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| The sign that hangs in the attic. |
1) The Purge
As soon as I got the news of moving, the first thing I thought was, "All this stuff is not going with us." I contacted the one friend I know in the PNW, who made a similar east to west trek, and her advice seemed to echo that. Whatever you don't need shouldn't come. So, I began the purge almost immediately. I've been the queen of craigslist a few weekends, getting rid of the couch, a side table, a table and chairs set, TV, microwave, doll house, and so many other things. Other weekends, I've kept the local thrift shop quite busy with trunk-full after trunk-full of donations. Books have gone to homeschool friends and church. Anything I thought would be useful to anyone in particular has been dropped off with them.
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| Just a couple things I rounded up to donate in the first few hours of being aware of moving. |
I've been brutal, slashing stuff left and right. It's the only way to get through without becoming over emotional. Bin of baby clothes - donate. Bag of papers from surgery - shred 'em. Piles of photos from high school - pull out a couple to keep and trash the rest. I even sorted and purged tedious things like the Christmas stuff, jewelry, and the medicine cabinet.
It has to happen, too. This moving stuff is expensive. On top of just generally wanting to downsize and not have to much stuff weighing us down, I don't want to pay thousands of dollars more for each moving crate we pack full. The result is, I've emptied much of what we had in the attic, so it's mostly empty bins up there now. Our clothing drawers and closets are much lighter than before. We have very minimal furniture. And pretty soon a number of our kitchen cabinets will be empty, too.
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| So many empty bins! Success! |
One thing that has been emotional, and there was no way it wasn't going to be, was Big B re-homing his guinea pigs. We decided if we could find a suitable home for them we weren't going to put them through the move. I know some people would shake their heads at us for making this decision, but it took a fair bit of thought and it's what was best. Some awesome homeschool friends happened to mention at a playdate, before we said anything about it, that they might look to adopt some guinea pigs for their son. Ben interviewed the boy and deemed him a good choice - he has a lot of pet experience and is sweet and caring. Best of all, they can pen-pal together about what the pigs are doing.
Chewie and Brownie were picked up safely and we hear they are melting the hearts of their new owners and adjusting just fine to being in their same cage in a new house. Big B and Little B have been fine with it, too.
2) Wrapping Up Loose Ends
I have a hard time saying no when asked to help out. I like to help! But I've had to learn to start saying no, so I could wrap up the loose ends of projects and commitments I already had going on and ultimately do the best thing for everyone. For the UU Fellowship I attend, I had wanted to help with their annual auction, but move preparations got in the way of being able to do too much. I could only commit to doing a small task, and even that I had to then ask to be cut into pieces. However, I finished that task up by the end of September. Helping out at a Harvest Festival on behalf of our scouting group also happened at the end of September. As did planning and leading an activity at our Fellowship's annual retreat. (I had said yes to a lot of opportunities to help, and have no regret.)
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| A lovely retreat in the woods. |
The biggest project I've had has been making sure my scouting group, Navigators USA Chapter 58, survives. I started this particular chapter last year, and while I have two additional leaders now, I've been the main coordinator as well as a leader of one of the sections this year. I've wanted to get everything as organized and set as I can, so that when I leave things can continue to roll along. This has involved lots of emails, making spreadsheets, maintaining a website, scheduling and planning, creating worksheets, thinking about insurance, bank accounts, and charters, and more.
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| A banner I made for our chapter. |
Last weekend we did a tour of an air traffic control tower, helped host a STEM day event, and then the leaders and I led a Sunday Service at our sponsoring Fellowship! I wrote and researched for much of it, picked out the hymns, figured out a reading and chalice lighting, wrote a closing, and kept track of emailing all the pieces we needed to to everyone. So while it was over in one quick Sunday morning, it was no small mental task, on top of everything else. It was all worth it, though, because our presentation was well received and got us more great volunteers. Plus, it was a great opportunity for me. We had an official board meeting for the chapter last week, and now it is safe in the hands of the new team. They are going to keep it running and build it bigger, and I am resigning.
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| Navigators - Nature, Inclusion, Community |
3) The house
We rent a house here, but our lease isn't officially up before we move. Our landlord is great, and said he could work with us, if we'd be willing to find a new renter for the house to start a lease at the time we needed ours to now end. I spent the beginning of October, right after mad purge week, in super cleaning and stage-the-house mode. M helped, too, with days of deep cleaning tough things like the stove top and showers, and yard work including ripping all the vines out of the chain-link fencing in the backyard, and emptying the garden beds. I took pictures of everything looking as just-so as possible, set up a listing online, dealt with all the emails, and did I think six or seven, maybe eight?, showings. We're lucky that it's a wonderful house and we got a renter quickly, but it was still a lot of work and worry, especially trying to keep things clean with kids and cats in the house.
Unfortunately, the new renters got a little flaky, at the last minute, about the day they start their lease, so we have to pay for a little bit of time that we won't be here, but I'm trying not to be [too] bitter. It's still mostly covered. Everything's coming up Milhouse.
4) Schedules and Planning
Did I mention that we are driving from Virginia to Oregon, with two kids, in December? And we have cats to move? And that's the other side of the country, where I only know one person?
Another of my jobs has been plotting our route westward, planning stops, booking places to stay overnight along the way, and generally figuring out the best sights to see and places to eat to make sure we make the most of our trip. That's pretty much all finished, and I have the color coded Google document to prove it.I rock at planning a road trip. I'm really excited about some of the things we're going to get to see and some of the AirBnb's I found - I'll be sure to post pictures on the blog. :)
My parents have graciously offered to get the cats and keep them for a little bit until we are ready to have them flown to us. This week I get their flight-approved carriers, and first pre-flight check up, then they head to their grandparent's house.
In terms of where we are going to live when we get there, I've looked at virtually every hotpads, zillow, and craigslist rental listing in the area that fits our search criteria, and many that don't, toured the city via Google maps, and have a rough idea how long of a commute it is from M's future job to many different parts of the city and suburbs. We won't sign any leases sight-unseen, though, so the plan for now is to stay somewhere for a week temporarily when we arrive, and do a mad housing search. That would normally freak me out - to not really have a place to live lined up - but as I've let go of the stresses of the loose ends that are here in Virginia, I haven't been as stressed about what will be in Oregon. It's kind of odd. Maybe Oregon has been a safe and happy place in my head for so long, that I've just accepted it as such?
5) Pack and Prep
I haven't actually packed too much. Most of what's left from the purge is stuff we use all the time. What I have packed is mostly books and art supplies that, while we don't want to get rid of, we aren't using now.
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| I've got my art stuff and my new Buddha statue. I'm packed. |
We decided to pack most of what we need for a month of living into our cars, and the remainder into POD type storage and moving containers to meet us there when we're ready. I didn't know when we made that plan, however, that PODS is not the only container moving company there is! I found about six different companies to research and then got quotes from three or four. We're set up with one called Door-to-Door. At first I booked with PackRat, but then cancelled after they started trying to get tricky with me right away. Here's the fun part of the storage container plan - because we're moving the week after Thanksgiving, the containers couldn't be dropped off on the day we wanted them due to the holiday. Rather than have them dropped off early and probably end up with storage fees on the other end, we opted to have them dropped off on the only other available day - the day before we leave. We will have one evening to pack our crates before hitting the road. Wee!
(My shoes are wet but my cuffs are bone dry!)
I bought myself a hiking backpack and the kids real "big student" backpacks to stuff our things into. M already has a bag. I probably spent way too long researching and thinking about backpacks - there were various websites, a trip to the store, and even youtube video reviews involved - but oh well, it's done now. I also got us each a mess kit, because our dishes aren't coming with us. Yep, we're going to live out of mess kits and backpacks for awhile. It's going to be so amazing!
5) The rest of life
Oh yeah, we also still have a life other than moving. In October we made a trip to MD, and got to see some of our friends and family. We also got to do some east coast things like eat at Ben's Chili Bowl in DC, get dessert at Vaccaro's in Baltimore, and attend the Maryland Renassaince Festival. The kids saw their pediatrician, my favorite ever, one last time. It was heartbreaking backing out of my parent's driveway to come back to Virginia, thinking about how it might be the last time I do it in my own car ever again.
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| Maryland adventures |
Then there's been park days, playdates, dinner parties, weekly library trips, pumpkin carving, trunk-or-treating, Samhain celebrating, last stops at some the few local places we like, and even meeting some new friends. (Why is it that you start making new friends at a place right before moving away from there?) M finished knitting me a hat! Last week we all took a trip Great Wolf lodge with M's mom and aunt.
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| Trunk-or-Treat fun |
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| Pumpkin carving - a Frankenstein monster and a cyclops - and eating lunch outside |
The kids have been doing well. Their biggest concern over moving right now is that I won't let them use any of the money they've been gifted on new toys, until we get there. They made their own Halloween costumes, April O'Neal from the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon and a zombie, and their own trunk or treat decorations, a haunted pumpkin patch, from a thrift store sheet and fabric markers. They've been able to enjoy much of the nice weather we've had, walking to the nearby park or sitting on the porch reading books. Big B made a poster for Navigators on why plastic bags are bad and how to make a re-useable bag from an old t-shirt. He likes reading about animals and has become concerned about the way humans negatively affect the environment and the effect it has on them. I have a birthday party to plan this week, too!
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| Gelato, the James River, and Great Wolf Lodge |
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