Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

EssexHebridean

Haha all these stories - fingers crossed we won't have to deal with anything quite so traumatic! 

Another few boxes packed last night - honestly, you really realise how much stuff you have when you start to think about packing it all up, don't you! We also had our teeny black furry visitor again for most of the evening yesterday - she clearly thinks it's very strange this household where the humans just spend their time placing everything they own into a box!  

Ended up at 15,500 steps yesterday over three walks, plus the usual day-to-day stuff. I'd like to go through this week hitting the 10,000 every day (yes, I know it means nothing, but it's a nice number to aim for!) so will see how that goes. Didn't do any stretching last night though - need to set aside a specific time for this really but it's tricky with other stuff going on too. Gym is currently totally on the back-burner - it's not able to be a priority right now and I refuse to let that be a problem - life is just in the way right now, when I have more headspace for it I'll get back to it.

MSE stuff:
- Banks checked - All quiet on the financial front really at the moment - it's that stage of the month!
- Both hotel refunds have now landed so I have made the balancing payment to get the money back into my airshow account.
- MrEH's Car insurance cost has been transferred from the car account > the CC. Doing that squares up the CC account again too so I know where I'm at, which is helpful.
- My car insurance will get taken tomorrow. 
- water left off overnight and just switched on for half an hour or so this morning which should be plenty for today's needs.
- Need to time putting the contents insurance in place carefully to try to ensure I have the cancellation option under the 14 days cooling off. It's due on the 22nd so I can wait and see whether we do exchange tomorrow and then sort it out. 

Moving stuff:
- More boxes packed - still a LOT more to do mind!
- Made a start on packing of spare bedding and linens
- made a start on getting together all the details for changes of addresses with various different people.
- Money transferred ready for hopeful exchange tomorrow (eek!)
- This evening's jobs will  mainly focus on the spare room - then we can create additional space for boxes in there as we won't need to get to anything behind them. 
- Tomorrow I plan to focus on getting at least one box of my own items sorted - toiletries stash, and various bits that I expect to put straight into the wardrobes in the new house. 
- Must find my buildings insurance quotes for the new house ready to put in place tomorrow if we do exchange...

Food Stuff:
- The sliced ham I got out of the freezer for last night proved to be plenty for both the omelette for tea and also for tonight's risotto. 
- I must remember to use some of the sun dried tomato oil from the fridge in the risotto - I want to get that used up. Ditto a couple of chunks of wild garlic pesto from the freezer.
- Need to get the fish out tonight to defrost in the fridge ready for thai fish stew tomorrow. Also need to remember that I have finely chopped fresh lemongrass in the freezer to go in to that - such an incredible flavour! 
- Need to go through other jars etc in the fridge to see what else can easily be used rather than moved.
- MrEH wants to pack some jars from the storecupboard at some stage - they might need a smaller box than the removal company ones though - either that or just combining with some lighter items.
- Need to write a meal plan and shopping list.

We were considering doing a Hell0 Fr3sh trial at some stage around the move but are currently undecided about that - not convinced that just planning easy meals for the days leading up might just be simpler. It might well work for the first week in the new house though so we're still thinking about that. I've got a 60% off first box offer to use, anyway. 

joedenise

When we moved we decided we weren't going to do all the packing ourselves and paid the extra to have the removals firm do it the day before the move - it was well worth the money.  The only things we packed were fragile stuff which we wanted to take in the car with us plus the "very useful box of stuff" of teabags, milk, kettle etc. 

When we arrived at the bungalow we just got them to pile the boxes into the extension and just put things like beds and wardrobes in the bedrooms and 3 piece in the living room.  It made unpacking so much easier for me doing one box at a time and not having to move round boxes in the bedrooms and living room!

The whole lot was unpacked and put away within 3 days!  It's got to be the quickest we've ever been sorted out and I think the main reason was that we could see all the boxes when we sat in the living room and wanted them gone!

Hope you don't have any horrors when you move EH!

PennysIntoPounds

Ooh another idea occurred, have a rucksack with phone chargers, electric toothbrush chargers, extension leads so you can plug everything in within easy reach while the house is still a bit chaotic/you're deciding where things should go. If you can have a phone reading corner with a lamp and tv/laptop then at least you'll have a pleasant 'safe space' to retreat to

greenbee

If you think you have a lot of stuff when you're packing, wait until you unpack!

I packed quite a lot myself and stored it at my mum's (stuff I knew we could easily store there such as garden furniture, garden stuff, and billions of boxes of books) as my cousin was willing to drive it up and unload it for me. The kitchen and big furniture I left to the movers. So moving back has been gradual. I have no idea how we hid so much stuff in my mum's house 🤣 (And I still haven't brought the garden stuff over as I need to clean out the shed first). 

My movers are collecting their boxes this afternoon, and I'm hoping they will remove the other pile of flattened boxes. If not, I'll get rid of them online - I have the vendors' white goods to shift too. 

Jellytotts

We downsized and got rid of loads and then realised it was too small (alongside other factors) so are now in a house that is double the square footage of the last one and I’m still trying to find places for stuff! 

I had to remove a kitchen cupboard last week and on the top of a tall, larder style cupboard was the desiccated remains of a bag of unopened celery sticks dated 2019.  The old lady that lived here was in her 90’s so I can’t imagine she was flinging celery sticks around with gay abandon or climbed up specifically to put them there….so how did they get there? And how do you not notice the smell of something like that going off? 

peb

It was definitely @hypno06 with the tinned sprouts.  There was never quite that level of an emergency.....

Seasidegal58

🤞 for a smooth exchange tomorrow. 

60% off the Hello box sounds good. Might be an idea to use it. You'll probably be more busier than you think for first week when you move. 

Sunshine_girl2

How exciting for you EH exchange day, hope it goes through with no hitches. 

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, I hadn't clocked exchange was tomorrow, how exciting! I was thinking September was ages away, but having just looked at the calendar (and engaged my brain cells for a few minutes) of course it isn't!! Good luck!

themadvix

I hadn’t clocked that exchange should be tomorrow - 🤞🏻 it all goes through smoothly!