Three weeks from today we will be closing on the house across the street. And a mere 31 days after that we will need to be out of this house entirely. So now that Evie's birthday is over and done with and I only have Will's and mine to contend with between now and the day we need to be moved out, my brain is finally able to focus more on the project ahead.
Over the weekend I started mapping out a schedule of room sorting. I hate moving junk that I just don't need. I've moved enough (six times in the nine years we've been married. This one will make seven) that I know that I will, inevitably, move things I don't need or don't want. Because as time gets shorter I will think less about whether I really need this or that and start stressing about just getting it over there before the deadline.
I know what your thinking, a month to move across the street is a lot. And it is. If all we were doing was moving. But as I've said before this new house needs TONS of work done to it. And since this is the first time we will have some money left over to do at least part of it before we move in, we really want to get as much remodeling crammed into those days as possible. I spent about an hour today calling contractors to see how many I could get over there later this week to give me some bids on painting, demo, roofing and AC installation (have I said that there's no way I'm sanding floors in a house with no AC in Virginia in July? Well, if I haven't, NO WAY!)
Back to the sorting though. I had planned on rifling through Briton's closet today to sort out all the toys he really doesn't play with anymore but by the time I got around to it, I just couldn't face the battle. I'm thinking that might be a good activity for me while he's away for the week at his grandparents house. Tomorrow I WILL tackle Evie's because she is much less aware of what I'm doing and then I'm on to our room. Today I wimped out and settled for the linen closet.
I dream of the perfectly organized linen closet. You know what I mean. The kind you see in movies and commercials and magazine articles about organization, where everything is in shades of creams and grays and maybe some browns and they are all stacked or bundled perfectly. How come those closets never have a motley collection of old baby quilts that are bright colors and far to precious to get rid of? Why does everything match? Do people go out and buy matching sets of extra blankets and sheets and table clothes just to fill up their cupboard? Did I miss out on that?
The truth is that I'll never have that linen closet. But this time I'm determined to better organize things. Quilts in boxes so they don't disintegrate, sheet sets together (even though I cant fold a fitted sheet neatly to save my life) and maybe even labels. Because I love labels.
My friend Kim will tell you, while laughing at my ridiculousness, that I used to have an obsession with my label maker. Before kids I labeled EVERYTHING. Then Will threw out my lovely purple Dynamo, Briton was born, chaos reigned and I have been label free ever since. But with the new house comes all sorts of new possibilities for label making. So today I made a little start. Call it baby steps. After pulling out all the things I done use, need or care about, I folded all my quilts into the neatest shapes I could, gathered sheet sets, napkins and table clothes in nice little be-ribboned piles and stacked it all back in the closet. It isn't beautiful, but it's better. And if I can keep it that way for a month I can transfer it straight across to it's new home, where, if I'm lucky, the IKEA fairy will have brought me some nice boxes for my quilts and the Label elf will have delivered some pretty handmade tags for all my things.
Hey, a girl can dream....