At the end of the work day, the packers leave your home a maze of boxes. They also leave their packing supplies behind, which gives you an opportunity to pack a box or two of things they refuse to touch.

This is the second time we’ve had movers who won’t pack up alcohol. The last time, they wouldn’t touch the wine or the liquor. This time, the wine was ok, but the booze was not. We have about a hundred pounds a few bottles of alcohol that I wrapped and boxed last night.

Also left behind were any liquids in my pantry, even if they were factory sealed. A bottle of cooking oil, vanilla and almond extract, rice vinegar, Worcestershire sauce. These things add up in weight and volume and cost. I am unwilling to give away that much of my pantry staples, so I wrapped them up too.

On one move, I didn’t check the kitchen cupboards until long after the truck left. The packer missed a big lower cabinet that held all my tupperware and all my cookbooks. So I try not to wait until the last minute to check for missed items. Sure enough, last night I found a skipped drawer that held my measuring spoons and cups. I could have pointed it out to the packer today, but these light objects helped fill one of the very heavy boxes full of liquor.

Before I went to bed, I remembered they hadn’t yet gotten to the bathroom and there are tons of things in there they will reject. Right after my shower, I will box them up, too. I think I’ll have three self-packed boxes when I’m done which I will slip in with the others.

Lastly, the movers will not take anything flammable or explosive. This includes innocuous items like kitchen matches and cooking spray and more obvious items like propane tanks (even empty ones). If the truck took these items, they would have to follow procedures for transporting dangerous materials, which is a hassle. Although it seems like a good idea, I’m sure sneaking that Pam spray into a box violates all sorts of laws. Therefore, I, being the scrupulously law-abiding citizen that I am, would never do such a thing.

The packers are coming in two hours, if they are on time (more likely 3 or 4).

Naturally, I have paced myself over the last few weeks, and everything is good to go. I’m relaxing and having a nice cup of coffee before taking up another chapter in War and Peace which should kill the time until they get here.

Yeah, right.

My main goal has been to put things away, which makes sense, but it has also been to “think like a packer.” That means realizing that everything located within one room (or nearby rooms) will likely get packed together. Now sometimes this makes sense. You do want all the books on the bookshelf packed together. But perhaps you happen to keep a jar of rosaries on the bookshelf as well. You may or may not want them together, especially if you want the rosaries, but you have left the 85 boxes of books as lower priority in unpacking. It’s not easy digging through 85 boxes to find the one you want, but moving the rosaries to another area may make finding them easier.

This theory really comes into play when you have, for convenience, put things in different rooms of your house. For example, school books are not necessarily consolidated because some books, mainly history, might be read anywhere. Or you may have, for lack of wall space, hung decorations in bathrooms or halls or odd spots that you would not necessarily choose to repeat in another home. Or you may have stored things, like tablecloths and cookbooks and your entire liquor inventory, in cabinets and shelves in the living room because your kitchen was too small.

So, I’ve been feverishly working to put apples with apples, so to speak. And I’m almost done and very pleased. We’ll see how it goes on the opposite end when we open up a box and find things from two entirely differently parts of the house, which has happened before.

One new thing I will try is to put up signs on various doors/areas indicating what labels I want on the boxes. This was a tip on my mover’s information sheet, and it seems a no-brainer, but I’ve never done it before. This will be especially helpful if I can get the packers to label the school books (located in the downstairs family room) as such and can distinguish them from the other books (located in the upstairs living room). The school books have a higher priority in unpacking.

Well, off to War and Peace…? Truthfully, after my shower I have to sort a few cabinets in the kitchen, straighten up my bedroom, do more laundry, pull clothing out of drawers so we have something to wear for the next week or so…and hope that the packers are a wee bit late.

Yesterday a friend watched the kids so Bill and I could do some cleaning and decluttering. Our main focus was the kids’ rooms and toy room.

At one point I asked Bill’s opinion about some “prized possession.” Bill hypothesized that the owner would be very upset if we got rid of it. “Only if he found out,” I assured him. Nevertheless, that item stayed.

Just before picking up the children, we stopped at the post thrift store to deposit some things. It really wasn’t much, but it was probably the third or fourth trip we’ve made. Certainly, our children have way too much stuff. It is one reason I proposed a nice vacation in January as a family present for next Christmas.

This morning, Jenny asked me, “How come the packers and movers always lose our stuff?” Other children have suggested that Dad drive the moving truck to ensure nothing is misplaced. It’s so nice to have a scapegoat.