Condensing

It starts.

That period during a move where nothing will be tidy, neat or uncluttered.

For a while.

Sure the bed can stay made and we work on keeping the bathroom counter clear, but this morning I woke up with wonky hair and when I went to grab a Velcro roller to fix my wayward bangs I found I had packed all of them. I packed bobby pins too...so my hair looked a bit "off" today.

I like everything to have a "home." The bottle opener, for instance, lives in a nice cozy slot in the far right hand drawer of the kitchen. The pens live in their pen cup on the desk, the keys hang on the rack by the door. But what happens when I pack the bottle opener, the pen cup and the key rack? I need a pen and it's lying haphazardly around just waiting to get lost! Dear me...

Its times like these I need to plop myself down on our temporary futon-couch littered with throw blankets and a dog toy and remotes, pour myself a glass of wine in a cup I haven't stowed away, prop my feet up and ignore the mess my house is for 2.5.

So hi, y'all.

Let me clue you in as to a few of the things I've learned over the past week or so. About downsizing.

Its not that we're moving to that much drastically of a smaller place (was that grammatically correct?). Its more about wanting to live with less. Less clutter, less stuff taking up less space on walls. So I looked around at what could go.

I spotted our DVD stand.

Hmmm. Those boxes take up a bit of room...what if I got rid of the stand altogether and put the DVDs in...a case?!

Look at that! We only had the top three shelves full of DVDs but it filled up two garbage bags of their boxes! And all the DVDs fit nicely in that black case you see perched there on top. That case now lives in the entertainment center. And the DVD rack? Sold it on Craigslist...

Let me tell you of another revelation.

We have a coffee table ($20 at the Value Village, baby) with storage in the middle. I've been wanting to use it to keep our board games in, but they all just wouldn't fit! Then I read somewhere that you don't necessarily have to keep the boxes every single game comes in.

Whoa. Heavy stuff.

I got out some ziplock bags, tossed out a few over-sized boxes and all of our games and cards fit in the coffee table with room to spare.

Yet another shelf is emptied!

That's all my pearls of wisdom for the day. 'Till next time, this is the Packing Palmers, signing off!