All Packed up and Nowhere to go

My parents have given me many gifts, but this week, I am tremendously thankful to them for the gift of my sense of humor. Growing up in our house, we always used a sense of humor to cope when things were not going quite right. Don't get me wrong, when serious issues arose, they were dealt with in a matter befitting the situation, but I remember there always being some slight humor about even the gravest moments. That is exactly what I needed to get through this past week.

Being a self proclaimed Type A personality, I wage a constant battle within myself to focus on what I can control and what I cannot. The one thing I was unable to control this week was my movers. To preface what happened, Frank, Jan, Larry and I spent the entire day on Saturday packing and we continued into Sunday. Monday I double checked the inventory for each box, made sure it was numbered on all sides and sealed them all. Tuesday I typed up the inventory list so that I could e-mail it to Clarke, our moving coordinator.

Every day I e-mailed Clarke and let him know that we needed to know the approximate time the movers would be here. When Tuesday rolled around, he informed me that the driver should have called and given me a time window. I told him I hadn't heard anything. Well, it gets to be around 8:30 PM and Clarke called me. He let me know that the moving truck broke down in Miami and he was not confident that the movers would come at all on Wednesday. The dispatcher was supposed to get back to him about when they could get to us. Hmmm....broke down? I'm thinking that perhaps they just wanted to spend the night in Miami for some reason that I can't write about because I want my blog to be suitable for young readers. Maybe they just wanted another dinner at some awesome Cuban restaurant on South Beach. I probably would too if all I did all day was bust my hump hauling people's crap.

Instead of screaming at Clarke, which I really wanted to do, but knew it would be unproductive, I gave him a few days to figure it out. Friday came along and we still hadn't heard from him. I wrote him another e-mail about how disappointed we were in the planning of our move, that we appreciated his communication but expected that our invoice would reflect the problems that we experienced with scheduling. Larry answered up the phone when Clarke called about an hour after we sent the e-mail. We all got on speaker phone for this conference call and learned that the movers would now be coming on Tuesday between 1 and 4.

To this I just had to laugh. There was a certain sense of freedom gained from realizing that I control me, not the movers or Clarke or the dispatcher. I could only control me, my actions and my feelings - and I chose to laugh. We might be camping out without our pots, pans and books for a little bit longer once we get into our premanent apartment in Perth, but hey, it will just be an excuse to go out an explore a new restaurant, cafe or book shop. This close to our departure date I need to start keeping things in perspective.

Saying Goodbye

There is a serious emotional component to moving and until now, I have been ignoring it, and trying to see if it will go away. Better yet, when it gets my eyes watering, I just suppress it. I'm not so sure that is good for my mental health. Perhaps Larry has some cognitive behavioral therapy for me...

This last week has been one of goodbyes. We are starting to see people for the last time and having to realize that it may be the last time we see these people for quite a long time. You might think that melodramatic, but there is something very real about this emotion.

The first time I felt this feeling was after our visit up north in May to see my family for the last time before we leave. We had a great visit with my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews and even got to see the 6 minute Memorial Day Parade in Littleton, MA.



(yes we brought Gasparilla to Littleton)

On our last day, Larry and I had breakfast with my parents on the way to the airport. After we left them, the impact of the decision to move halfway around the world became patent. While I don't get to see my family in person that often, it is comforting to know that they are only a 3 hour flight away. It was the first time that the move seemed almost scary, but Columbus, great Italian explorer that he was, would never have discovered us had he gotten scared and turned around.

After Many tries we did get a great family picture!



Slowly, but surely we are saying goodbye to other family members and friends. We had a FABULOUS party that our friends Kim and Emil Kovalchik threw for us about a week ago. It was a really fun to get a bunch of our friends together in one place at one time. We reverted back to junior high with the girls talking in one room and the guys in another - it was too funny, especially when our friend John Shields came into the girls room. He got run out of there as fast as you can say tampon! Everyone got along as though we all had been BFFs and I think some new friendships got started that night, so there is another great by-product of our move.

Just this past weekend we had another smashing event, a gathering with the Walker-Gatson Clan. When you are around this group of young families you can feel in the air the amount of love and caring they have for each other. It was so special for Larry and I that they came from literally across the state of Florida to be with us one last time before we leave. They even took the time to make posters of Aussie slang with the American definition, e.g. "Happy as Larry" in Australian English means "Very Happy" in American English; "Icy Pole" = "Popsicle" and hung them around the house! We are definitely going to miss them, especially at Thanksgiving since that is our main event of the year with them. Australians don't celebrate that holiday!



Another family picture!



Balancing our social schedule has been difficult with work and packing demands. The movers are coming soon and we are not completely prepared for that...

You Want Me to Put What in Where for how Much?

It has come time now to commence packing. This is not the easiest task as I will explain. When Larry accepted his position, he received a very generous moving allowance that the company gave us full reign to manage. We bought our tickets, rented our temporary apartment and have used the last of it to pay for our move.

Back when we first found out we were moving, I made an inquiring on a website regarding international moves. After that time, our phone did not stop ringing and I received a few e-mails with quotes. The first real quote I received was to move a one bedroom apartment. The total charge was $6,000 which didn't include this other $750USD THC fee nor the $220AUD customs search fee. Really?

This was the reason that we decided to go with our present mover, Ken Chen from Unity Van Lines (BBB gave them an A- and I don't even want to contemplate the minus). Ken talked to us at length in his Asian/New Jersey accent about the trip our belongings will make (about 2 months), what not to bring in terms of prohibited items, and discouraged me from packing a case of peanut butter since the cargo hold of the ship was not climate controlled. He didn't really laugh when Larry made the joke about the ship being attacked by Somali pirates. Just another factor I am trying to keep out of my mind.

Ken got us all signed up and energized to move in our 5' x 5' x 8' container that is costing $2800, which to me is a bargain because it includes the THC fee. We will still have to pay the Australian customs agents to sort through our belongings with their sniffing beagles, but I am willing to shell out the $220 for the luxury of being able to cook with our All Clad, ride my Specialized bicycle and gaze upon our Julie Keaton Reed watercolor. For the sake of the customs inspection, Ken gave us another tip: do not get boxes from the grocery store and especially not the liquor store because a customs agent looking at that will think you are importing cases of Jack Daniels and will really want to know what is in that box.

The first thing I did was tape out a 5' x 5' x 8' space on the floor in our spare bedroom. I then sat in the 5' x 5' x 8' space and called Larry into the room. "Are we INSANE?!?!" He reassured me that the items that were going into the container were well worth the price and it would be nice to have some reminders of home and a few things to start out with so we didn't have to buy everything all at once. I was calmer after that.

Then I decided that since the move was going to happen mid week with Larry in St. Louis, I didn't want the movers trekking upstairs. We moved around our dining room furniture (which is for sale by the way)and taped out our container in the dining room. For some reason it thankfully looked bigger downstairs.

We started packing but are not quite done yet. On the advice of moving guru Ken, I took my bike to have it professionally cleaned and boxed. Now I have the urge to ride it every day. Soon enough, I will be able to explore the extensive bike trail system between Perth and Freemantle. It is only a 10 mile bike ride to the beach. At least that is if the pirates don't get it.

Here are some pictures of the process:



Larry measuring out the container dimensions.



Two sets of eyes are better than one.



Can you fit all of my tennis clothes into one spacebag?



All this packing is making me tired!

To Bring or Not to Bring

When you move, you realize that you have accumulated items that you never use yet find it impossible to part with. This was my trouble as we start to plan our packing. What to bring and what not to bring: the question of the day. The second question is how to get rid of these things. We could donate them, but once we saw the sheer volume of stuff we have, we would have to rent a U-Haul just to make the trip to Goodwill. We looked in to having an estate sale, but we didn't have enough to make the 30% commission they wanted worthwhile. The last resort - a yard sale.

Looking at the calendar, our weekends are starting to get numbered, so we had to act relatively quickly. I picked July 3rd for the date. I had a feeling it would be either very busy or no one would show up, but for the peace of mind of getting it done I would take the chance. Not only did I bring Larry along for this ride, but his parents as well. Frank and Jan were great sports about it, came for the weekend and even brought a folding table!

In an effort to get more people to the yard sale, I put an announcement on the Community section of Craig's List. I did this late on the Thursday night before the sale and inadvertently left out the address. Well, I figured people would know that there was a moving sale in Ozona at least. It is a small town...

Friday night after dinner we started going through everything: the closet under the stairs (so full that I called the the "closet of which we will not speak!"), the pantry, the hutch, cabinets, closets - everywhere we store things. We even took some things off the walls! I found things that I had not touched in years, but for some reason felt a twinge of nostalgia. It went something like - oh, here's my pineapple corer. Do they have pineapple in Australia? Maybe we'll use it... Should we keep it? In the pile it went. By the time we went to bed we had covered the entire dining room table and part of the living room floor. This did not include the pile that I had already created in the garage.

The coffee maker went off at 6:00 AM the morning of the sale. We groggily got out of bed to go set everything up. We had the folding table, the dining room table (it is for sale too), the table from the patio and some garage shelves all set up with items. There were also boxes, crates and storage boxes full of things - remember our Christmas lights are not compatible! The four of us got everything set up by 7:30 (Craig's List ad said starting at 8:00). We sat down in our camp chairs to wait for customers.

After two "early birds" who browsed and bought nothing, there were no customers. We sat, sat and sat, took turns eating breakfast, sat and sat some more. The weather was holding off, yet cloudy. The temperature was quite moderate and I enjoyed watching the woodpecker parents come and go from the camphor tree in our front yard feeding the new babies. BUT WE WEREN'T SELLING ANYTHING!!! I kept dreading having to lug all of our stuff back in the house.

At around 9:30 when we had a few trickles, but not much steady business, I finally took a sign down to the main road. I think it was coincidence but after that we seemed to have a few spurts of business. Things even got steady once the sun came out for a spell. Things were selling and we were making a little fun money.

It got to be around noon and as I had ordered mussels for dinner, we needed to go collect them. I sent Larry to the meat market and off he went with his dad to find mussels, bread and fennel root. So Jan and I tended the sale and with a few more customers, amidst the thunder of the ever darker growing sky, and we beat the record of our previous sale (the one where I just opened the garage door and set everything on the ground in the driveway)!! Then the skies opened up and it started to pour!!

It was everything we could do to get all of the items back into the garage. Larry and Frank showed up just after the rain started and we managed to get everything in and dried off no worse for the wear. The funniest thing is that we still had customers after we brought everything inside!! People pulled up, got out of their cars and dogged the raindrops to shimmy between stacks of things on our tiny one car garage!

All in all I consider the day a success. It was hard to see some of the items go, but it will be even more fun to set up our new house once we get to Perth. Now it is time to focus on packing.



Oh, here is what the garage looks like. If you see anything you would like to buy, let me know!!:-)