So I’ve been pretty busy around here lately. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. We took a little time to mentally prepare for this move (and by that I mean, we sat around watching a zillion hours of Dr. Who because Netflix now has it on streaming!!! WOO- HOO!!!). And then, we had to spend another two days learning how to talk again about things that don’t travel through time and space. We really would have gone somewhere, but we’ve been having terrible winds out here. Maybe that is how all the rooms ended up looking like this….hmmmm…..
Now I’ve got to get back in packing gear and get stuff done. I put together my moving binder with lots of OCD sections to keep me on track. I started filling in the important dates on the calendar, you know, pick up records by, schedule turn off by, and such. Then I filled in the last minute activities we have going on. Thing 1 has a dance competetion this weekend that is hosted by her school, so she gets to dance, and I get to work! Thing 2′s dance recital was this past weekend, so at least that one is out of the way. The Brother’s birthday is coming up though and this always presents a problem in the scheduling. This is not the first birthday he will spend moving. We actually flew/moved to Germany on his second birthday and flew/moved back on his fifth! There have been several state side moves on his other birthdays too. I really hate that, no matter how hard I try, his birthday will probably be filled with packing bags and finding the stuff we need in the car for the long ride. It stinks, but at least he got a new Nintendo 3D DS to keep him company!
I did get a little of the packing started and I thought I’d share that with you. One of the first things I do for any move is clean out the junk. Seriously, how can one family accumulate so much unneed stuff in less than a year? And what’s worse is that I know some of the stuff I got rid of was stuff we moved here from Mississippi. Why did we move it then, you ask? Well, because no matter how hard I try, I never seem to find it all. How do people in permanent houses manage not to overflow them? We did get 7 large garbage bags of clothes and quite a bit of odds and ends dropped off at our favorite thrift store. I already feel 10 lbs. lighter!
The next thing I do is pack up the clothes we don’t need, either where we are at or where we are going (sometimes the two don’t line up). I know that so many people will say, go to stores and ask for their boxes, but frankly I have two issues with this, it takes time and what you end up with are normally sticky with fruit sap. Yuck! Add that to the heat of moving in the summer and you have a good mess waiting for you on the other end. I lke to use the XXXL Ziplock bags. Yes, kind of like the sandwich ones, but better. The thing that I love about using these is I can use them, store them with minimal space used, and then use them again. I also bust them out when we go camping for the extra water protection.
I had to play around with how to pack these (because my OCD self demands that I must get the most out of every space). I tried the rolling technique and just folding, but I wasn’t getting as much in as I wanted. I started to do a layer technique. This is pretty simple….
First, lay out a pair of jeans, like so……
then add another pair going the other way, followed by more and more clothes, until you get a stack about 6 inches thick. 
Then, make a second pile. Not too tricky, right? It does help to make the piles about even.
Now, you just fold the stacks in half and slide them in the bag. So easy, and you’d be suprised how much these awsome bags will hold. Depending on the size of clothes being packed will depend on how many stacks will fit. With the left over space at the end of the bag, I stuff in socks and undies and anything else I can find that will fit! Then I zip them up, load them on the POD and done. Using the Ziplock XXXL bags means no worrying about whether the clothes will damaged from something spilling on them or from sticky residue from a re-used box. No buying a zillion plastic bins only to find out on the other end that they either didn’t make it so now you don’t have that Christmas storage you thought you would, or that the lids are so warped that they are useless anyway. Plus, one box of three bags costs about $8 and you can get about one bin per bag.
So now I only have to do this in 6 other rooms. That shouldn’t take to long, right? As The Other Brother said, “Too bad we can’t just jump on the Tardis and get there now!”
Happy packing everyone!
Kiss, Kiss,
Heather
Uniforms: $250 (x 2)
It still amazes me that these girls can do stuff like this. And this time around, Monkey 2 decided to do the jump competition. She did really well and it was a real confidence booster for her.
Next week she is going to try the tumble competition. I can’t wait! And what competition would be complete without a thousand girls in hairbows doing the “Cupid Shuffle”.
