Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Moving

house
Our house when we bought it, April 2004
 
OK I have another good reason, besides the astrological shift, as to why I am not blogging much these days. We're moving. As in we're packing most of our belongings into a 10x15 foot storage unit, having our house painted and staged, adding some needed mid-winter curb appeal to the front landscaping and putting our home on the market March 2. You want it?

We have had the discussion about whether or not to sell our house every January for the last three years and this is the year it is happening. There are several reasons we need to sell including but not limited to THE THIRD BABY. Our neighbors, bless them, raised four kids in a house the same size as ours (900 square feet). But their twin sons lived in their room in bunk beds until they were twelve. No thanks.

So we are heavy duty into the process. It's amazing the things you acquire in seven years. We don't have a lot by some standards, and way too much by other standards. Mostly I am enjoying the purge. Just today I took three giant bags of adult clothing over to a homeless shelter. And bags and bags of baby and toddler clothes of the sex we won't need going forward (yes, we know what we're having) are being divvied up among friends. By February 18 we need to have most of our stuff in storage so the house can be magically transformed into a Pottery Barn catalog spread. So the kids' room will have a few cute stuffies and a stack of classic children's books. And three discreet bins under the bed where they can hide their favorite things. Everything else will be packed or "lost in transit".

We actually took them to the storage unit on Sunday and they thought it was totally bizarre. My daughter asked in all earnest if we were moving there. Let's hope not.

So the house is upside down and I spend my days packing up our belongings trying not to lose too much time reading old letters. In the evenings Mr. Rosen loads the boxes into the utility van that my brother conveniently left in our carport while he's in Mexico through the end of March. We could not have planned that one better even if we had both remained Virgos.*


*Mr. Rosen is also a former Virgo, genotypically speaking, though he exhibits none of the classic characteristics.

6 comments:

Everything's Rosie said...

Ah, I think "chaos" was a perfect label. Says it all. Love your take on the whole shebang. Lots of mazal to you, Mr. Rosen and the Rosen 3.

aimee said...

Moving is awesome - it forces you to clean! That is why I can't stay in one spot longer than 4 years. We're coming up on 4 and a half in this space, longer than I've EVER been in one location, and it's becoming alarming. Things are crawling out of the cracks and I don't recognize them.

Naomi Broudo said...

We majorly downsized in July when we sold our house and decided to rent for a year in order to decide what's next. So I know what you are going through. The letters are the worst. We sat for hours going through boxes of letters from our years in Israel —when people really wrote letters... and of course all the letters from camp Miriam from our little guy who is now married and thinking of having his own little ones to send to habonim camp... Good luck Susie!

Liv @ Choosing Beauty said...

Whenever we move, we swear we'll never do it again. It is such hard work. But I envy the deep clean and necessary purge you're going through. I have no idea how you do it all - the art, the mommyhood, the pregnancy, the moving. I'm tired just typing the words.

Lori said...

Cool. There is such goodness in moving. What are you doing with all of those pillows you had? Or did you purge them already- good thing!

xo

AG Ambroult said...

Ok, i can barely wrap my head around the fact that you're moving (i cannot even fathom having to clear out my home. We would surely just give up and die in a pile of clutter), never mind where to. (I'll save those comment for the next post, which is next). All this with a baby on the way/in your arms.