D -1.5

[liv]

You probably don't want to read this; the tl;dr is that I am moving from my house to the tiny flat on Wednesday, and I'm in the throes of sorting through everything I own and it's temporarily miserable.

I have the most amazing friends in the world. And one particular instance of them being amazing is: Last weekend I was in London for a couple of parties, nanaya and alextiefling's kid's first birthday party, and fluffymark's housewarming. doseybat very generously offered me crash space, and we had a lovely Sunday hanging out and chatting over dim sum at Joy King Lau. I mentioned that I was dreading the move, and doseybat and pplfichi spontaneously offered to come over for this weekend just gone and help me pack! As did jack, who is also wonderful. They were absolutely brilliant, just the perfect balance of shifting stuff around and providing extra pairs of hands to carry out my instructions, with giving me sensible and helpful advice, with providing pleasant distraction and conversation.

So actually I didn't have the whole process to cram in to a day and a half as I'd feared. Of course knowing that I had a bit more slack just meant that I procrastinated on getting started, but never mind. I think I can do this. I'm down to the last bits of sorting, all the stuff that I put aside to deal with later because it's hard to classify. At one point this evening I was getting into a sort of Zeno's paradox sort of situation, because every pass I did through left me with a smaller, but even harder to deal with, pile of "misc". I think I'm about over that now.

Done (mostly thanks to jack, pplfichi and doseybat:

• Removers booked, obviously
• Home insurance switched to a policy suitable for the house being unoccupied until I sell it, and quotes obtained for contents-only insurance for the flat.
• Minor water damage in the kitchen and downstairs cloakroom painted over.
• Arrangements made to move my phone / broadband subscription from here to the flat as of Thursday. (I have priorities!)
• Arrangements made for the Donna Louise Children's Hospice shop to come and collect furniture and good quality items I no longer have room for out
• Two carloads of bulky / awkward rubbish taken to the tip
• Couple of carloads moved to temporary storage in jack's spare room in Cambridge, including our lovely marriage document
• Slimline fridge and electric cooker ordered for the flat with its small and badly laid out kitchen.
• Dining room tidied, sorted and labelled
• Kitchen mostly sorted with minor exceptions
• Transportable food packed into plastic storage boxes
• Cupboard under the stairs completely cleared
• Living room largely sorted with minor exceptions, and most of the stuff destined to stay in this house until I'm ready to move to Cambridge stacked up in it somewhat neatly Everything labelled.
• Hallway cleared of stuff that shouldn't be in the hallway, and wanted stuff labelled.
• Spare room mostly sorted and labelled.
• Clothes triaged, remaining clothes I actually want nearly all packed neatly into suitcases.
• Office sorted.

Omg, that last item was this afternoon's task and it was a mammoth one; I couldn't get my friends to help with it because nearly everything in it needed decisions making. I mostly managed to avoid the temptation of filing stuff that should have been done months ago, and instead merely sorted it into piles so I can file it in the new place. But the office is the worst room of the house for being full of emotional guilt as well as physical objects. I should never have let my 6 foot square office get into such a state that it took me a whole afternoon to sort it out.

Still to do by tomorrow bedtime at the absolute latest:

• Kitchen - throw out all food that can't be transported or donated, eg opened packets, also a bit more labelling
• Living room - sort out minor misc stuff still in cupboards, finish gathering all the ornaments together in one place
• Spare room - sort out minor misc stuff still in cupboards, make sure what's staying is out of sight and what's going is visible and labelled
• Bedroom - find a way to deal with few items of clothing etc that didn't fit in cases. Deal with dirty laundry including bedding. Sort out minor misc stuff particularly in chest of drawers. Finish labelling.
• Office: Label everything.
• Make up a small bag of stuff that's precious / urgent enough I want to carry it myself
• Put everything tiny into sealed boxes so nothing gets lost

Critical path fail: I really want to give the house a reasonable superficial clean before I get the professionals in. Except it's hard to clean when the house is full of stuff ready for the move, and equally once the move has been completed I will no longer have a vacuum cleaner, duster, bucket, cleaning chemicals etc. If I work really efficiently tomorrow I'll hopefully have time to get the place acceptably decent working round all the furniture and stacks of boxes, otherwise I'll just throw money at the problem; I'm sure the cleaning firm will have seen worse than a house that hasn't been dusted or vacuumed for a few weeks.

To do asap but not against an urgent deadline:

• Tell the local Council I've moved
• Change my address with all relevant authorities, notably the bank
• Get the house professionally cleaned and the garden tidied up enough not to be a complete disaster
• Instruct the estate agents to put the house on the market! (NTS: do not procrastinate on this step or anything that's blocking it!)
• Borrow some tools suitable for removing my mezuzah from this house and installing it in the flat. That will allow me to do chanukat bayit.
• Buy curtain rails for the flat and find someone to help me install them, either a friend or a professional
• Find a plumber to get the washing machine plumbed in.
• Buy reasonable storage furniture for the flat
• Find a man-with-van to move the sofabed from colleagues' house to the flat.
• Officially / conceptually move my work base from the hospital to Life Sciences on campus, and physically move my computer over there.
• Deal with [lab equipment doom].

*breathe* I can do this. What needs doing tomorrow Or Else is manageable, and there are plausible short cuts I can take along the lines of "dump everything else in a box to be sorted later". The asap stuff is mainly bureaucratic, so doable if I can get over the activation hump. I have spent the last several days with all the stress expressing itself in bodily discomfort rather than easily perceptible emotions, not sleeping or breathing or digesting properly and let's not even talk about my posture. Rationally, I have no reason to believe that anything will go wrong with the actual stage one of the move, but I'm stressed because it's such a very tangible step in making a big, life-changing decision.

Comments

[redbird]

Yes, you can do this.

[forestofglory]

*hugs and tea*

Moving is physically and emotionally draining. I hope all your next steps go smoothly.

[synecdochic]

Moving is stressful even when it's not a big life-changing decision. Be kind to yourself!

[lethargic_man]

Good luck with getting everything finalised; deadlines are great for making the impossible doable (though I don't recommend doing things that way!).

One useful suggestion for your to-do list: Set up mail redirection.

[ceb]

*hug* *tea*

One important thing is, you don't have to sort all your stuff out now. If you're down to stuff that's hard to organise, put it in a box, label it 'misc' (and 'IMPORTANT' if it is, and anything else relevant), and deal with it later. There is a lot of later, and a Jack (and lots of other people) to help you sort it. You don't have to do it now in this busy, stressful 1.5-day period.

If it then stays in that same box for 5 years before you touch it again, well, then you have some useful information about how actually important it is ;-)

Also next time, mention the date in advance and then you'll get more offers of help :-)

[pretty_panther]

You can do this. :3

[nou]

Late *hugs* and I hope it went well. It was a lovely surprise to see you at M's birthday!