HEAD EM' UP, MOVE EM' OUT

There is a thought that keeps running through my head constantly now. . ."WHEN IN THE H*&L AM I GOING TO FIND TIME TO PACK ALL THIS STUFF?" When we first set our date for closing on our house, it was about five weeks away. That seemed like more than enough time to get our things in order and be able to move out. Our moving date is now three weeks away, and I am really not that much closer to getting things ready to go than I was two weeks ago. Panic is starting to set in a little bit. How I am going to get a five bedroom house packed and ready to go in three weeks?

It's not as though I have been sitting around twiddling my thumbs. The past two weeks have been extremely busy for us and have mostly been filled with all those things involved in finding a NEW place to live (it seemed a good idea to have someplace to go to once we actually had all the stuff in boxes.) We now have the new place all ironed out, but finding the time to get our current house packed up is somewhat challenging.

The day gets started about 5:45AM each morning for Chris and me. We both work all day. By the time we pick up the kids and get home from work, it is about 4:30 or 5:00PM. By the time homework is done, supper is made and eaten, baths are given, bedtime books are read and prayers are said, it is pushing 8:00PM. I don't know about you, but after fourteen hours or so on the go, I need a chance to sit down and take a breather for a minute. I know I quite literally need to "get packing," but I am finding that my time, as well as my motivation to do so is limited.

Part of the difficulty also lies in the fact that we are moving to a slightly smaller home, and need to downsize. Chris and I both realize that we have a lot of stuff that we really just need to get rid of because we have allowed too many things to just accumulate that we don't need or use all that often. Moving presents a perfect opportunity to sort through our belongings and cut out some of the unnecessary clutter. The problem is that sorting also takes extra time.

We plan on working on it as much as possible this weekend. However, I am going to have to get myself psyched up to listening to the whining that will commence from the children once they realize we will be working in the house all day packing. Saturday is typically our "go do something day," especially when the weather is nice. We have a family membership to the zoo, so that is a popular Saturday destination spot. It is nice sometimes just to head to the park and let the kids play, and then go somewhere for lunch. When we have stay-at-home Saturdays, it also means that we will be listening to the bickering that will no doubt commence between Maggie and Aleita. They manage to play together nicely for about an hour, then the squabbling begins. It usually results in the two of them being forced to go to separate areas of the house to play so that we don't have to step in to referee an argument every three minutes.

I figure that I will probably end up taking a day or two off of work in the next few weeks to get everything finished up. Packing up without two extra little helpers around is sometimes much easier. It will also make it much easier to get rid of a certain hideously ugly monkey bank that my husband had as a child and insists on moving with us from house to house. Just kidding, honey. . . really.