This has been a very long week. Today (Thursday) was day one of the packers at the house. They were suppose to arrive between 8-10 however we received a call at 10am that they were just leaving the warehouse and it would take at least an hour for them to arrive. They got to the house at 11:30am. Not the best way to start but at least they got here. We have found from previous experience that a little bit of friendliness can go a long way in making the move go smooth so we decided to buy lunch for the crew and had cold drinks and snacks at the house for them throughout the move. I think it paid off because when I asked them to redo something they were very nice about making the changes and they offered suggestions on how to pack some items that got more items to us in our air shipment.
We have spent at least 60 hours over the last few weeks sorting everything into 7 piles. Trash, out the door (sell), send by sea, send by air, storage, plane, and stays in the house. This has been a painful process for all of us however, I think my youngest son had the hardest time letting go of the items. He seems to have a memory attached to everything. He finally agreed to sell about 1/3 of his small toys, 1/4 of his stuffed animals and a few of his larger toys. My husband finally agreed to recycle his notes from his college courses. We have moved those from NC, to VA, to TX and twice in TX. I am so glad to see the two full file drawers of notes leave the house. There has been something freeing about letting go of so many things we don't need or use anymore. We do really need to do this type of cleanse every few years but next time I would prefer to do it without a move to the other side of the world.
We sorted items and put tape of different /colors on everything to help the packers. This did not keep the packers from putting items in the wrong place. We went through our chairs and picked the best ones to take with us and send the others to storage. The packers decided that we had 4 going by sea and 3 to storage and changed the tape on the chairs so they could take out the ones closest to the door in the first load. I am sure it was not malicious but please keep an eye on your packers. They fixed the mistake but even with all of the prep work we did there were at least 8 times just today that we had to get them to redo something because it was not done as we requested. It helped that IBM requires an inventory of all items so I sat with the two packers and filled out the form as they were packing. Ken stayed with the two movers working on bigger items. We also told the company we wanted no more than 4 people in the house. They typically like to stay in pairs so we could watch things better. We have had many people tell us that 6 people came to pack their house and things went to the wrong place. I really do not want to wind up in India with items I don't need and the kids toys in storage.
We were very thankful to our friends who took our children. They are with friends for 3 days. I don't know if the kids could have handled today and I am very glad I did not have to find out.
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