Monday Move Update
I've decided to limit myself to writing about moving and packing to just one a week, to spare, you my readers, the monotony of reading about it every single day for the next six months. It would give you sense of what it is like inside my head, but it's not a lot of fun in there, so I won't subject you to that.
The surrealist feeling of life continues. It will be months (if we're lucky) before we move, and yet nearly every single waking moment is spent thinking about or doing something towards that event. And then when you add in children whose sense of time is a little shaking to begin with, well... At least one child is convinced we're moving tomorrow and other are convinced that as soon as the weather gets warm, a moving van will pull up in front of our house as if it were a part of some odd seasonal migration. They just cannot wrap their heads around the idea that I am boxing up almost everything we own, yet have no idea when we will move. Sometimes I have a hard time with that myself.
With so much left to do before the end of March, I want to focus on a moment as to what we've actually accomplished. Here's our list:
- Boxed up all extraneous possessions in three bedrooms (H., R., and Y.'s; G. and L.'s, and K.'s)
- Boxed up nearly all of my sewing supplies, with just a little left to do
- Cleaned out the gutted rooms on the third floor to act as a staging area for the boxes we are moving
- Moved all the so far packed boxes (~30) to that staging area
- Started a significant pile of stuff to give away
- Tore out the ugly, crumbling vanity in the children's bathroom and J. ordered a new one to install when it arrives
- A. has made a good dent in the room over the garage and in packing seasonal items
The biggest item of that list is definitely the clearing out of the children's bedrooms. So far, they have been able to keep them looking pretty spotless (I check every night, and we practice getting things put away before bed), mainly because they have so few toys left. Surprisingly, no one has complained at all. I am keeping the toys out on the third floor, so they do have things to play with, but somehow I think there is probably a lesson for all of us in there. I will start having times games as soon as the house reaches a certain point of neatness, and we will see how fast we can go from comfortable to spotless. So far, the bedrooms have taken no more than five minutes each for their occupants to completely straighten. I'm thinking that many of these boxes that are all packed up will be opened slowly and carefully (meaning, I will probably open them first, by myself), when it comes time to unpacking.
Today's item on the docket to conquer? The craft porch. It is an unheated area of the house, and it's not frigid outside, so I think today is the day. It is bad. Really bad. The kind of bad that happens when a room becomes the place for people to stash things that they don't know what to do with. I anticipate we will end up with more garbage bags and give-away stuff than actual boxes. And it will feel good. When it's done.
Oh, and the answer to Saturday's little word count game was 25, though, clearly, the game was a bust.
The surrealist feeling of life continues. It will be months (if we're lucky) before we move, and yet nearly every single waking moment is spent thinking about or doing something towards that event. And then when you add in children whose sense of time is a little shaking to begin with, well... At least one child is convinced we're moving tomorrow and other are convinced that as soon as the weather gets warm, a moving van will pull up in front of our house as if it were a part of some odd seasonal migration. They just cannot wrap their heads around the idea that I am boxing up almost everything we own, yet have no idea when we will move. Sometimes I have a hard time with that myself.
With so much left to do before the end of March, I want to focus on a moment as to what we've actually accomplished. Here's our list:
- Boxed up all extraneous possessions in three bedrooms (H., R., and Y.'s; G. and L.'s, and K.'s)
- Boxed up nearly all of my sewing supplies, with just a little left to do
- Cleaned out the gutted rooms on the third floor to act as a staging area for the boxes we are moving
- Moved all the so far packed boxes (~30) to that staging area
- Started a significant pile of stuff to give away
- Tore out the ugly, crumbling vanity in the children's bathroom and J. ordered a new one to install when it arrives
- A. has made a good dent in the room over the garage and in packing seasonal items
The biggest item of that list is definitely the clearing out of the children's bedrooms. So far, they have been able to keep them looking pretty spotless (I check every night, and we practice getting things put away before bed), mainly because they have so few toys left. Surprisingly, no one has complained at all. I am keeping the toys out on the third floor, so they do have things to play with, but somehow I think there is probably a lesson for all of us in there. I will start having times games as soon as the house reaches a certain point of neatness, and we will see how fast we can go from comfortable to spotless. So far, the bedrooms have taken no more than five minutes each for their occupants to completely straighten. I'm thinking that many of these boxes that are all packed up will be opened slowly and carefully (meaning, I will probably open them first, by myself), when it comes time to unpacking.
Today's item on the docket to conquer? The craft porch. It is an unheated area of the house, and it's not frigid outside, so I think today is the day. It is bad. Really bad. The kind of bad that happens when a room becomes the place for people to stash things that they don't know what to do with. I anticipate we will end up with more garbage bags and give-away stuff than actual boxes. And it will feel good. When it's done.
Oh, and the answer to Saturday's little word count game was 25, though, clearly, the game was a bust.
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