The 5 million decisions involved in packing a house

I foolishly used to tell myself I was organized. I didn't have a junk drawer, I didn't have that much stuff. 

Yet I had an entire shelving unit dedicated to camping equipment..what was I thinking?!

Anyway, I learned how wrong I was as I reached the halfway point of the move. The first 2 weeks of evening packing were a breeze. You get your favorite things, smile at them, and wrap them lovingly in the special paper and bubble wrap you ordered from Amazon. You take pictures (I may not see them for years and I WILL forget what's in each box) then you carefully place them into more Amazon boxes (all the same size, see?) as you watch NBC comedies and drink wine. 

It's a fulfilling experience, seeing all your beloved purchases in front of you, imagining future Jessica unwrapping them with delight, thanking past Jessica for being so clever and stylish. Those days were short lived.

Once the 'good stuff' was gone, it was a rapid descent into the inevitable chaos of a move. The big furniture was promised to family and friends and they lived with post-its on them for a month so I wouldn't forget what was whose. Hannah graciously helped me sort the kitchen. "You have 4 ladles  Jessica, pick one to keep". I ran out of the evenly sized Amazon boxes and making labels became tedious. I brought 3 loads to Goodwill, a few to work and tried desperately to give good homes to useful things like art supplies, baking tins and fishing rods. 

After 2 weeks of this well-intentioned but madly stressful matchmaking, I happily dumped the rest of my crap on the curb like a good American. I'm sure my night-walking neighbors were delighted. 

The worst bits were the little things, like cords, extra shampoo and trash cans. Nobody wants that crap but there's nothing wrong with that crap. I wasted a lot of energy worrying about that stuff...and still don't know if there was a better way to handle it.