Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The (Re)Packing Has Begun

Well, Jeff is obviously too busy to keep up a blog about our trip, so I guess I'm going to...if I can figure out this newfangled technology.  =)  This may be a long entry, as we've been very busy.
To catch all of you up, Jeff and I are planning to uproot once again in May and spend a year traveling the United States.  Our rough plan (very rough at this point) is to cross across the top of the U.S. in summer, work our way down the east coast in fall and then spend the coldest part of the winter in Florida, and head back across the south in late winter, arriving back on the west coast about a year after we left.  Then, Jeff has promised we will buy a nice house to settle down in.  (Actually, I'm having a hard time waiting...  I torture myself regularly, poking around the markets we're thinking about.)
Anyway, we came up with this plan about two months ago. Afterwards, we mapped out the schedule between then and May when we planned to leave; there were only 22 weekends. They've mostly flown by so far, but we have managed to get some stuff done. The main priority has been to finish projects. One weekend we cleaned and touched up the mosaic patio furniture (and SCA stove) and then sold it. (sigh...I loved that set.) We have begun sifting through the garage and sold a number of SCA-related tools and also the bungalow door collection I had built up. (We had been planning to build a house...long story.)
We spent a weekend working on stained glass projects. We still need at least another 3 days to get our project done (due to how large it is). At the rate we're going, I suspect we won't make it, which will be a pain. I don't know how we'll pack a half-finished stained glass project.  
I've also refinished a sofa table that I was going to sell, but now we've decided to keep.  In fact we've moved it into the living room, and taken out some of the other furniture in there. Our living room was just too cramped and now we have room to walk about.
For the last two weeks I've been on a quilting binge. Back in 2005, I bought materials to make quilts for my brother Jeffrey's sons, Daniel and Thomas.  I pulled out the plastic tub a few weeks ago to take a look. At the time, I decided I would either have to make them, or abandon the project and sell the fabric; I guess I decided to make them. Of course, my brother Jeff just had a daughter this year so I had to come up with a quilt for her. In the pictures, the blue and green quilts are for the boys, the girl gets purple.  =)  The boys' quilts are transportation themed, Veronica got animals. I tried really hard to use fabrics I already had, so I only bought the blue fabric for the borders and a small piece of brown for Veronica's quilt. Under $20, not including the quilting so far. The purple quilt is now pieced and ready for quilting. The boys' quilts need borders, but I'm still debating about what to do. The border I used on the purple quilt took an entire day, so I'm thinking about simplifying it for the other two. On top of indecision, my iron died. You really cannot quilt without an iron, so I've had to suspend sewing efforts while I wait for a new iron to get shipped. The intermission was nice, but I'm ready for it to arrive already!
I was really impressed to receive 20 plastic file boxes from Staples yesterday morning shortly after I got up, especially since I had just ordered them the afternoon before. My goal with these tubs is to repack (and sift) all of the cardboard office boxes we have lurking around our house. I'm thinking plastic tubs will survive long-term storage better than cardboard. So, yesterday I had the pleasure (and some sadness) to sort through old letters, high school mementos, and artifacts from our wedding. We also bought a DVD binder for our movies and have started pulling them from their cases. But, surprisingly, we found we need a second, so more shopping is required for another DVD binder.  Back to Office Depot, I guess.
I've started investigations into our household storage options. Our current plan is to buy a used insulated container, fill it, and then have it shipped up to Oregon for storage, then when we know where we're going to live, then we'll deliver it to the new house, and then we'll have to sell it. But, we may also use some moving service, depending on the cost, because I'm concerned about our container sitting out in the weather for a year and it may be less expensive to "rent" a container for a year. We'll see. More on that when we figure it out.

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