Moving Right Along: Getting Ready to Move

While preparing for our last move, I called my sister countless times to whine about how much I hate moving. She was a trooper to put up with it, especially since she and her family had also just moved and her experience was far more stressful. (Think moving out of state into an apartment for only one year with two kids and another one on the way. Yeah, my whining was silly.)

But like I talked about here, our landlords wanted to sell the Mouse House and we didn’t want the stress of showing the house and not knowing if we’d have a place to live in a month. And the truth is the new place is great. It is somewhere that I can see us living comfortably for a few years while we pay off debt and save a down payment for another house of our own.

So long story short long, I was kind of moving against my will. Sounds so dramatic, huh? Picture me with my hand to my forehead collapsing on a fainting couch. Oh man, I would love to have a fainting couch. Anywho, back to moving…

This isn't exactly a fainting couch, but if TJMaxx wanted to donate it to the cause, I wouldn't object : )

 The first thing that I would suggest to anyone preparing to move is to purge. Not in a Seinfeld ‘refunding’ way, but in a ‘get rid of all this crap that we have no idea where it came from’ way. If you’ve got a couple of months before you move it might be a great idea to have a yard sale. If you’ve got less time than that, I would suggest giving it all away.

Giving perfectly good stuff away is tough for me. I am a cheapskate to my very core, so when I see something that we don’t need that I could get a few bucks for my first thought is to try and sell it. I did this with a few things but what I really should have done was just get it the heck out of my house. I have a few friends whose daughters are younger than mine, so I gave them shoes and clothes that they’d outgrown. A stroller we no longer use went to another friend.  Excess dress-up clothes went to a little girl at church who loves to play dress-up.

If you come across something that is stained/broken/worn out/no longer useful…pitch it! Now is not the time to see potential in every scrap of fabric and wonky picture frame. Do not move trash just to throw it away a month later. This one was also hard for me and I honestly could have done better. Learn from my mistakes, people!

My final word of advice for The Great Purge is this great idea that I shared yesterday: someone else is happy with less than what you have. When all is said and done, all this stuff is just…stuff. They’re just things. Is it worth snapping at your kids and being a grump because you’re stressed over the move and all the things you have? Consider how blessed you are to have all of this stuff and let the stress go.



Moving Day! These kiddos were such troopers. I am so blessed with these little gifts from above.

 This is one lesson that I feel like I’m in the middle of learning. Maybe if you’re a young whippersnapper it will take you less than 30 years to become as wise as I am. HA! I’m sorry; I couldn’t say that without laughing! : )