*Mind you, yesterday was record-breakingly nice, today was glorious, and I had the windows open and it smells wonderful and I had to stop myself from singing "I love global warming!" on Facebook because that would just start arguments. But it was freezing last week and will be again next week, so the argument stands.
The Concept of "Is It Worth Moving"
I wish there was an easy way to know what is worth moving and what isn't, though. I don't mean the stuff I love and would keep more or less regardless of the cost of moving it. Like, most of the yarn (though I will go through it before I move), and a whole lot of the books; I've been working on the ones that aren't absolute-keep status, looking at, reading part or all of, and deciding what can go.
And some decisions are going to be easy: the two old love seats in the living room, the kitchen table and chairs I got for free with my last apartment (the previous tenant had left them behind), the table I got at the Salvation Army (in 1994) that I use as a desk, the bed going on 14 years old (and when did that happen?), none of these are worth moving, to me.
On the other hand, the big, solid Barnes and Noble bookcases are absolutely coming with me, as well as the Ikea bookcases that hold much of my yarn (at least, I believe the latter is useful enough, and would not cost more to move than it would to replace...I hope, anyway). But things that are useful, but easily replaceable, how do I decide on those? Kitchen equipment, for instance, and linens, and awkward-to-move things? Where does that line get drawn? Like, I have a couple of strainers, nothing fancy, those probably aren't worth the space to pack. What about the slow cooker? I don't use it a lot--but I like to have it sometimes--but it's pretty old--so maybe that's a no? So many things!
I've started a list for the furniture (start with the big stuff, you know?), putting things in columns of Move, Don't Move, and ?; this in turn will help me assess now as well as later. Like, if the only lamp worth moving is the Ott light (replacement cost runs $100-200+, so move it, right?), and I have lamps I'm not using, might as well get rid of a few now.
When I feel a little overwhelmed by the breadth of it all, I remind myself that I don't have to decide everything today, and it's okay to start with the low-hanging fruit. I even took "before" pictures of the bedroom, so that I can amaze myself with how awesome it looks "after" I tackle some sloth-and-laziness spots of extremely long duration. It will get better!
Cleared Out
*One kitchen-trash-size bag of old sheets/towels, to animal shelter, 2/16
*Two small bags of books, to the used bookstore, 2/25
*A bag of shoes, and a large bag of clothing, to Savers, 2/19
Not to mention plenty of garbage, amounts unspecified.
Small steps, but those get you there eventually.
It's really smart to start this process well ahead of your potential move date. If you have the room, it might not hurt to put some of the stuffy you're not sure about into boxes and see which of those things you get out of the box in the meantime. Those you keep the rest you let go.
ReplyDeleteI'm very excited for you to be able to make this move (in the nebulous future).