave you will be able to find it.  If you expect you will need it sooner than some of the other things once you are on the other end of the move, you will be able to find it.   When you get ready to unpack, you will know where to place the boxes in your new home, saving HOURS of labor in an already exhausting process.

Buy many, big black markers and maybe even packing labels.  One for each side of the box is smart.  Trust me.  Oh, yeah, buy a box taper.  Get the kind you see employees using at the store or the post office.  It isn't that expensive, and it will save you a lot of time.  You are going to be taping-- a lot!

By the way, I heard a great tip.  I forgot who I heard it from, so I can't give the credit.  If you read this and it was you, my apologies.  Anyway, it was this:  Hang all of your hanging clothes from the back of the hanging bar toward the front.  When you wear them, replace them hanging from front to back.  After 3 months (or whatever time you decide is appropriate) you will see which clothes you don't wear because they will still be hung from the back.  Now you can can get them out of your way!  Insta-sort!  Isn't it funny how simple some solutions are? I dreaded all of this so much and now that it's on top of me I can see how easy it was all along and that (of course) I wish I had started sooner.

Now for my plan.

Once the time is set, you can start the actual push to move.  Here's what I have been doing.  I've been setting my alarm for one hour... I pack two boxes for storing, throw something in the truck for the ARC store (a local second hand store), and one trip to the dumpster. Then if I have time left out of the hour, I sit, read, play on the computer, cook, whatever, until the alarm goes off. I reset the timer again for an hour, fill two boxes and put something in the truck for ARC, a trip to the dumpster, and use the leftover time as I choose... repeat as necessary until DONE!!  The first day I worked for sixteen hours like that.  No fuss no worry,  I'm not sore or over tired.  The next day I had a lot of other things to do, so I only did it for about four hours.  This week it's so hot I'm waiting until the house is cool to work, so I've been doing two or three hours in the morning and then two or three more at night if there is time.  It doesn't even seem hard or stressful. I'm SO excited!  Success rocks!

The only problem I am having is in finding places for everything to stack after it is packed. I'm planning a yard sale, so keeping everything piled here and there in groups after I've gone thru it is like clutter on top of more clutter. I am NOT liking that, but this too shall pass.  I will probably go get a storage unit the last month before we leave the house, and start moving the stuff that I am keeping over into it.

I figure if I finish one room, packing what I can, emptying it of all but the furniture and items of everyday use (I just found out how much stuff can 'hide' in a room), I can have it done with 3 weeks left to finish moving it into storage. Subtract another week because my husband will have to go through and pack the tools and things, and his time is much more restricted than mine, so that leaves two weeks.  I think that's practical. I believe I can actually do it in that time frame.  It's going well and I am sticking to it.

So there you have it.  I feel silly posting this.  It's so simple and not at all newsworthy, but maybe someone out there in my vast audience of ones will find a spark in it someplace.  I also promised that I would do my best to document this whole process from beginning to end, so there may be quite a few goofy posts.  We shall see.

Stay tuned.....

Thumbs Up!!

Ooooo!  Anticipation!
New beginning!
Excitement!
ADVENTURE!

...to be continued.

Back to the Business of Living

What a time I've had trying to get in and blog! A few times this week I thought I would come in and sit down to my computer, but something would come up. Tonight it would appear I have a few minutes. Unfortunately now my mind is sort of blank! What was I thinking I'd like to write about?

How about gardening to start? My garden is not much as gardens go, but I decided to throw a few edibles in with my flowers this year. It's the only soil in my yard that has been worked enough to support life, so I poked a few bell pepper plants, some stevia, a tomato and some cilantro in among the ivy and the flowers. If all goes according to plan I might plant a few more things. I had every intention of preparing a decent sized area out in the back yard so I could plant more, but I didn't get it done. The dirt back there is so poor weeds will barely grow. It will take quite a bit of work and I just didn't get to any of it in time.

My husband is getting ready to build a patio just outside my back door, and I'm probably going to grow some things in pots out on it. The problem is that the temperatures are going to be really getting up there soon, and out here very little grows well when the real heat comes. Folks around here say that tomatoes do better in containers than they do in the ground during the heat because you can move them around and out of the worst of the heat when you need to, so here's what I'm thinking. If I plant a few more tomatoes, maybe some beans and squash in some pots out on the patio about late July or early August they will be easy to move around and protect from the sun while they are small, and by the time they get bigger the weather will cool off a bit and they might do well enough, if there are enough hours of sun left in the day, to actually produce a late season harvest. It's worth trying. Everything else I have tried met with pretty sad results. Something has to work. I've seen other people around here grow things. It can be done. I want to have something to show for this growing season.

My neighbor across the street invested a small fortune in his "garden" area. It's more of a modified green house. He made an enclosure covered with shade cloth and installed an overhead misting system and drip irrigation, and brought in load after load of mulch and potting soil and bedding mix and what have you. He has reasonable success now, but for crying out loud he aught to! For all that I'd expect State Fair Blue Ribbon quality produce! For all that I could have probably paid someone else to grow it for me! LOL! I poke fun, but I'd probably build myself something like it if I could. I just like to grow things.

I think growing things in pots on the patio will look nice. We've been in this house for fifteen years and never used the back yard because it is just a dusty, unattractive old dirt lot. Having a patio will be a great plus, but something green out on it would really help. We are probably going to put in some grass. I've always wanted grass back there. We tried several times to get some growing, but we just didn't have any luck. There are seeds, fertilizers and things on the market now that make it where you can practically grow grass on a flat rock I think, so we'll give it another go. A few nice pots, grass, maybe a flower bed and we might actually enjoy our back yard!

We're going to build a shed out back, too. I'm really excited about that! That means I can empty my storage unit and bring my stuff home! When we put the house on the market a couple of years back I took everything I didn't really need and any extra clutter and packed it to move and hauled it off to storage. The realtors all say it makes the house show better, so I really emptied it out. I figured I could live without it until the place sold and we moved, no problem. Well, then the economy did it's thing, the housing market did it's thing, blah, blah, blah... and now just over two years later... here we still sit and I miss my stuff!

It's going to be like Christmas for me going through it all! I packed my favorite things first so they'd be well packed and safe. I bought a few new things just before we started packing and they went. We packed most of our books, our wall hangings and lots of personal things. I put keepsakes away, bedding, the boys even packed away some toys! They probably out grew them by now. That makes me feel terrible. They would ask about things and I'd go rummage around and find them and dig them out for the most part, but I'm sure they still have things in there.

It will be a challenge to see if I can get everything back in the house or not. We were crowded when we started. That's part of the reason we needed to get some of the stuff out before we showed it. Over time I bought duplicates of some of the things I'd stored thinking I wouldn't need them, but it turned out that I did. I stored my winter clothes thinking we'd surely be moved before I would need them again. I have all new school supplies, art stuff, blankets, some dishes and pans. Pans! Oh yeah! I have a huge box of iron pans in storage! I love my ironware. It's almost all I use. I've acquired a cabinet full of iron since I packed my other away. I'm going to have to build a special place just for my iron I think! Something very sturdy!

My china and my flatware, my bread machine and my juicer, no telling what else is in storage over there. I have forgotten what all I had. Stuff. Just stuff. But it's my stuff and I want it back. It's likely going to be quite a job unpacking it but I'm tired of life being on hold "in case we move." I'm bringing it home. When we re-list our house to sell later on I'll deal with it, but for now I want to live in my house again amidst all of our familiar, cozy stuff (albeit crammed in like pickles in a jar)!

I'm rambling. I think head for bed and read a while.