relocating | Here's you a blog ...

No, I don’t like the manual labor, but I do love a fresh start in a new house. Talk about spring cleaning! The big difference is that the question changes from, “Is this worth hanging onto just in case I might need it someday?” to “Is this worth packing and moving across the country?”

Jeff and I spent the weekend trying to get some prep work done. We’re not leaving until January, but we’re not going to wait until the last minute to get to work. We needed boxes and a place to stack them as we pack. So the shed needed to be cleaned and boxes gathered. We usually get all of our boxes behind the Dollar General store because they always have mountains of empty heavy-duty, perfectly-sized laundry soap and cleaning supply boxes. Those boxes have to be very strong and just the right size because those bottles are heavy.

They make perfect book-packing boxes, and I have tons of books, much to Jeff’s chagrin. He keeps trying to get me to throw them all away because he doesn’t want to have to be the one to lug them, but I told him that we’ll get along just fine as long as he takes care of throwing away his own things, and leaves me to throw out my own. Believe me, I’ll be throwing puhlenty of stuff away, so back off from my treasures! Otherwise we’ll be having a chat about all of those video games just gathering dust over there …

I digress. We found out, the hard way, that Dollar General now has a deal with a local recycler and sells their boxes to them. So today, after we cleaned out the shed, we tried the Family Dollar store to see if they had any boxes. Paydirt!!!

Before ...

... and after!

Now my house reeks of cardboard–not necessarily an unpleasant smell, but it’s a little overpowering. Or is that the task ahead of us that’s overpowering? Either way, I’ve done enough for today. We still have over a month to go, so no point in rushing it, right?

By the way, my co-author Stacey Kananen and I finally got our finalized, completed contract from Penquin/Berkley books! Yay!!!