100 moving boxes

I've done my fair share of moving in my life including the "do-it-yourself" style of moving. However, somewhere in my mid-30s I decided that driving moving trucks through crowded city streets, lifting couches, and pulling beds up stairs was not for me so I vowed to never do it again. Now I leave it to professionals.

I booked the moving company on Monday and by Wednesday 100 folded cardboard moving boxes arrived. Fifty small-sized boxes, 25 medium-sized boxes and 25 large-sized boxes crowd my dining room floor. The cats use them as perches and scratching posts while the kids climb on the piles. I ignore the boxes, but they are there, watching me, waiting patiently to be filled.

When will I feel inspired to pack? To my credit, I have filled about 5 boxes because I've had fleeting impulses, but tire quickly of the whole scene and move onto something else (like Facebook). However, my general apathy toward packing is going to bite me in the ass. I know it will. I will not be the organized mover I want to be. I will end up throwing whatever and however into boxes just to get it done. My goal is to not take a lot of useless bits and pieces to the new house, but I know for certain that is easier said than done. I feel terrorized by the basement, specifically the storage room where various out-of-date electronics, childhood artifacts, and boxes of nameless, forgotten things lives.

The garage is a whole other world and I've officially put that on my "off limits" list. I will not touch it. That is the husband's domain. Especially because there are items in there that belonged to his father, who has been dead for over 5 years. Rusty old golf clubs, anyone?

I do feel like I am a bit ahead of the game [insert optimism here] because a lot of the clutter is already packed from when I got the house ready to sell. But as I look around, the feeling of oh-so-much-more to do is overwhelming and is the source of my inactivity and inability to pack more than one box at a time.

My mind is busy making lists of how I'm going to tackle each room and how I'm going to fill those dang boxes, nevertheless my follow-through is lousy.

T-minus 14 days before lift-off. I know it'll get done because the movers arrive at 8:30AM on November 20th. I accept that it will not be pretty. Packing up the lives of a growing family isn't as rousing as I thought it would be (or should be).

Just keeping my eye on the prize. Eye on the prize...!