Mrs. Conception

My husband has a job that requires that we move a lot. So far this year we have moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey, then while in New Jersey we have moved from a corporate apartment to a hotel, back to the apartment, and back to the hotel. Our scheduled move to Baltimore in November has been postponed until after the New Year, so now, as the New Jersey job is winding down, we are waiting to see where our next destination will be. The Southern states are looking like a strong possibility (yay, warm winter!), but we probably won’t know until the very last minute.

In order to be prepared for a moment’s notice move, we spent a good part of yesterday overhauling the storage space we have been keeping most of our stuff in since moving into the hotel (please note we knew about a day and half before we left that we had to be out of the apartment, so a good portion of our belongings were thrown into trash bags or half-torn boxes from Amazon). Five Rubbermaid tubs later, the storage unit was a work of art. I wish I had my camera because it was a beautiful sight to behold.

Sadly, after collecting a bunch of cool stuff from the bridal shower/wedding, we still have about two Ford Explorers worth of boxes to move, and we only own one Ford Explorer. To condense a little bit more, we bought a bunch of Space Bags. These are the bags you pack and then vaccuum all the air out of them, so your clothes and blankets and junk gets shrunk down to about 1/3 of it’s original size. Mr. Andrews was skeptical, but I have to say, these little things have revolutionized my luggage! Five suitcases, a duffle bag, a laundry basket, and a hamper’s worth of clothes have been sucked down to the size of just three suitcases (and, okay, a bag for Goodwill). Simply amazing! And really, kind of fun. I think I’m going to be able to just get rid of the other two suitcases, one with a broken zipper and the other with a broken handle. Hooray!

Because I am clearly so thrilled about this tiny little organizational miracle, I am really pumped up to get more organized throughout my life. Up to this point, the only skill I have really aquired in that department has been reducing the millions of magazines I subscribe to down to a managable level by tearing out the articles I want to save and stuffing them in a huge three ring binder. Other than that, nothing. To remedy this problem, I am picking up a bunch of book on cleaning, sorting, storing, solving, organization, and time management (I told you about the book problem). The first one is Good Things for Organizing from Martha Stewart Living. I have only flipped through it so far, but I know it will be good because I already want to move into a big old farm house and have an armoire in my mud room (Only Martha could make a person feel reasonable saying something like that)! There are a few others from Martha Stewart, plus a couple from Real Simple that look promising.

Being able to actually find the stuff I own – revolutionary!