how many hours, moving and purging

[Zoe Girl]

I realize I don't have too much of an issue getting rid of things, I do however have an issue with how much of my life energy is being spent on all of this!! I should have kept some track of what I am doing, however I am trying to see how many hours I have put into this move. The packing, moving, arranging things like internet, all of it really adds up. My son is not feeling well but he went to do some things today. I took 2 hours in the middle of the day to move all the food out of the fridge and freezer. That includes throwing away food, washing tupperware, moving and putting into the new fridge. It seems we are spending a couple hours every day, and then most of the day slowly on the weekends (between rain and snow storms).

I am estimating and pacing the cleaning. I can't vacuum and carpet clean and scrub the bathroom all in the same day without being in a lot of pain. I may keep track of how many hours that part is. What amounts of time are the others who are purging, remodeling, moving spending on these tasks? How does that factor into valuing your life energy? What do you do when you know it is out of balance and can't really fix it?

I am super excited to have my fully functioning kitchen today. And spend the last 2 nights at the new place. I am already feeling some stress settling and flowing out.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Oh moving is a huge amount of work and I can't imagine it ever not being so, unless you literally did own no more than 100 things (and had almost no mail to redirect. And all the utilities when smoothly and well .... good luck with that). It leaves a reluctance to move easily it's such a huge effort.

I mean one can imagine I have a lot of stuff. Really I have some stuff. I've never lived in bigger than a 1 bedroom apartment by myself, my entire adult life, and I'm not much of a stuff collector beyond books a little bit, so put it in that context.

[TxZen]

My big purges all were done with weekend completely off. I started at 8 and ended at 8. I just kept going, fueled on coffee and a desire to live simple. I have probably done this over and over at least a dozen times but now, it's small things still going out but I do it for 15 minutes here and there. You will get there!!! Think how far you have come. :)

[Chicken lady]

I am very glad I am not moving, but i do have so much going on. I keep wondering if this was really the best time to start punching holes in my walls... but then Is there a good time?

I completely get the out of balance - I spent the cool of the morning working with my daughter to pack up her room because that is when she was home - she works after lunch to close this week.

Then I have been struggling to get stuff planted in the heat of the afternoon. All my seeds have gone in late this year, and I will not have the room cleared before dh wants to start this weekend. I am actually grateful to the goats who are kidding late this year for not getting bred when they were supposed to. The only thing I am keeping up with is work, and I have a feeling when I start doing evaluations I'm not going to feel so caught up with that. I just feel like I'm putting out fires.

Why am I on-line? because I'm sitting down drinking water so I don't collapse in the garden.

[Zoe Girl]

Oh I don't question you being online! I take 5 minutes here and then back to all the work I have. I don't have internet yet at home so I found last night super relaxing, but the stress was there with the full to-do list.

I am starting to feel more in balance, basically if it doesn't get done then I will give the landlord some warning and pay for another junk haul or a carpet cleaner. There is only so much I can do.

[JaneV2.0]

Effort on my own behalf rarely seems wasted to me. It's the other work that I did grudgingly (that's why they call it "work") that seemed like a huge waste of life.

[Chicken lady]

I am actually dreading my son coming home this weekend. I love him, I miss him, I'm excited to have him back, but he is bringing a shelf and a desk and a bed and a couch and a lot of stuff, and I don't know where I'm going to put it!

[shadowmoss]

Don't you mean you don't know where HE is going to put it? If it is important to him he can find a corner somewhere for it to live. Then again, I live alone with 2 cats, so what do I know of family dynamics. The cats tell me where I can put my stuff (by mangling whatever I leave out that they think should have been put away) :)

[Gardenarian]

It is HUGE Zoe Girl. We started moving in December and are still living out of boxes. I'm not going to try to estimate the amount of time I've put in, not only physical energy but the mental energy of trying to keep everything in my life straight (new job, new school for dd, summer plans, buying and selling houses, and all the details of being in a new state - car registrations, insurance, bank accounts, voting, taxes...)

I try to balance it by planning really fun activities every day - it makes an eneormous difference. Work hard, play hard.
And lists - lots and lots of lists.

[Chicken lady]

shadowmoss, when he left he had a 10x10 room. now it's a construction zone. I put his old bed (which I will be keeping) in the basement for him to sleep on. His new furniture has been in his new room in his rented house which won't be his anymore on Monday. He's still in school, so coming home for the summer was not a surprise. Technically i could make him rent a storage unit for three months - he did that last summer, but it seems like we should have space.

[mschrisgo2]

Ah, Chicken Lady, yes, you "should have space"-- except that your house is currently a construction zone :) Do all of you a favor and have him put his furniture in storage for the summer.

In fact, gosh, is there anything else you'd like to add to the storage, just to give you some elbow room for a bit?

[Chicken lady]

He brought his first load home today. He has everything well boxed to stack and the furniture broken down. He says he thinks he can have the drywall finished in his room in a week and then we can paint and he can move his stuff into it. I can live with boxes everywhere for a couple of weeks. He's pretty motivated.

[shadowmoss]

Ah, as long as he is the one motivated to get things finished. I was channeling myself at his age, and how I just assumed my folks would accomodate whatever I brought home. :)

[Chicken lady]

nope, this one works. He wants his list every week and If I don't have enough to keep him busy, he picks up day labor at his construction job - they'll take him any day he shows up by 6. School is hard for him because there is so much being still. We wre talking about a double feature last night and he said "I couldn't sit through two movies." and his girlfriend said "You can't sit through one movie!"

One time his sister came for dinner and mentioned a problem she was having with her car. When we finished eating, he picked up his plate and announced "gonna go fix the car." and was gone.

Zoe Girl, how is the moving going?

[Zoe Girl]

Zoe Girl, how is the moving going?

OM(F)G

well if you saw me in person you would see a smiling person who has apparently made peace with the messiness and never ending nature of this move. And then there is the underlying part where i am calm but there is just a huge list and i don't know what to do with some things still. i don't have internet yet and since life does not stop i am at starbucks taking advantage of free wifi to respond here and take care of some urgent email business.

the bunk beds, after i worked through being okay with getting rid of them i can't seem to actually get rid of them. i missed 3 weekends of potential yard sales due to weather, i don't think the parts will fit in my vehicle to take to my storage unit, my mom has a lot of pain from a nerve so she did not come after all, and i am at the point where i think i need to put everything on the side of the driveway and schedule junk haulers for next week. then i get nervous that the landlord (i am checking out with her tomorrow at 9 am ) will give me grief but i need my deposit returned in order to pay for anything else like junk haulers. my mom would mostly help me keep myself focused and figure out little things like if i should rent a haul pickup or get junk haulers or go to storage. i know i have this raise at the end of this month, and i am still nervous because this is so amazingly expensive right now.

My son apparently moved the snakes last night, that was 4 tanks and a table (his sister is getting them). the thing about teenage help is that he gets some friends to help with something and then they all need hang out time as well, then there are tasks you will give them and sometimes you find out that they really didn't know how to do it. his girlfriend is very sweet but almost spent a night in my almost empty house so the cats would not be alone. they are cats, they can spend a night alone! good kids really, but not like moving with an adult. he had some old speakers he was supposed to take care of and there is still a LOT of stuff in the house in my opinion. this morning i looked in my son's room at 4:30 am and he was still in his clothes an backwards with his head on his computer. He has insomnia and anxiety, they actually just took him off the schedule at work (with the move it takes a complicated bus route to get to work). that means about a month without working right after prom. He wants a new job and my parents are bringing us a used car the beginning of june. Minimum i need him or strong kids to carry the bunk bed out of the basement.

so i am really leaning towards the junk haulers. the bunk beds are great but also 20 years old. i guess i can give the landlord a heads up because they can't come until after i move out, but last time they did it all over the phone with pick up and payment so hopefully she will be okay with that. Sometimes she is reasonable and other times a pain. i will check back tomorrow or monday, wish me luck

[Chicken lady]

can you put the beds by the driveway with a "free" sign? where i live they would be gone by lunch. That's how people get rid of all kinds of things around here. When we remodelled our bathroom somebody took the old vanity and sink and even the toilet.

[Zoe Girl]

Wow, it took a few days to get back. I can read this forum on my phone but not reply (and I am at 90% data usage and I have until the 28th, so I am not using my phone right now).

I expected the mower to come do the yard on Saturday so I tried to put the bunk beds where people could see but they really couldn't. Then the mower called and couldn't come that day but I wasn't home to move them again. On Sunday I checked out, I paid the mower who is also the landlords husband to both clean up the yard and haul off everything. I now need to transfer some money because this has been so expensive. The landlord said it was super clean, and then didn't check a lot of what I cleaned. Even said that she does not worry about carpets, That was an extra hour of work. Done with the moving out, almost done with the double expenses (and no more yard work, I admit I was horrible about it and really I should have spent a couple hours a week on all of it). Now to be more settled but already I feel so much better.

There was something energetically about that place, very hippy dippy of me. But we moved in based on a foreclosure, my kids went through hell, I was terribly depressed for a long time. Now I have cleared out a lot of things, I saw myself as not very good at cleaning and I got feedback that I left it super clean. I saw myself as incapable and I now see myself as more than capable.

[Chicken lady]

Zoe Girl, It sounds like you are getting a great new start! If you don't like yard work, that will be a huge load off!

now you can focus on nesting in your new space.

[Valley]

I'm glad that you feel a sense of accomplishment after all of your hard work. Good luck on your new beginning in your new home!

[Tammy]

Since moving into a condo 10 years ago, we have moved a few times but never returned to a place with yard work. It makes a huge difference in the amount of free time on days off from work. Almost like a vacation compared to how it was when we owned homes with outdoor work involved.

[JaneV2.0]

I sympathize with you ZoeGirl, both about the yard work--which I hate and try to do the bare minimum of--and about the energy of a place. It absolutely matters.

Congratulations on moving on to your new apartment; life will be much better there, I bet.

Oh joy. Here go the mowers. Yesterday it was some whiny, drony thing that sounded like a giant mosquito. Every bloody day. I'm off to the library.

[Packy]

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1481&stc=1It's like a wheeled weed whacker. See?

[JaneV2.0]

I want a phalanx of goats. But thanks for the thought, Packy.

[Packy]

I want a phalanx of goats. But thanks for the thought, Packy.You are very welcome, Jane. Thing about goats is: they are climbers. They wlll try and get on top of vehicles or even climb trees. Anything they can get up on top of. Yes they are cute; but also tend to be a bit destructive, too. Plus, one goat is not enough---they are a herd animal by nature. Prolly, sheep are better for keeping vegetation down. At least that is what I have heard.

[Chicken lady]

Sheep are stupid. Sheep are born looking for a way to die. Goats are terrific. goats don't destroy things - people who don't know how to fence goats destroy things.

get an alpaca, they wander around the yard edging the flowerbeds. and chase of stray dogs. but they poop in the driveway.

[JaneV2.0]

You can rent flocks (herds?) of goats up here for weed clearance. I'm about there.

An alpaca would be nice, but my yard isn't that big.