For weeks now, people have been asking me how the packing was going. The truth of the matter is, it wasn't. It didn't make sense to me to drag the packing out over a several-month period. But now that I'm down to 2.5 weeks before my departure (3.5 weeks for Gerald), it's time to get serious.
I'm trying to actually sort through our belongings and do a lot of purging in the process--we didn't do that when we moved up here from Alabama, and as a result our basement was full of boxes of junk for years. So this time I'm filling trash bags with things that really aren't usable anymore, and stuffing boxes with garage-salable items. (Garage sale planned for the 16th-18th of June; in Rochester, it's typical for sales to go Thursday through Saturday rather than Friday through Sunday...)
Friday I spent a lot of time sorting out things from the kids' rooms that could be tossed or sold. Yesterday was music sorting day. I cleared out space on my hard drive, and have been ripping all our CDs so that we can store them rather than shipping them. Turns out we have more than I realized, and I'd digitized fewer than I thought already, so it's taking a while. I'm almost done, though. This afternoon I'll return to the kids' rooms to figure out what needs to be boxed up for storage or shipping. (Winter clothes to ship, books to store, etc.)
We've made yet another change in our travel plans. Alex and I are still going to fly out on the 23rd, and Gerald will still be driving out at the end of the month. But Lane will stay another week here with my mom, because he'd like to celebrate the 4th of July here with his friends, and will then do a solo flight to Seattle.
The fact that our tenants want the house furnished does help enormously. We've got plenty of box storage space in the basement now, and lots of moving boxes from the last time around (plus an offer of more from a friend who recently moved). So I'm really not all that stressed about the process. If I run out of time to sort and cull, we'll toss what's left in boxes and stick them in the basement. If the garage sale turns out to be unsuccessful, we'll call Volunteers of America and have them cart the excess away.
And in a month it will be over, and we'll be settling into Seattle.
It sounds like you've got things well in hand for your move. Glad that your new tenant will take the house furnished: that would be a great relief!
Another thing you can do with junk people won't buy is freecycle it: it's fairly time consuming though, much like ebay-ing.
Mary, yes, I'm a freecycle member. But the time-consuming part is a real issue; I'll only have a few days between the end of the garage sale and my departure, so a VOA pickup makes more sense...
Don't look at the end goal. Realize that the stuff will be unpacked and go pretty much back where it is right now. Use more boxes rather than less. Start somewhere and work clockwise.
Try moving and keeping two separate collection of books in order. I pack these myself. The last time I was moved by a moving company, they randomized the books. Sorting them out was no fun.
When I was a kid, the military moved us every nine months or so. Weight limits forced us to constantly throw perfectly good things away all the time. Things would disappear as well like the TV when we moved to Kansas. Watching the new dishwasher worked for about half a cycle.