Avalanche

The momentum is building! Friends of ours who are moving into a bigger place have agreed to buy a large selection of our furniture. It is a great help to us to have all the bulky, hard to place items already claimed and we are truly grateful. Because they are moving today they were hoping to have their moving company stop by and pick up our stuff as well on the way. It seems worth it to us to live out of suitcases for a few extra weeks in exchange for finding such a great buyer for our stuff. It has also been great incentive for me to actually get down to the hard work of packing.

So Wednesday Andrew, Katie and I rolled up our sleeves and started scraping stickers off the wardrobes. Andrew swears that he will never again put stickers on furniture now that he knows how hard they are to get off. Then I caught him putting a sticker on a table at McDonald's last night. Not that I was surprised. I managed to pry a few more books from Katie to add to the give away pile. Christopher and I spent yesterday going through his desk distilling all his various projects into what will fit into a small box. It was surprisingly easy and I caught him several times rolling his eyes at the junk that he had stuffed away in every corner. I am REALLY enjoying this part of the packing process and I have so far resisted the urge to sing and dance around the apartment with giddy enthusiasm at finally seeing my own children willingly put trash in the proper place.

Turns out the movers will not manage to get here until Monday, but we have already managed to pick up some speed here and it is hard to stop. It is helping the kids to have 2 big boxes set up in the hallway that are destined for Florida. It is comforting for them to know that not everything is going to be sold or donated but that some of their treasures are being carefully stowed away and they will see it again in a few months. Meanwhile we have made our own arrangements with the moving company and fixed a time and place for delivery in Florida in August. We hope that they will drop off boxes soon so we have a place to put all the stuff we have to take out of the wardrobes and off of the shelves. We have a lead on a car to buy in the US. We have all our ferry tickets for the trip, though not the train tickets.

Next week it only gets crazier. In one week Andrew will have graduated from Detsky Sad, Christopher will have finished off scouts for the year and completed a re-entry seminar offered for kids returning to the US, Katie will have had a ballet recital, all the kids should be done with homeschool, all of our wardrobes and bookshelves will be gone so we will be living in boxland, and reinforcements will arrive in the form of Grandma Dee. Many friends are also on stand-by ready to help pack as soon as the boxes get here, or watch the kids while I pack.

The avalanche has begun and I don't expect the momentum will let up at all until we slide into Orlando mid-August. Except, of course, for that wonderful 5-day break on the Atlantic in the middle of it all!