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I feel like I’ve been absent from some parts of life for months.  My blog has obviously suffered.  If you want to skip the details and just read when our moving date is, skip to the end.

We’re trying to get ready for what is hopefully our last move for a long time.  This time the move is completely on us (the last two times we’ve moved Zach’s work has paid for it). 

I started off months ago by sorting through and organizing every paper in our house.  I threw away several garbage cans full of papers.  Utility bills from years ago, old paystubs, manuals from appliances and devices we no longer have, and every medical bill we’d ever received were among the things I sorted through and discarded. 

Then I started sorting through all our possessions to decide what we wanted to get rid of.  I filled our garage with a mountain of things, it took me weeks, probably more than a month.  We opened every box in our garage and separated things into a keep and sell/discard pile.  I repacked all the boxes of things we wanted to keep and labeled them by content and put colored stickers on them to indicate which room I wanted them to go to in our new house.

(Here’s a picture I took when we opened the boxes of books we’ve been storing in the garage and sorted and repacked the ones we wanted to keep, this was only some of them—the project took a few nights)Then I organized a garage sale which I’ve learned is no small task.  The day of the garage sale I was so sleep deprived it was all I could do to make it to the end of the scheduled time.  That night I sat down in my chair to rest for a few minutes before doing my nightly chores and woke up 10 hours later.  I was so sound asleep that I didn’t hear my husband come in with a sandwich and chips and watch a show.  When I did wake up, I got some cereal out for the kids and laid on the couch and slept another two hours. 

(most of the garage sale items set up the night before)Now I’m working on packing everything in the house and garage that we won’t use before we move.  I started this job months ago as I sorted through things to sell and prepared for our garage sale.  It’s a slow moving process partly because I’ve been organizing as I pack.  Carefully wrapping and labeling cords, packing like things in the same box, and labeling boxes.  I have burned the midnight oil more times than I can count to try to keep up with housework and make progress on packing.  Life doesn’t stop so that I can pack, especially when you’re a mom of 5 young kids.

I feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel, most of the time.  I have a few things listed on craigslist to sell.  I have everything that can be packed pulled out of most of the rooms and packed.  I have house guests starting to arrive in less than two weeks.  By next weekend I hope to have the rest of the packable items packed so that I can use my last week before house guests to get some cleaning done.  It seems so simple, yet this week I have Ila’s MRI, a dress rehearsal and ballet performance for Nicole and Charlotte, Isaac’s last Pack meeting, and Isaac and Charlotte’s last after school science class.  Next week is preschool graduation, Nicole’s ADD evaluation follow-up, Isaac’s 9th birthday party, and a graduation party for several of our friends.

I am very excited to have some time with my family.  My mom comes in on the evening of June 15th, my dad and brother fly in on the evening of June 17th.  My sister and her husband and two children fly in 5 minutes before midnight on June 21st and my other brother flies in on the evening of June 22nd.  Then we have a family reunion and my older sister’s wedding.  My last house guests leave on July 3rd.

We plan to start the final packing and cleaning once our house guests leave.  Isaac will go to cub camp July 9th-12th and we hope to be ready to go on or around the 13th of July.