I like this idea and this rule. We live in a parsonage and are leaving behind some furniture as well. Maybe I will leave the appliances out as well and tell people to take what they need or want.

I call it my oatmeal spoon because I just use it for oatmeal and nothing else. It is just a plain old wooden spoon that I have had since we were married! And Ugh, dehydrator. Thanks for reminding me!

Where were you when I started packing? Lol. That would have been the smart way to pack. Most of the kitchen is already packed. I do have a tote in the basement here for kitchen items I need but are maybe seasonal or whatever. I will have to add to it when we unpack. Sigh. Another daunting job.

Yes! I love my FIL dearly, but he is a hoarder of sorts. We were trying to help him let go of things he is no longer physically able to use or care for due to a medical condition, but he just won’t. His thought is, “let the kids deal with it when I am gone.” I told DH I will not be a stuff manager for FIL, and I am trying to take a good hard look at my own house as well. I do think my spoon needs to come for now. It is a comfort thing, like the kids’ stuffed animals, you know!

I think my oatmeal spoon will be the hardest to part with, LOL!

Moving from a small house into a smaller house. Not by choice, it is the housing provided for my husband’s calling. Trying to go through kitchen and downsizing. Why do I feel the need to bring along my bread machine? For a family of 6 one loaf of bread machine bread is gone in a day and a half, if not only a day. I hate the huge hole left in the bottom of the loaf from the paddle. Why can I not be better about making 4 loaves manually once a week? Why do I feel like I need to keep the darn machine? Is it worth bringing and trying to find a place for it just so the kids can make a loaf of bread on their own? Why do I feel I have to keep my food processor? I use it only around garden harvesting time, or randomly to make pie crusts. I hate cleaning it and managing all the random attachments. Mom gave it to me, it was expensive, I would feel fairly guilty getting rid of it. Is it worth bringing and storing way up in the highest of high cupboards where no one in my family could even dream of reaching? My lefse griddle. MIL gave it to me for our wedding. It was expensive and I would feel a bit more than slightly guilty if I got rid of it. Haven’t used it for lefse in maybe 9 years. At times I use it for pancakes. Why do I keep it? Why not just use a cast iron griddle on the (gas) stove for pancakes and lefse if I feel like the kids are at a point where they could help more than hinder making lefse? Is it worth keeping and storing it in the basement? I use my 6 qt crockpot for apple butter in the fall and for cooking huge pork butts that would not fit in my instant pot. But my 4 quart one that we had when we were first married and had no kids to cook for? Is it worth having an instant pot, a 6 quart crockpot and a 4 quart crockpot? Wouldn’t it be handy for a potluck or party? My Pyrex glass mixing bowls. I mostly use them for quickly heating frozen veggies up in the microwave. Guess what? No microwave in the new house. Why bother keeping them when I prefer to mix cookie dough and stuff up in my OXO plastic bowls because they are bigger. What use are they? Why did I pack them??? And what about my wooden oatmeal spoon???? I ONLY use it for making oatmeal. It has worn away so the bottom is flat and perfect for scraping the bottom of the pot. Mom gave me a wonderful NEW wooden spoon for Christmas. It is not worn away at the bottom. I do not use it for oatmeal, but I do for other things. WHY AM I KEEPING MY OLD WORN DOWN OATMEAL SPOON????? I have been packing for 2 weeks straight and only have 5 more days until the movers come, and my brain is fried. All I want to do is torch the house, everything in it (my kids are not!), and hide out in the woods for the rest of my life. Help a lady out, downsize for me!

See, it would never have occurred to me either, expect that I was in a move-induced insomnia and my brain was in overtime. I think a tip is for when someone has done an exceptional job and you want to give them more than they expected since you got more than you expected. It seems a rather new thing that we are now expected to tip for almost every service. Of course, it could just be that my parents were kinda clueless about it. DH looked it up on the Emily Post website (nerd alert!😁) and it said more or less that you don’t have to but should if you think they earned it. So….I think we will do give them a little something extra, and I am going to order some pastries from a wonderful local small batch bakery. Your voice was in my head and I took the Calico Critters house out! A picture is a great idea. Lazy woman’s inventory!

Wow, you are making me feel like such an amateur! As mom and I pack my waffle maker with my kids’ Calico Critters house!😂

I am doing all the packing, LOL. When we moved down here I bought huge, amazing Carmel rolls for everyone who helped. Any other tips for working with movers? I did a good job labeling boxes when I first started packing, but as most of our boxes are books, I kinda stopped labeling the books boxes. Would you label the boxes them by room number or name? Any other things you didn’t think of before the move and learned in the midst of it?

Interesting. Thanks for the info. I also do not like the tipping culture, though I unfortunately understand why it has come about. I wish businesses would just pay their workers a good wage. It is shameful. We will have the same movers on both ends, and I think one of the moving guys drives the truck, so that is nice. I know I will also totally appreciate them moving our oodles of boxes of books, so that in itself deserves a little something extra. Also, with everything going on with regards to this move, I totally would never have thought of food. I’ll have to figure something out, so thanks for mentioning that!

We have never used professional movers before. Is it customary to tip the movers? If so, how much?

I was compiling a few photos I had of the kids together and mentioned to the mom maybe I could put them in a small album, and the idea of the penpal kit. She just thinks a group picture would be fine. She’ll send us a copy, but it didn’t sound like there would be much more on her side. So, I will take my cues from her. I will mention meeting up sometime, but to be honest I think she is mostly relieved we are moving. Thank you for all your ideas and support. It has been a long, difficult week! DH is telling our congregations tomorrow, and I think that will help. At least it will be out in the open.

I think they will get over it sooner than they think too, but it will be hard for a bit. There are no other kids in the neighborhood for them to play with, and being transplants into a small town and HSing, well, it’s hard to find people. Even the parks are usually empty. I also went through some old pictures and found a handful of all the kids playing in the leaves and watching a cicada we found hatch. I might take some more photos at the park or them playing and put them in one of those small albums.

I am sorry, I am sure you didn’t. It has just been a hard relationship. She and I became quite close when they first moved next door but I learned the hard way not to trust her. There other neighbor is a bitter, vindictive man who really strongly dislikes DH; they chat together quite a bit. Knowing him as we do and what we have heard him saying about DH to others in the town, I have no doubt she let herself be influenced by that. It has been a difficult, painful relationship, and I guess I am mourning it, too. I will suggest meeting up; there is a nice playground probably half-way between the towns. Thank you for your support, and I am sorry again if I overreacted. It’s been hard. Pre-addressed envelopes is a good idea. Maybe I will take a break for packing and head to the dollar store today!

I am looking for helpful suggestions on helping her kids cope with us moving away, not judging on personal relationships that are complicated and unable to be understood without knowing the history. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared so much in the original post. I was just hurting for the kids.

Among other things, they too hope to move soon. The husband is looking for a new job and it could be anywhere. And without going into great detail, there is a rather large hindrance between the mother and DH and I. She tolerates us because of the kids, but there is a strong animosity towards our religion that I have never been able to find the cause of, as she and her DH were both raised in the church. If she wants to meet, I would gladly meet up with them. But I doubt it will be desired.

After a long deliberation and wait, my family is moving. DH accepted a new call as a pastor in a town only an hour and twenty minutes from where we are now. Of course with that comes leaving friends, and most important to this post, our neighbor kids. It is a bit skewed, since the kids are much better friends than us parents have been, and my oldest DD is 11, second DD is 9, and their oldest is a DD aged 6. My DS is 6 and is besties (gosh it’s going to be hard on the boys) with the neighbor’s DS who is 5. Their mom told their kids tonight that we are moving and their DD is taking it hard. The kids play together ALL the time and have a lot of fun. Our yards just pour into each other’s, so they are always together. There aren’t many HS’s in the area, and it is kind of an oddity here, so neither us nor they have many other friends, especially the neighbor kids, as my family has been blessed with a wonderful HSing family north of town. Anyway. Neighbor mom wants to do something to make it easier on her kids, DD especially. She was thinking group photo, maybe penpals (I found a great idea for a penpals ‘kit’ online). We will probably not see them again, even though it is not far away we are moving, but they are dear, dear kids and it will be sad for both sets of kids, though sometimes I think it is harder on those left behind. Any other thoughts for helping both sets of kids with this transition?

Dolphin Tale Rigoletto (it is older, but a good story, good lessons, and feel good) Princess Bride Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

Joining in for these ideas. We, too, are anticipating a move by the end of the summer due to DH’s job, though we do not know the when or where yet. We have moved 4 times in the past 12 years and it hasn’t really gotten easier. Though adding a kid for each move didn’t help (that trend better not keep up!). When we do get the when settled, the first thing I will do is start packing up books and ruthlessly going through toys and closets, ditching almost all of the craft stuff and old rags that are too scuzzy to use for packing. I also have already started a list of the big ticket items in the house and garage, listing what it is, if we are taking it, and if not, where it will go. I don’t want to have to be thinking about all that when I am packing up the smaller stuff, and as soon as I can get those out of the house and garage, the better. I am already talking to the kids about it, as well. Every time they clean their rooms I remind them to think about what they have and if they want to pack it, move it who knows how far, then unpack it and find a spot for it. They are *starting* to maybe get the idea. Good Luck to you!

Totally seconding Poldark. Victoria is a good one, too. Or Sanditon, if you can still stream it.

Huh. Interesting thought. I could poke around. Good idea, thanks! Who would have thought? Ha! I will have to take a look and see what a ‘lot’ would be and how much they charge. It would be great to get extra funds for the library.

It is a small library in a small small town. We do have a children’s program, but it has been shut down since the pandemic, the lady who does it is in her 80’s and only about 5 kids show up (on a good day)! My husband is great about finding where and how to recycle unusual things. He even saves styrofoam for months until we take a trip to the nearest large city and then drives across the city from our destination to recycle it! He looked into it, and unfortunately our local recycling place won’t take them and so far he hasn’t found anything else. I don’t have much hope for finding anything to do with them or send them, but I had to try. There has to be some obscure group or place somewhere that would use them!

I am on the board of our local library and we did some major cleaning there today. We found closets full of VHS and book-on-tape and DVD cases. They look to be new. Our guess was the old librarian (who retired 2 years ago at the age of 91!!!) was keeping them to replace any old cases that got broken. But there is NO WAY the library needs that many. Any idea what to do with them? I hate to see them go in a landfill. Any of you want to make them into crafts? Or do you know of anywhere that would recycle or reuse them for something?

Great, supplement it is! I was rather dreading the idea of writing for this next year, it this makes me more excited. I think I heard that Killgallon usually has a sale sometime in April, is this accurate? Any ideas of when that usually falls?

4 and 6 will be their grades next year, not ages. Sorry for that confusion. I am sitting here across from my sister and she said that the numbers are always ages. Here I have been thinking for years that they were kids grades! We used WWE 1 and 2 for both girls, are using WWE 3 for the third grader this year, and after having done 2 not great years of IEW with the older, I am just trying to build up her confidence and comfort ability with writing this year. I see some people say Killgallon is not a stand alone curriculum, while others that it can be. Do any use this as a stand alone? There is always so much to weed through. Just basically looking for what it looks like in the course of a day and week, since I have not found any “lesson plans,” so to speak.