Last spring, the first stop of my book tour was Ithaca, NY. I fell a little bit in love with it there--it's a funky city, like Cambridge, but incredibly beautiful like my home state of Maine. I came home from that trip and told Steve, "We really need to visit there sometime." We went back in the Fall to see the leaves change, and it felt like home. A few months later, Steve noticed a job posting on the website of the church we'd attended, the Vineyard Church of Ithaca. Now, Steve is a biotech guy--he wasn't exactly surfing church postings looking for a career change. And yet, it felt like something he was supposed to check out. So we drove to Ithaca in the middle of a blizzard to check it out...
And here we are four months later, packing our stuff into boxes and heading out on a new life adventure! Steve will be an associate pastor at the church, I'll be on the speaking team (which means there will be regular opportunities for you to listen online as I talk about the embarrassing things I do...in case reading about them here on the blog isn't enough).
(I'll be Twittering the move--everything from the giant truck we've rented, wrestling our mahogany dining room table down three flights of stairs, to the fabu rest stops along the NY Thruway--here if you need a chance to laugh AT someone, rather than with them.)
Speaking of which...we've been packing. And my sister was in town, which means I'll try all sorts of crazy things I might not do on my own, including....SPACE BAG. How excited were we to stuff piles and piles of stuff into bags and then vaccum out all the air??? WAY TOO EXCITED. I even took pictures. We started with two pillows:
Then we crammed them into the little bag and tried to use the super-zip plastic device to close the bag. Turns out it's extraneous and we just sealed the bag by hand like a giant zip-lock.
Then out came the vaccum cleaner and WHOOSH! We sucked out every last bit of air until the two pillows looked like this:
Incredible, right? We were beside ourselves with glee, spastically searching for other gigantic things we could squish to one-sixteenth their actual size.
But then, we noticed something sad. The pillows were growing, sort of like one of those monsters on a cartoon you think you've killed but then comes back to life. Twenty minutes later, they looked like this:
Sigh. The Space Bags went back to BB&B, and I'm left to contend with bulky fluffy items with no new and exciting technology to help.
Cheer me up--what are your favorite packing tips? Anything you'd never try again? Share!
10 comments:
When we moved to Boston, as we were packing Dan made a list of the contents of each box and then numbered the boxes, so as we were unpacking we just had to look at the list to know what was in a box instead of opening four and rooting through searching for a particular item. Making the list was time consuming but super-helpful, especially for those last dozen boxes where you're throwing things in at random. It also helped us prioritize unpacking.
Oh, and one of our friends found some helpful stuff at the UHaul place like box tape that had room names on it (so you know that box of stuff belongs in the kitchen, living room, etc.) and standing garment boxes with hanging rods so you don't have to take all your clothes off their hangers and fold them--you just hang them in the box. Good luck!
I got almost all the boxes for my move from Virginia to South Carolina through Freecycle. In the end, I had to buy about 5 boxes from U-Haul. Saved me a ton of money!
Don't forget to put pajamas in your luggage. Somehow I managed to pack mine--in that last minute frenzy Julia mentioned--and had to buy new pajamas because all my stuff was in storage for eight weeks!
Congrats on the new jobs!! So sorry to hear about the Space Bag (and I was getting all excited...).
If you have the time, it helps to do a massive throw out/take to Good Will session before you move.
Good luck!!
Welcome to New York! Best thoughts on packing. Throw out/give away anything and everything that does not either a) get used at least once a month, b) delight your soul, c) provide a service that you could not do without.
This is not easy. Examining our "stuff" through this lens makes it painfully obvious how much we have that we do not need - or even really want. Then you can start over in your new digs lighter - and more particular about what you bring into the house next time.
Good luck!
I will never pack myself again. After we spent WEEKS packing ourselves, we still weren't done when the movers got there. Watching them pack up the remnants in mere MINUTES convinced me. The next move, I hired them to do it ALL. Caveat: I researched my movers and asked everyone I knew for success/horror stories.
Can't wait to come visit Ithica!!!
I usually write "I hate moving" on all of my boxes. It doesn't really help anything, it's just fun. Congrats on the move!
I always label each box with the room it should be in after the move. This way your dishes don't end up in an upstairs bedroom. Also, use towels to wrap your dishes/glasses. You have to pack them anyway and this way you have protection for the breakables.
Ooh, congrats on the move!
My moving tip? Get my dad's help. :)
Congratulations!
I like Sara's tip. I have no tips. I blunder through moving every time.
i'm obviously too late to offer moving advice, but i'm always fascinated by TV infomercials and am disappointed to learn the Sucky Bags don't work. hmmph. makes me rethink my Magic Bullet obsession...
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