My thread to keep myself on task while I purge for my move! - Page 2

[catscharm74]

You are doing great!!! I got my wish..we are moving to a TINY apartment until we can buy a house. I am challenging myself to pack only I know we can truly use in our smaller apartment, with the exception items like the lawn mower, garden supplies (Plan on doing a porch garden), our bikes and a few other holiday items in bins. So much can go and now, with hubby on board, I have the excuse to get rid of so much. YIPPPPPEEEEE!!!!

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Originally Posted by catscharm74 

You are doing great!!! I got my wish..we are moving to a TINY apartment until we can buy a house. I am challenging myself to pack only I know we can truly use in our smaller apartment, with the exception items like the lawn mower, garden supplies (Plan on doing a porch garden), our bikes and a few other holiday items in bins. So much can go and now, with hubby on board, I have the excuse to get rid of so much. YIPPPPPEEEEE!!!!

So awesome!  Nothing like moving to a teeny, tiny place to give you the motivation to PURGE, PURGE, PURGE! 

I got another huge chunk done today.  I had to take the trash and recycling out today and it took me at least 10 trips to take it all out.  The garbage and recycling get picked up on Friday mornings, and we don't have communal dumpsters or recycling bins here, so Thursdays have been huge purge days for me lately.

I can't believe that I am nearly done.  My basement was the biggest project that I needed to tackle and I got one room of it done (2 rooms total) completely today.  The only things in that room are what are going into storage at my new place.  My bike, bike trailer, DS's bike, our camping gear, beach gear, and 2 tubs of DS's baby clothes.  It feels like such a teeny tiny pile of stuff, but really it is much bigger than I would like it.  I want to cut down our beach and camping gear if I can at all in the next year.  We really don't need to stuff our car completely full for just two people to go to the beach or camping.

I also took down three of my four tapestries with wool blankets under them that line some of my outside walls.  They were harder to get down and took much longer than I had anticipated, so I am grateful they are done.  I also packed a couple more boxes and loaded up my trunk with more stuff to donate. 

I am really starting to feel like our new place will be such a clean, clear space for us.  I have a plan for much more storage than I think we will need, and a plan in place to prevent clutter from accumulating in our main living spaces.  Just hoping that it all works out!

[OkiMom]

Good work on the purging!!

I can't use moving to a smaller apartment as a reason to purge because every apartment Ive looked at near my DH's new duty station is a lot bigger than what we are living in for the room size we want (3 bedrooms, 2 bedrooms for sleeping and one for a playroom because toys in the bedroom don't work for the girls).. so Ive come up with another motivation. DH wants to take the girls to Disney World while we are on vacation, I don't want to spend the money we have saved on the move so I made the compromise that any money he makes off of purging can go into a Disney fund. Hes motivated now to part with things he wouldn't have parted with otherwise.. And the bonus we get some family fun when we get back stateside!

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Cleaned out 2 of my 3 drawers in the kitchen.  The only one left has sandwich bags, plastic wrap and tin foil in it, which I am pretty sure I will need next week at some point.  Also removed all of the canned goods from my "food" cupboard and washed down the inside.  Emptied the fridge of magnets and washed the front of that, took down most of the pictures, and the rest of the wall hangings throughout my apartment.  Put a large box up in my bedroom ready to stuff with the bedding and pillows off my bed on the day that I actually leave.

Really wish I had gotten more done, but it is slowly getting there.  My hopes for this weekend are to finish up the kitchen and move most of the stuff in the basement up into the main living area of the house so there is nothing to haul out of there except for my washing machine.  Also hoping to get the majority of DS's toys packed up and just leave him enough to get by for the next week so the clutter can be cut waayyyy back.  I would like to pack out suit cases to live out of and get our dressers/closets packed  up too, but I am not sure I am quite ready for that.  We are so close!

[Pumpkin_Pie]

I forgot to mention that ALL of the usable things that I put out for trash day were taken by folks!  I am so excited about that!! I felt terrible about trashing some of the things that I put out there, but so, so, so happy that things were taken to be used by other people.  Yippee!

Oh, I also brought 3 baby gates, a bed frame, an extra cat carrier and a small cooler to a Reuse Zone too.  I can't believe how much junk I have gotten rid of over the past month or so.  It feels crazy, and I can't wait to unpack to really see how little I have left!  (or how much!)

[catscharm74]

Sounds like you have been busy. I came to the conclusion on Thurday, after work a very long 10 hour day and coming home to a very sick son, I have had enough. I sat down and made an actual list of what I envision as our home, what is in it, down to the towels and toilet paper. : ). Things that are not working but need to be replace with something that does are on a seperate list (IE: a bag for travelling- we have these terrible soft sided duffles that never work the right way. We do travel quite a bit, so I found something I like and I am saving my money for it for Mother's Day. ) I printed out my list and I am purging according to what is on here. I decided I am not going to move all of this stuff in order to shove it into the next space. I want peace and happiness from here on out. DH is not quite on board but the thing is, he never was nor is he really interested. SO I just pack up what I can and out it goes and he doesn't even think about it. I have a whole Jeep load to donate and it feels wonderful. : )  I just keep the mental picture in my mind of how I would like things to be and keep working towards that. : )

[Pumpkin_Pie]

Originally Posted by catscharm74 

Sounds like you have been busy. I came to the conclusion on Thurday, after work a very long 10 hour day and coming home to a very sick son, I have had enough. I sat down and made an actual list of what I envision as our home, what is in it, down to the towels and toilet paper. : ). Things that are not working but need to be replace with something that does are on a seperate list (IE: a bag for travelling- we have these terrible soft sided duffles that never work the right way. We do travel quite a bit, so I found something I like and I am saving my money for it for Mother's Day. ) I printed out my list and I am purging according to what is on here. I decided I am not going to move all of this stuff in order to shove it into the next space. I want peace and happiness from here on out. DH is not quite on board but the thing is, he never was nor is he really interested. SO I just pack up what I can and out it goes and he doesn't even think about it. I have a whole Jeep load to donate and it feels wonderful. : )  I just keep the mental picture in my mind of how I would like things to be and keep working towards that. : )

Yup, that is pretty much what I am doing, minus the actual writing it out.  Pretty much every night when I go to bed, I envision a picture of what my new place will look like with lots of storage that doesn't necessarily look like storage.  A clean, clear space in the living room with no toys strewn everywhere, piles of paper and books underfoot.  I envision a kitchen with everything put away and a space for everything so I can just go grab what I need rather than having to dig through tons of things.  I KNOW I can make it happen, and with all of the work that I have done toward it, I will definitely have a huge jump start on it when I unpack.

So, today I packed up about 99% of my kitchen.  I have to put the things that I need to donate into my trunk (not all that much), and I also need to pack up more dishes.  A ton were dirty, but are drying now and will go into a box when they are packed.  I also need to clean off the table and SCRUB the fridge.  I emptied out all of the freezer burned food, but still need to clean out the fridge.  The whole thing needs to be scrubbed too, but I don't think that will take all that long.  Hoping to get most of that done tomorrow.  I also have the self cleaning oven on "clean" and set to go for 4 hours.  Hoping that will pretty much finish up cleaning the oven.  I don't plan to bake anything for the next week, so a good wipedown tomorrow should finish it.

I also scrubbed all of the algae off my poor neglected fish tank and did a huge water change.  It was so murky in there that I thought I had three of one type of fish in there but actually have 4 of an entirely different type and 1 of the ones that I thought.  The fish look SOOOO much better and I feel so much better about moving them next week.  No ick to clean out on moving day. 

My hope for tomorrow: 

Pack up the rest of our clothing and put what we will need for the next week into suitcases with the remainder in garbage bags.

Finish the kitchen (wipe out oven, clean fridge and wipe down interior, pack remaining dishes)

Pack up the rest of the bathroom and scrub it down completely

I can't believe we only have 6 more days!

[catscharm74]

You and I have both been busy today..did mostly cleaning and moving things out of the bedroom that are not coming back in but are not organized. It was more of a mad dash to just get the stuff out of one room. : )

I put a decent side table on the curb tonight and it is already gone. YIPPEEE!!! I also bought a new file organizer, a nice one with a handle to make it portable. The one we had was not working. Still purging and sorting papers but it is getting better.

Wardrobe wise- I still LOVE 95% of the clothes I have, but made a small pile of things that just are not working.

So far, I have only packed those above mentioned boxes. I really trying to purge before I just get nuts and pack it all up. I am calling it a choosen choice pack out. : )