melissa with her daughter- courtesy of www.melissathemouth.com
I asked the fabulous Melissa of Melissa The Mouth blog fame to share some of her standout tips for those of you moving! If you're in the throws of moving you'll appreciate this organized women's wisdom!
Moving is brutal. It just is. But it’s a fact of life, so you do your best to power through it. Even when powering through it entails an 18-hour drive across several rather large Western states with your husband, two daughters, two cats and abnormally large dog. That’s what we just did, my little family. We relocated to the snowy mountains of Utah from our sweet little city cottage in Fort Worth, Texas.
I like to think that I’m a fairly organized person. You kind of have to be in order to have a semblance of control over the chaos of family life. But in hindsight, which is always 20/20, there are things I look back on and wish I’d done a little differently. It just might have helped to stave off a little of that stress…
1. Start packing early. And I mean early. It’s just too much to do all at once, and if you attack it, room-by-room, box-by-box, gradually you will get there… I waited until days before the packers came, and it was not fun. At all. Juggling my active pre-schooler and my almost one year old with the duties of packing nearly did me in, which brings me to my next point…
2. If you can afford to, let the movers do the packing! Seriously! In a family home, there is so much going on, errands, meals, and trips to the park, stomach bugs, traveling husbands. You just can’t do it all, and since I’m the mommy, most of the job of coordinating our move was on my shoulders. And if that’s the case, it’s OK to ask for help, even if you have to pay for it…
3. Ziploc bags are your friend. Your really, really good friend. And they come in all shapes and sizes now, including those giant ones that are great for packing up comforters and towels and just about anything else you can think of. There were several boxes that arrived in our new home with wet and sticky spots on them, and I just knew it would be a broken bottle of my favorite (and expensive!) shampoo that had leaked all over everything. Ugh. Toiletries, cooking ingredients (spices, oils, etc.), small screws for the wall mount of your TV; they should all go in Ziploc bags. Trust me, the last thing you want when you are unpacking your new home is for your husband to be nagging you about where those little screws for the TV are…
4. When you are packing your kitchen, whether you are doing the packing or the movers are, make certain that there is one box that has all of your essentials in it. You know, the things you need to get your kids fed in the morning, open up the can of dog food, drink a glass of water with? And label it clearly as such. I did not do this. I regret it terribly. After our things arrived, all I wanted was to pull out a pot and make a fast batch of mac ‘n cheese for my daughters, but there were so many boxes marked “kitchen,” and no clue as to what was actually in them. Big mistake. That meant I had to tear open each and every box looking for the various items I was going to need over the next couple of days, and it made a mess in the kitchen and a headache for me. It also led to many, many meals of take-out over the course of that weekend. Not so smart when you’ve just paid the movers thousands and thousands of dollars to deliver to you your own stuff…
5. Take it slow! You don’t actually have to unpack everything in one day. Although it might be possible, it’s not recommended. It leads to a lot of stress and makes organizing your new home an overwhelming chore on your To Do list. I am pleased to say that this one? I got right. We’ve been in our new home a month now, and there are still a handful of boxes that I have yet to unpack. And I’m fine with that. Because honestly, whatever is in those boxes? If I haven’t needed the contents in the last month, perhaps I don’t need the contents at all! Which brings me to my final recommendation: moving is a great time to purge. Get rid of the junk that’s been accumulating for years. Donate old clothes, old dishes, throw away broken lamps and call the mobile shredder to dispose of all your old papers that you’ve been holding onto for longer than you need to. It’s such a liberating feeling… starting fresh… a new beginning… embrace it.
Oh, and when that very last box is finally unpacked? Break out a bottle of champagne to celebrate.
Thanks Melissa... love your blog, appreciate your wisdom + would love to have coffee with you or a fab bottle of vino... cheers!
Recent Comments