Moving Philosophies

Well we're 2 months away from moving out of our home in St. Louis. It's been such a wonderful year (well only 7 months so far), it's sad to think about leaving a place that's been so happy for us.

We're moving out of here and moving (not our stuff, just us) back to my wonderful in-laws' empty nest mansion. "Back" because we've made long pit stops there for the past 3 summers as well. I love that we manage to always spend summers in Houston, where you're sweating as soon as you step out of the shower. But we are so blessed to have such a great family and home to be in and with while Brian is between jobs. We're also really glad that they have a time share in Breckenridge so we can cool off for a bit during July!

This is my 5th time to pack up all our belongings in our nearly 5 years of marriage. Our poor boxes. Yes, we still have a few of the boxes that we snagged from the grocery store nearest our high rise apt. (Village Foods) in Chicago. Mostly, I've bought those cheap file boxes from Office Max. And we have a lot of diaper case boxes. Depressing to have spent so much on diapers but they are great for packing books. The worst part of packing for me is figuring out what to fill each box with. Boxes must meet this criteria: not to heavy and not too full the lid doesn't fit but full enough the lid won't get crushed in. By the time a box is 2/3 full, it's like doing puzzles to see what will fit best. I never liked puzzles. Luckily, I've moved so much, I just read my sharpie scrawlings of what went in the box last time, or the time before that, to give me some clues as to what to pack.

So the past three summers that I've lived out of suitcases at my in-laws house, I've begun to realize, this stuff, in this suitcase/car/room is all I really need. Really, your family can survive with just a few suitcases and a car full of your stuff. Then, you ask yourself, when you pack up your house--what is all this stuff? Why am I holding on to all this? I'm so tempted to really minimize our stuff. Like, sell a lot of furniture on Craigslist, just because I'm so tired of moving it. But then will I regret it? It's hard to get rid of something there is technically, nothing wrong with. I've already filled 5 big sacks of clothes I'm done hanging onto. Be gone-clothes I wore at BYU! I would consider myself pretty simplistic seeing as how we've done so much moving, but there's always more I could toss.

So what do you do? Err on the side of keeping stuff or maybe throw/sell/give away more than you should? What is your moving philosophy? A funny quirk--we seem to have had a hard time throwing out old towels. "Never know when we might need a rag." Seems to have been our towel policy as we've replaced but not gotten rid of them. When the heck do we ever think, "I need a ratty towel right now, Honey go get one out of that cobwebby pile in the basement!"?

On a side note, it's one of my favorite times of the week right now: kids bathed and asleep in their beds and I have the house to myself while Brian's at his concert (if I can't be at the concert, being "alone" here is the next best thing) and guess what-- I have to clean the whole house! My landlady has already put this place on craigslist and I just got an email saying she's showing it tomorrow. So I get to spend my precious "me" time picking up knowing my landlady and strangers will be looking/sizing up every room and every closet tomorrow. Lovely. Seriously I feel like that's all I ever do, pick up the house. I really hope these home inspections don't go on for the next 2 months. I've not started packing to move and there's already people looking to move in. So annoying.