With less than two weeks to go until settlement (i.e. the date we need to be ready for the new owners to take over ownership of the house, get the keys, do their inspection and transfer the balance of the sale price), there’s a great deal to do. It’s odd though because in all my times of moving, I’ve never had someone professionally pack. Partly, it’s freeing because we just need to decide what we’re wanting to ship and just have that available to pack – the other part though is quite daunting… deciding what we DON’T want to take with us or to have with us in our rental home in the two months before we actually move countries.

We’re trying to sort things with the “box” system – a box each for:

• keep
• trash
• donate (or give to friends)
• sell

Because we’re not moving countries straight away though, the Keep gets complicated. Pantry items and clothes the kids are growing out of need to be taken to our rental to be moved on from there in the day or two before we move. Toiletries and “incidentals” also have a half life – as do a whole lot of other things I keep on finding… craft, Christmas items, wrapping paper – all the things I don’t want to ship but can’t chuck now as we’ll need them in our transition. The realisation that EVERYTHING needs to be gone through as we won’t be the ones packing has hit home with vengeance this morning and it’s rather daunting.

I’m worried we’ll have a lot more to take on the plane than 120KG once we sort though what we’ve actually taken to the rental but that’s a problem we’ll have to face then! For today, our jobs include dismantling the beds ready to be shipped, continuing to sort the garage (thanks mom for those boxes of old school work you lovingly kept!!) and hoping the rain stops for long enough to dry out the trampoline so we can pack that up. Oh, and make sure the kids don’t undo too much of the sorting as they come across things they haven’t seen in a while. Sigh. It will be worth it right??

p.s. our house looks a great deal more messy than in this shot taken during the professional photo shoot for the house sale!