This afternoon I cleaned out the secretary in our living room so that I could start packing what needs to go to the new house, and I’m happy to tell you that it only took me two hours!
For one box!
This does not bode well.
But oh, the pictures that were in there…pictures of our first Christmas tree after we got married, pictures of the first house that we bought, and then pictures of this house when we were building it.
I got a little nostalgic.
There were also about 492 pictures of our dogs, including photos of the time that we dressed them up in fleeces for a Christmas portrait, and I got all sentimental about when Maggie the lab was a puppy and I put a red bow around her neck. These days if I tried to put a bow around her neck she would spin around in circles trying to dislodge it, then get into a bit of a tug of war with the ribbon, but a puppy with a bow around her neck is a pretty sweet memory.
And then I found the ID tags that Alex and I had in the hospital when he was born.
And then I found my diploma for my B.A., my teaching evaluation letters from grad school, an old 3.5 inch floppy disk that has every paper I ever wrote in college.
I was trying to be methodical and detached about the cleaning out process, but I finally gave up, sat on the couch, and looked at every paper, every card, and every photo. l laughed a bunch (it’s a wonder D ever married me given the state of my mid-90’s bangs), and sighed a bunch (in the first little house that we rented, I believe my Decorating Objective was to display every single wedding gift that we received), and talked to myself a bunch (WHY IN THE WORLD have I saved my checkbook register from 1996?). I even cried a little (see earlier statement regarding hospital ID bracelets).
But mostly, more than anything, I felt really, deeply blessed.
And now I’m off to pack box number two….
Awww, I know how that is when you find old memories. Have fun. With you starting this early, you have time to reminesce (sp?) and still get it all done. B/c packing china and stuff like that won’t make you teary. There’s only a few places where you have to stop and soak it all in while you’re packing.
Ahhh, that’s how I started packing, too. And then, in the end, I was totally out of time and had to throw everything in boxes helter-skelter to ooh and ahh over in our new house. I won’t tell you how many boxes are still in the basement waiting to be oohed and ahhed over. Or how many years we’ve lived in our “new” house. But we’ve added two children since then.
I didn’t realize you had been in the same house that long. As a military wife, I have to sort through so much stuff so often that I end up (a.) scrapbooking it or (b.) throwing it away or (c.) storing it for future scrapbooking.
The exception to this is our deceased dogs collars with tags on them. I made the mistake of keeping them instead of burying them with our sweet angels. Everytime I unpack or find them I have to sit down and cry and remember how sweet they were….I tear up even thinking about it.
I can get sidetracked like that just looking for something I misplaced! It is fun to look at old “memories”.
Pardon my asking, but, exactly HOW LONG do you have to get everything sorted and packed?? I went through a lot of those sorts of things this summer in all of the Cleaning and Purging and I did the very same thing you did. But, you really can’t place a price on memories. Or in this case, a timetable. Like Merritt said, you can take your time and be sentimental about this kind of stuff because I really don’t expect you’ll be too teary-eyed and reminiscent over canned goods and the cleaning supplies.
Besides, hopefully it’ll be many more years before you have to sort through all the memorabilia to move it again.
Take your time. Remember. Laugh. Cry. Blog about it. ;-)
if you keep this up and post the contents of every box, you can just print it instead of labeling the box.
:)
Don’t worry I’m sure the towel box and the canned goods boxes will go much faster! You’re allowed to wax nostalgic with your first box. I’m sure that’s a rule of packing I read somewhere.
1. My decorating objective is STILL to display every gift I recieve.
and
2. You named your dog after me?
–you knew her first?, okay…let that slide–
3. Just pack boxes according to the room they USED to be in…start re-organizing AS you pack and you are in for a world of hurt…not that I’d know [wince]
soo does this mean everything is working out with the houses???? so excited for you!
taking your time on special boxes like that is more than ok!!!
I loved it that you took the time to enjoy everything. It’s amazing how time flies and what we have done with our lives.
I think last night your church was doing the “Hidden Church”. How did that go? I am very interested and would like to do something at my church?
May I suggest a bookshelf this time? :-)
BTW, did Kelsey tell you she drank a Diet Coke for you during our WWM weekend? (I had to pass, it gives me headaches.) She said the machine gave her an extra. It was like it was meant to be.
We’re just sentimental fools, really.
I was cleaning out my closet a few weeks ago, and came across a jewelry box that I had inherited from my Gram 3 years ago. I just never had it in me to go through it.
SO ~ you guessed it, right in the middle of cleaning out my closet, I started a stroll down memory lane. I smiled, I sighed, I cried.
All from one jewelry box.
Eventually my closet did get completely cleaned out. I just took the scenic route, and counted my blessings as well.
Moving is so bittersweet when you have great memories! I walked in and out of our old house a dozen times before I would let Terry drive away!
I do that everytime I start scrapbooking again. It takes me several hours to go through all my pictures again before I actually start.
Just think blogging and being nostalgic you may never get in that new house! BTW – you never told us what the ‘shag me homestead’ looks like?
How fun! Enjoy it, it’s what makes the packing fun!
And I have to disagree with Diane. Knowing you, you just might wax sentimental while packing your cleaning supplies up. Especially all the Gain paraphernalia in the laundry. That alone might take a couple of hours between all the sniffing and sweet memories of double softening. ;-)
(BTW how come Robin can comment freely on your site? Did you switch to Beta or does she just like you better than me?)
Moving always reminds me of how much God has given us, not just the things, but all of the wonderful events in our life. And, isn’t it a blessing that we actually have something to pack. Many people don’t even have a bed to sleep in. Thanks for the reminder. :>)
like I said before . . . I hired from my own monies two hours worth of professional packers to come and take care of the nit-nacks.
Best two hours of my money in my life.
I do the same thing when I clean the house. Takes me forever to get ready for company, so I dread the day we move out of here.