Whew! What a whirlwind it’s been since we returned from our Harpers Ferry/Raleigh/Atlanta trip. After 8 days of packing, the Stamford apartment looked like we’d never been there. I spent a beautiful morning on the balcony on Friday (our last day there), looking at the clouds and the water and enjoying the sea breeze. We loved living there, but we’re excited for our travels to begin.

But first, moving…again. This is the third time in two years. The good news is, we have WAY less stuff. We are doing great with our goal of moving out with less stuff than we brought in. I’ve had excellent success selling things on the Facebook Marketplace. Luckily, the things that went were the really heavy and bulky furniture. I revel in the serendipity of it all. The best story was our bed: The guy came to look at it on Wednesday, bought it, and came to pick it up on Friday morning as we were loading the truck. So the movers helped him, and we never were without a bed, but didn’t have to haul it to Atlanta. AND he bought the mattress too, so we didn’t have to find a way to donate it! Win-win!

I also realized I have an addiction to containers. Boxes and baskets of all shapes and sizes abound – and now that I’ve cleaned out most of our papers and all of our CDs and a good amount of tchotchkes, it became obvious that I have a problem. 🙂 Luckily these also sold well on Facebook. It’s been really interesting to review and actively decide about every single one of our possessions – where does each thing go? Keep for a future house/apartment? (difficult because it’s 100% speculation…) Does it win a spot in one of the five boxes? Or sell/donate? We did end up with several boxes of “To Sell” for the next garage sale. When you’re moving, at some point in the packing process you have to resort to triage. But in the end, I feel great about everything we let go.

The logistics were especially interesting with packing for the upcoming Savannah sit, because 1) we left the Subaru (packed with our five boxes plus a few extra items that are still in negotiation) in a Stamford parking deck, waiting for us to pick up when we return North in the fall, and 2) we drove down South but we are flying back up (so, one less-than-50-pound suitcase is my directive – we’ll see what happens). And we have a month-long sit in between. So we ended up packing the BMW with a few random bags of kitchen necessities pilfered from Box #4 (Kitchen), my beach bag (ever-hopeful), and one very pregnant suitcase. We’ll have to figure out how to get the random things we left in Atlanta back up North later…and how we’re going to fit it all in the Subaru. It’s a process and a daily practice of discernment that is fascinating. And I continue to be amazed at how much time and energy it takes to deal with all the “stuff” in our lives. 

A summary of the past five days:

Thursday 8/9 – Stamford – Jim and I both packed like crazy (#teamwork). We picked up the Penske truck (Andy in the Stamford office could not be nicer). 3 of the 5 boxes loaded into the Subaru. I fell into bed exhausted at 7:30 pm and was asleep by 8:00.

Friday 8/10 – Stamford to Raleigh – I got up at 4:30am. Last packing. Waiting on the movers, who were late (but at least they showed up!). The bed buyer came – what a nice guy. We’re happy our bed is going to a good home. The movers did a fabulous job packing the truck. I had my normal nervous moment wondering if everything would fit…turns out it was only half full! Quite a difference from when we came up and the truck was so full we were afraid to open it for fear things would fall out on our heads! One last trip to Fairway, where I was finally able to get some of the famous chickpea spread! (They’ve been out of it the past few weeks…) Loaded up the Subaru with the last 2 boxes and drove it to the parking deck. On the road! 10 hours later (with only two brief gas stops), we practically fell out of the cab onto my sister’s lawn at 12:30am and stumbled in to bed. (That’s 20 hours of being up, which for someone who loves sleeping like I do, is waaaay too long!)

Saturday 8/11 – Raleigh to Augusta to Atlanta – Rest and rejuvenation at Casa Reed in Raleigh, NC. So grateful to spend some time with the family! Jim conducted an impromptu science class show-and-tell with Peanut (our ball python), and then cooked [second] breakfast tacos for the kiddos while Mollie and I did yoga. We got on the road and made a quick pit stop in Columbia, SC, where we found an incredible Libyan Mediterranean restaurant, Boeshreen (since 1925!) – totally worth a visit if you are in the area. We delivered Peanut and Dorothy (our 20-year-old yoyo loach fish) to Jim’s mom in Augusta, who graciously volunteered to take care of them for us (Dorothy emphatically stated that she votes against further road trips, although she came through again with flying colors! That fish is a miracle!) We continued on to Atlanta, where my mom greeted us with open arms (by this point, Jim could barely walk and I was literally incoherent – at least we got in before midnight this time).

Sunday 8/12 – Atlanta – The movers unloaded the truck into the basement and we went out to a lovely dinner with my mom. A day of much-needed rest!

Monday 8/13 – Atlanta to Savannah – The people we are housesitting for in Savannah had asked if we could come today instead of Tuesday, as the sit they are going to do in Oregon wanted them there early. We were happy we could accommodate! Yay – another day of packing up. We got the BMW loaded up with a minimum of fuss, and got out just ahead of the Atlanta rush hour. 

So now we are untethered…and on to the great housesitting adventure!