Moving Day! (Part 1)

Moving Day Part 1 was a success! Today the packers came, and put EVERYTHING into boxes. The entire house is packed up, except for the bedding (which we throw into designated boxes tomorrow morning). It's nice that we can sleep in the beds one more night. Tomorrow the moving truck comes, and they will load all the furniture, all the boxes, and everything into the truck so that the house is completely empty. That's when we enter camping mode, sleeping on the floor and living out of suitcases for a bit while my husband wraps up his last few days at work.
A couple of things worked out really well, and I am very grateful for God answering prayers. First, so glad to have such wonderful friends! I don't even have to ask for their help, they just automatically offer me things I need! Not only did they watch my kids today, but they took them as a group to the Power of Play in Wilmington! (Like a children's museum). Of course the kids had a blast, and it was wonderful for them to get out of the house and away from the somewhat preoccupied parents who have been too busy to play with them this week. They were a little confused when they came home and their bedrooms and toys were all packed up, but we had been talking about it for days, so Danny was all set to put the boxes on a plane and "drive" us all to Spain. Sophie (who is 4 and very wise) said, "Ummm, Mom, I don't think this is all going to fit in the car!" They won't see these things for at least a month, probably 2, so we set aside a few of their favorite books and toys, and they each have their own carry-on backpack with their favorites, so that will be a relief for them when they start missing their things.
A few pointers for anyone else about to go through a move:
- Stop shopping at Sam's Club at least 3 months before you leave! I stopped back in April, and there are some things that we JUST used up last week.
- It can take a month to eat all the food in your freezer
- Do NOT wait until the night before to take down curtains and blinds! It took me a week! But that gave me time to wash the curtains too, so they will be fresh when we get them back
- Check under your kids' beds, mattresses, and in their sheets for toys, since the movers don't touch the bedding. Even though I cleaned up their rooms really well yesterday, we still almost missed a few things in the covers.
- Do go through your house and group things into piles. I laughed at my husband when he took everything off the shelves and out of cabinets and stacked them. But it made sense, because we keep kids books in 3 different places, so we rounded them up and now they are packed into together. We had weights and exercise equipment in several places, so we took them into the garage to get packed together, etc.
- Watch the movers pack the boxes, and feel free to write on the sides. I added a few details here and there, but should have made much more specific lists of the contents of each box, so if I am looking for a toy or a kitchen thing I don't have to go through several boxes. Oh well, we'll see how the unpacking process goes.
- Don't pack any markers or pens, any candles, wax (Scentsy), liquids, light bulbs, batteries, or lotions/gels. I knew some of those rules, but was surprised we couldn't even pack my contacts, since they are in liquid. So now we are hand-carrying a little more than planned.
- Leave yourself some tools! We are shipping our car overseas and luckily we are allowed to pack some tools in our car so we already had them separated. Good thing, because we found several uses for a screwdriver, hammer, knife, etc as we were packing and cleaning.
- If you take your tv mount off the wall, be prepared for some major repair work! We could have left it for the renters, but decided to bring it with us, so a lot of unscrewing, patching, and a final round of painting followed.
- Save yourself some paper plates, cups, utensils, etc, because you will have NOTHING to cook or eat with when they are done. We have a few items we are going to throw away before we leave, so we set them aside to help us through the next few days. And don't forget a cheap can opener and corkscrew... cause we did. Oops!
- Do save some tasks for yourself to do during packing day, like cleaning, because sitting around watching people work is kind of awkward and boring when you're used to being busy all the time. I got some final patching, painting, and deep cleaning done!

That's all for now. The process went really smoothly and wasn't very stressful, so I feel good about tomorrow too. I can't give too much advice about tmo until we see how are things get delivered on the other side of the Atlantic. But for now, I think we did well, so high fives all around! :-)