He brought home some empty paper boxes today and Rachel had a grand ol' time playing with them, as did Andrew. (She's topless because she had just finished eating dinner. She ate dinner topless because she's started to stick her hands in her mouth before clapping. Food gets everywhere).
We forgot where we packed things when we moved back from Jordan and we were only gone for four months. One of the things we lost was the griddle plug. We unpacked everything and we couldn't find the griddle plug, our cooling rack, a little non-stick sheet, and a kitchen towel. We eventually found the cooling rack and the non-stick sheet. They had fallen underneath the oven and Karen wasn't sure if they were ours when she found them, so she put them in her kitchen so she could ask us when we got back.
The griddle plug was a pain. Andrew loves that griddle. He's just no good at making pancakes in a pan so after four months of not using the griddle his was rather anxious to start flipping away. We pulled out the griddle soon after arriving home but we couldn't find the plug anywhere.
We put the griddle aside and finished unpacking all the kitchen boxes. It was still no where to be found. In the next little while as we finished re-moving in to our apartment we looked through everything. No griddle plug anywhere.
After a month or so we eventually just purchased a replacement plug online so that Andrew could use his precious griddle again.
Wouldn't you know it, shortly after the new plug arrived in the mail we found our old plug in a box that we hadn't opened because I could have sworn that the box only had one thing in it. Well, as soon as we opened that box and I saw the griddle plug in there I remembered putting it in there myself.
So now we have a back up griddle plug. I don't know why they don't just make that little grease drawer big enough to store the plug in. And I don't know why I didn't just pack the plug with the griddle in the first place.
As for that kitchen towel, it is still AWOL. It's a shame because it was whoever gave it to us had crocheted on a nifty little thing so that we could attach it to the oven door, which would come in handy now that I have Rachel around to continuously pull the towel off of the door.
Needless to say, we're bound to forget how and where we pack things in the two years we'll be gone since we lost some (very important) things after just four months. Thus the reason Andrew is making the tracking program. And the reason I'm trying to organize things now.
I figure the sooner I start, the less likely I'll be to just jumble things into any old box at the last minute. I've almost finished packing our first box.
I was going to put our winter things away, anyway, since we're finished with winter here and have decided that we're going to try to visit Upper Egypt in the winters instead of heading up north (thus we won't need winter gear while we're abroad, saving us plenty of suitcase space), so I got out a bin and put our coats in the bottom.
Then Rachel went into our bedroom and pulled all the books off of the second shelf of the bookcase so instead of putting them back on the bookshelf I put them on top of the coats. They were all language books and I just don't think that I'll be brushing up on Korean, Japanese or Spanish while I'm trying to learn Arabic. That helped to squish down the coats, but now the box is really heavy and it isn't quite full so I'm still trying to think of something light to fill it up.
And that's why we need the tracking program. It looks like box # 1 will hold coats, language books, and towels or something. How am I supposed to remember all that?
Good luck! If you need any boxes-feel free to take a trip up here, our livingroom is just a stack of boxes now. (future blog about that later). Packing now really will save you a lot of stress in 4 months though.
ReplyDeleteWrite it all on the outside of the box? that's what my mum does when we move... She also packs rooms up in the same boxes so she can write "kitchen" and details on the outside or something. Saves having to unpack 6 different room from the same box later on.
ReplyDeletewhen we moved from south orem to north orem, we lost some stuff as well. I don't know how we managed it, it's like a box just disappeared or something. I still don't know how it could have happened. We found most everything, except for my pie pan. . .
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
I know your pain. We've moved 7 times or so in the past 5 years (this summer will be move number 8). We usually try to pack all similar things into boxes and write on the outside. The last time I even got different colored sharpies for different room boxes-red for kitchen, green for bathrooms, blue for books... it acutally worked out rather well and I hope to use the same method when I start packing in a couple months.
ReplyDeleteThis suggestion takes money but it will save TONS of room in the moving truck and make storing it so much easier and it is well worth the money. It also helps when there are multiple moves. Go to Target and get their sterilite (plastic) 18 gallon tubs. They should be $4.50 at the most per tub. When I got them last year they were less than $3 a tub. It has saved so much room in the moving truck and in storing them that it was so worth the money that we spent on it. You can write on a piece of paper and tape it to the tub and you can use them over and over for anything that you need or want. They even store nicely when they are empty. And one of the best things, you don't have to worry about bugs or water damage.
ReplyDelete