I did feel a bit guilty at first, but when you've moved 11 times in 14 years, you get ruthless fast!

Lol, I understand the procrastination. How long have you been at this place? If its over 3 years, your going to have a harder time with the packing. I get moving men, and they always ask how long we've been in a place and are thrilled that we are short termers. BTW, I pack myself, ut get the company to move it.

I would love to pack for you, you come and take care of the farm OK?

Sounds great! To live on a farm in Middle Earth... take care of widdle baby calvsie-walvsies... breathe that aromatic morning air...

lol
First, I'm saying that tongue-in-cheek, a.k.a. sarcastically.
Second, I'm j/k about the sarcasm, I think it'd be really neat to live on a farm. When I grew up, we had chickens and each year we'd raise a hog and split a cow with the neighbours (there's that british "u" again!) but I must admit I didn't do much.

But I do know it isn't rosy, and the aromatic air ain't necessarily pleasant. I still think it's preferable to my paperwork!

I have laugh at the aromatic thig. So far today I have had to assist the vet remove 'cleansings' from a cow, and pop a bubble or retained membranes that was preventing the cow from urinating...aromatic was ONE way to describe it.
And lets just say calf excrement is also aromatic.........
still better than an office job.

BTW I do like the way you have learnt to spell correctly, now when you can use metrics, drive on the correct side of the road, and measure temperture in celceius, I'll let you move here

Five years in Canada and being married to a Canuck means I can switch freely to the British "u"s and "zed"s. I can even speak Celsius and meters with only a little hesitation.

It isn't humanly possible to convert the price of gas from U.S. to British-colony prices. First you must figure the current exchange rate from American dollars (the only "real" dollars) to all those British impersonators - the Canuck, the Kiwi and the Ozzie dollar. But that isn't all; you still hafta convert the liter (or litre) to the gallon... and even so, you gotta watch which gallon it is, I think there's two, an imperial (a.k.a. British?) and the good ole murrkin one.

Funny story about "zed". When I lived in Canada, once a bunch of us were sitting around, with a fairly equal number of murrkins and canucks, and even two ozzies. One girl (who was kind of b*tchy even if she was a canuck) was deriding us murrkins for saying "zee" instead of "zed". We gave her all sorts of reasons, including the fact that it totally messes up the ABC song unless it rhymes with "Next time won't you sing it with me." and the fact that most of the other letters rhyme with "eee" and none of the others rhyme with "ed".

Her reasoning? "Zed is the sound that it makes!"

All of us (even the canucks) immediately said "It isn't zedbra!"

Ok so it wasn't THAT funny.

made me laugh

Sounds kind of full of DJ and passive aggressive to me. Might go over better if you just ask for help. 'Hey, would you mind sitting down with me Saturday morning and going through this stuff? I want to pack it organized instead of having to sort it when we get there.'

Thanks cat.

Hmm... that just doesn't strike me as something that would work, and I'm not sure why.

I *have* been asking him to join me. The first few times he said to set aside whatever I didn't know what to deal with, and then let him know and he'd come down and help with that part.

To me, that sounds like, I have to make the first pass through everything, and then he'll only help with a second pass. I'd rather just make one pass, with his help, but oh well.

So I tried that. When I told him I was ready for his help, he still didn't come down for several days. The last couple days before our vacation, he came down several times when I was doing other stuff, and he either went back upstairs and later when I asked when he would like to help, he said he'd already come down but I didn't use his help, or he went downstairs and did some stuff without telling me what he did, basically undoing some of the sorting I'd been doing; taking empty boxes into the garage that I'd brought in to use; etc. He finally did take several filled boxes upstairs to get them out of the way, when I started doing it and asked him to carry the heaviest ones.

So the thing about setting all the bills aside for him to deal with as he pleases, is sort of what he asked me to do anyway. I'd rather go through it *together* exactly like you suggest. That way I'd be informed of what was going on, so I wouldn't have some undefined worries in the back of my head; plus I'd have his input instead of doing it all myself. But that is not the way he likes to do things, and he has let me know, and even when he does agree to do things together like that, he puts up road blocks or stalls etc.

Gloom, despair, and agony on me!
Deep dark depression, excessive misery.
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all,
Gloom, despair, and agony on me!

***********************************

Sometimes in the middle of an unpleasant task, I find it refreshing to take a 5-minute pity-party break. lol Can anyone name that tune?

I hate packing/moving!

Quick question, seeing as how I am fashion-challenged:

I have a lot of clothes that are in great shape, rather nice, haven't worn in a long time b/c I couldn't fit into them. Guess what - I can now! Or for some of them, I can almost fit, I'm getting there. BUT I don't know if they are too "out of style" to wear anymore. I don't pay much attention to what's in style. I think the only clothes I've ever stopped wearing b/c of style rather than they just were too worn, were acid-washed jeans and white pants with candy-color striping on them. From way back in high school. (I really almost never throw anything away!) In fact I still have them, just not wearing them.

But back to my question - I know enough to not wear the pants from H.S. any more. But what about some dresses, like, what we used to call church clothes? (Except where I live now, ppl go to church in the same clothes they wear to work, except for the elderly women.) Do dresses ever go out of style, as long as they aren't some really weird fad?

E.g., I have two dresses that I just now realized I can fit into. They are A-line I spose - the skirt kinda flares out - and they have shoulder straps and you would wear a shirt underneath. They are corduroy with a floral pattern. The brand is Herman Geist. Are these too outdated? For either the current fashion, or for my age? Or should they go into the Goodwill/Salvation Army box?

I think I'll also post this on the Goddesses thread. But any and all feedback is welcome!

I see a lot of people nowadays wearing t-shirts underneath dresses with 1 inch shoulder straps, so that kind of sounds like that. You might change it up by belting it.

Great, thanks!

This is fun, I'm finding lots of clothes that I haven't been able to fit into in YEARS, since before the kids were born at least!

Wow, Jayne, congrats on the progress! Rmemeber, Flylady has somw moving tips, too. Beat wishes with getting packed up!

About the bills thing, I think it's really similar to Cat and the vacation thing. I'm looking forward to hearing how you worked through it. I have confidence in you

Thanks y'all!

Another question (sorry I'm such a noob when it comes to clothes) -

I have a few really nice shirts or shells that are silk and go with a suit, but they have a stain even after dry-cleaning, like a pen mark, or something. (Often I can't get out of the house without spilling coffee if I'm wearing something nice.) I'm thinking if I wear them under a jacket they'll still be fine. Whaddaya think?

I know I know - FlyLady would say to toss them. H says to toss them. If I do, I dunno if I'll find just the right shirt to go with the suit, do I toss the pants or skirt and jacket too?

Frankly I don't feel like I can do FlyLady right now. I just can't prune down things that much, I'm not ready to toss 30 - 50% of my clothes! And that's what she'd say, or more. Those "What Not To Wear" folks, they'd toss all but maybe one small closet full of stuff. I've got clothes ranging from size 8 up to size 16. Hopefully I'll soon be a size 8 again, but who knows if I'll start gaining weight again! And I have drawers and drawers of t-shirts, which are actually my preferred way to dress, so I can't toss those. The ones I don't actually wear, I keep as souvenirs, like when my team won the NCAA championship, or a concert I went to... KWIM? I even have a jersey from the USSR hockey team that won the Olympics - or did the Canucks beat them? You don't just give those things away!

This is hard enough emotionally, I'm paring down somewhat, but I'm thinking now it would be faster and easier emotionally to just pack up all the "undecideds".

Um, except I keep coming here to ask y'all about the undecideds!

About the bills, I really thought H would like my suggestion to let him handle them and file them as he sees fit. He didn't! I'm not sure why, we haven't completely worked it out yet. I'll keep ya posted!

And for the moving chores, he's doing yardwork today and I'm inside listening to tunes and sorting through closets... It's more fun than than sorting through papers, which I'll have to finish with as soon as I've cleared the clothes out of the way.

I have no room to talk, as I am a resale shop diva, but it really makes more sense to have one pair of blue pants that go with 5 tops, one pair of black pants, 2 jackets, 5 shells, 10 blouses, etc., so that you have so much less stress in your life. If you want to, keep a duplicate of one size up for those times when you just aren't watching what you eat. I have a closet with 10 times more than I need, all resale shop bargains, but it's a headache just to make room, make decisions, yada yada.

Do what you can with your bills. I like to prioritize. Paying bills on time is Category 1; keeping track of debt is #2; working out your bill paying budget is #3; planning for the future is #4. Make sure you have #1 covered. If you have time and energy, go on to #2; if you get that handled, go to #3. Less stress.

ODE TO MOVING
by Jayney-gone-crazy
***********************
rant

stomp

b!tch

stomp

whine

glare

cry

stomp

hide

growl

cry

pray

escape by reading about other folkses real probs on MB

relief for a second

reality

cry

growl

stomp

oooo... I'd love to s!gh but I won't for love of LA

Update...

We arrived at the Canada house (H's townhouse) around 1:00 a.m. last night (a.k.a. this morning). We have totally moved out of my house and there's some work to be done and then it goes on the market. We stayed a few days in the place we're moving to, to house-hunt; then drove two days to get here, where H and I both have work-related things to do, plus get this house ready to put on the market. This is complicated by the fact that my student is staying here also due to lack of temporary housing, and this weekend a colleague is probably also going to stay here.

This is very stressful. We aren't being perfect but we're doing amazingly well I think. No AOs, and the occasional DJ is usually countered with humor. I'm starting to feel depressed, from the turmoil and lack of privacy and the uncertainty of the living arrangements.

We spent almost a whole day unpacking the U-Haul truck and trailer into the U-Haul storage (three 10x10 rooms). It happened to be one of the hottest days of the year. I lifted some things I prolly shouldn't have, and had to do it bent over trying to maneuver things. I'm sore and have a huge headache. We drove all night the last night (night before last) b/c "there was no room at the inn" due to the hugest motorcycle rally in the world! The traffic from this rally seems even bigger than when the Olympics came to a city a couple hundred miles from where I lived.

As I drove along at 4:00 a.m. after a fruitless 1.5 hour detour in search of a hotel room, I suddenly appreciated how near to God the road-weary, pregnant Mary must have been, to not LB poor Joseph for not making sure they would have reservations at the inn.

Of the houses we've looked at, the ones I like most, H likes least. That isn't too surprising, but what surprised me was that the features I liked most, are the very reasons he doesn't like those houses! Kinda seems like a POJA impasse.

I could imagine I would like some houses for some of their qualities, and he'd value other qualities more... but what to do when the characteristics I like most are the things he actually dislikes?

Jayne, you thought that just because it was Sturgess, that your H would've thought to make hotel reservations before leaving? Jayne, honey, I'm thousands of miles away and I could tell you not to count on that! I'm laughing with you, not at you. BTDT! My H and I are like two blind mice in some ways like that, so it's alot easier not to blame the other when I remember I forgot, too. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. What are some strengths that outweigh that?

Remember, expectations are premeditated resentments. Remember what you told me about trust but verify Deep breaths, hon, deep breaths. What do you think about finding gratitude in today?

Can you give us an example of the things you like that he dislikes because you like them?

I saw this on HGTV.

Make a list of what you consider a must have; he does the same.

Make a list of need to have, but wouldn't kill you not to have.

Make a list of nice to have.


Write down anything that both of you have in common on your lists, come up with one final list, give each item a points status; Judge the houses according to how many points they gather up for having what you must/need to/nice to have. The one with the most points is the one you buy. Fair compromise for both of you. (maybe)