21 days until moving day.

We started this process 8 days ago. 8 days ago, the decision was made to uproot the family and travel 2,084.9 miles to Mount Vernon, Washington from Fairbanks, Alaska. 

There is never a right time to move. There is never enough money. You will always have too much stuff. Hotels will always be full, and gas prices will rarely be below $4.50. So why not just cross your fingers and do it?

In this frantic search for an area where the air doesn’t hurt my face, I have learned some valuable lessons:

Stop buying pens and batteries. You have them sitting in your junk drawer- you just need to look towards the back. The number of writing pens I have accumulated is 327. I have 98 colored art pens, 72 paint brushes of various sizes, and 56 different types of batteries. It is unclear if the batteries work- they may have been discarded when I changed out the remote control batteries, but I still have 56 pairs!

If you are moving, black trash bags are your best friends. I have filled almost 60 black trash bags with various unnecessary, unwanted, or unusable items. For instance, lids for Tupperware bowls that have been missing since 2003. There is nothing nicer than a water bottle without a lid or a cute potted fake plant that has been gathering dust since you bought it on sale at Michaels in 2018; however, you can’t even sell these on Facebook Marketplace for $1.00- so they all have to be discarded. 

In the closet I found a pile of jeans from my skinny days, waiting for me to put down the Oreos-demons from my past…they’re already gone. 

There can be such a thing as too many books. I lost count after the third bedroom where I was hiding books in the closet, bookshelves, and under the bed. Once I clear off all the dust, I can see the covers again and feel that initial excitement of a new book at Barnes and Noble. But do I really need three sets of the Narnia series? Can you explain why I own both paperback and hardcover versions of all of Dan Brown’s books? I have all three Harry Potter series-individual copies, a complete set in a fake cardboard trunk, and a Nook version… I think this is the right time to let one copy go. 

That time you set aside every morning to work on your book? It will now be devoted to revamping your resume and cover letter. Be sure to keep a list of every job you applied for, the closing date, and the salary they offered. In this way, when you reach page three, you will be able to go back and see that you are qualified to do NOTHING. There’s a job right now in Everett offering $24.50 for HR work, but the candidate must have a Ph.D. Are you shitting me?

In light of this disturbing news-

Place importance on everything in your home. As the job offers don’t come in, sell the washing machine, dryer, lawnmower, grill, beds, etc… in reverse order. Thus, you will be able to cover your expenses for the next two months while you are considering your next job move as a McDonald’s manager. 

Price out gas along the way, so you know how many times you will need to go to the blood bank. Sincerely, this is the only way to afford it. 

Don’t let me distract you from the joy of the move! I love figuring out which spices need to come with me, and which ones I am willing to spend $12.00 on again to occupy a spot in the spice rack and never open. I am also enjoying the concept that I have room for only 10 coffee cups out of the 36 that I have. Which ones will leave and which ones stay? I am just as perplexed as you!

Equally as exciting was finding out how many pillows I have shoved into various areas ‘waiting on guests’ that have no pillow cases!

Real question! Your children have drawn so many lovely pictures over the last 21 years that you have proudly displayed on your walls or neatly tucked away in a drawer. What do you do with them? Is the level of my love for my kids dependent on how long I keep the picture of a stick cat? 

For how long do I need to keep the certificate when my teenager was a “good player” on the playground in the 1st grade? 

These questions are the difference between a moving truck and a moving trailer. Is it better to become the minimalist I always wanted to be, or to hold on to every aspect of my life that I have accumulated since 1999? 

Someone, please come help me move!

P.S.- if you know of a job for a 40+-year-old woman with apparently no job experience or enough education, please let me know.