Trash & Trinkets Day!

I'm making good progress in packing up the house, and now we're down to mostly odds-n-ends stuff ... take this? give it away? trash it?

My daughter and I had a garage sale a month ago. We made some decent money, but it didn't seem to put a dent in the stuff that MUST go away. So I started Freecycling some things -- that's working out great! If you have a Freecycle group in your area, take advantage of it; I've received some really nice things from the group, and given away even more. You don't get a charitable tax receipt, but you know that the recipient really appreciates what they get.

This morning I have a lady coming to pick up several bags of very nice clothes that I can no longer wear because I've lost weight. I've hung onto these things for a couple of years -- just in case, you know -- but now it's time to let someone else enjoy them. And I'm sure she will.

I also have someone coming to get the gas grill I no longer use. I tried to sell it in the garage sale; no takers. But lots of people wanted to come pick it up for free, so there it goes too. It'll save me trying to get it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill stores; in fact, I'm not even sure they'd take it. It's a perfectly good grill that someone will enjoy for years to come!

Best news of the day: my friend Connie is coming to help me empty the garage and take all that stuff to Goodwill in her hubby's truck. YEA!!! I'll be SO happy to have the garage emptied out!

More importantly, I'm SO grateful for friends like her who will drive 60 miles one way to help me out for a few hours. Am I blessed, or what?

And The Packing Goes On ...

Wow. You should SEE the stacks and stacks of boxes I'm building! I'll take pictures eventually, but for now, you have to take my word for it.

Thanks to two wonderful, dear friends -- Diane and Charmaine -- my sewing room is almost packed up. The only things remaining are three drawer-type plastic bins that hold fabric, WIPs and PIPs. And probably a couple of UFOs as well. There are 23 -- count 'em .. 23! -- boxes stacked and ready to go in that room alone.

In the upstairs family room, there are 20+ more boxes packed, taped and dutifully labeled. I'm embarrassed to admit that most of those boxes are quilt or sewing-related things.

In the guest room are 4 big boxes of bedding, decorative stuff, and whatever else I can cram in there with all that padding, and 4 wardrobe boxes. My goal is to finish the upstairs today, no matter what!

Not really sure that'll happen, but I'll come very close, for sure.

This has been a long, torturous, overwhelming project, let me tell you. To all my fellow packrats, this could be you. I intend to turn over a new leaf: my new rule is that nothing new comes into the house unless it's replacing something that's going away. The alternative is to move every year or two, and I'm such a big homebody I don't see that happening!

Okay -- time for lunch, and then back to work!

Who Knew?

My gosh, there's a lot involved in moving half way across the country. I'm still purging and packing, slowly but surely. This morning was spent fielding phone calls from realtors and moving companies, compiling a list of furniture to be moved, and compiling a list of address change notifications to make.

Yes, I will fill out a change of address card at the post office, but I need to make sure I capture all the paperless billing places. Although those bills are sent via e-mail, I want to make sure I capture all of them and update my address information when the time comes.

The moving company spreadsheet is growing and I have to commit to one of them very quickly!

I'm taking a break from the purge/pack process to eat lunch, and then I'm going to start taking down all the light fixtures from the ceiling fans and washing those. And I want to clean out the freezer today so "old" stuff can go in tomorrow's trash pick-up.

I have roofers coming tomorrow and Thursday; need to get that done a year ago (ha!). And a realtor coming Thursday who not only sells homes, but also works with investors who buy homes that need to be sold quickly. She *really* perked up when I told her this house has two masters: turns out she has a buyer looking for a Pearland home with 2 master suites. Could this be serendipity? Let's hope so!

One other note: I've been approved as a Google AdSense associate so you may start seeing ads on this blog. If they're interesting, and you click on them for info, I might make a few cents on the deal -- I have no idea how much; ask me a month from now how that's going.

Back to work!

On The Move

Okay ... so I've been absent from this blog for quite a long time. A lot has happened in that time -- too much to really recap, so here's the short version:

* Recuperated from surgery successfully
* Went back to work after a 2-month leave of absence for recuperation
* Gained a beautiful grandprincess thanks to daughter & SIL
* Got a new boss
* Lost the husband unexpectedly to another "woman" (I'm trying to be nice)
* Divorce finalized 10 months later
* Was found by my long-lost younger brother (!!!)
* Reconnected with long-lost friends from HS thanks to Facebook
* Maintained quilting passion and quilting friends
* Gained a 2nd beautiful grandprincess thanks to son and DIL
* Reconnection with one HS friend began to turn into something really special
* Lost my 24-year job with Toyota

And now, it's time to make a move. A really really BIG move for me: I'm leaving Texas and moving to Ohio to be with Rex, my extra-special high school friend. Who's turned out to be SOOO much more than that.

It's still mind-boggling to both of us, but something we're both grateful for. The time that we're apart is becoming harder and harder to bear. He's been trying for months to find work down here, to no avail. I've been off work for 2 months, and am having a very difficult time finding prospects here as well. Ironically enough, even though everyone *knows* the economy is a lot better in Texas than Ohio, I seem to be finding a lot more possibilities up there than here, he's already got a secure job up there, we both own our own home, but believe mine will be easier to sell ("easier" being a relative term, of course), so when we add it all together, it seems that me moving up there is best for us at this time.

We both want to be back down here, sooner rather than later, and will continue working toward that. But in the meantime, I'm sorting, tossing, giving away and packing all the JUNK that's accumulated in this house over the last 15 years, and putting it on the market ASAP.

I'd hoped to have it on the market before the end of July, but it hasn't happened yet ... mainly because I need to have some shingles replaced on the roof (to repair a leak), and then repair an interior ceiling, before my consciounce will let me list it. I've had several roofers be no-shows; this morning's first chore was to call 4 more and set up appts with them for estimates THIS WEEK.

So ... I'm in high-panic mode now, taking a break from packing to finally get back to this blog. Like I don't have anything else to do -- LOL. But I may be a bit more active from here on out, as I chronicle this exciting journey ... to Ohio!