Lots and lots of boxes.

If you ever want to know how much you have of something, just pack it.

You'll find out you have way more than you thought you did. I'm not exactly sure why that is, but here is just one case in point. These boxes represent my hooking and art stuff that hasn't already been moved to the cottage. In the big boxes there are shoe boxes full of wool strips, art books, teaching and rug binders and other miscellanous stuff. And this tower is from only one of the rooms where I keep things.

My desk and hooking books are all kept in another room, which has almost the same number of boxes. And most of my wool and backing material is already in rubbermaid bins at the cottage. And I didn't think I had very much!!!

I've learned that the hardest part of moving isn't the packing. It's the getting rid of what you don't want to pack. What do you do with all the things that you have acquired that you don't have room for and your kids don't want? I'm quickly becoming an expert. I've found a home for all my knitting patterns that I won't use again - all 8 magazine holders' worth. They went to the Purple Purl's Donations program.

I've found a home for three large boxes full of vinyl albums, from which I'm pretty sure my kids will only pick a handfull. I've found good destinations for all the work clothes that I won't need anymore. Truth be told, I should have found homes for a lot of them many years ago. Somehow, after paying that much money for a good jackect or dress pants, you feel hard pressed to get rid of them - despite those giant shoulder pads.

Did you ever notice how many cleaning supplies and hair products you can accumulate in so many years? Boy, our house should be the cleanest place on earth - if only it were so. Eventually, it all comes down to the four or five that really work - not the umpteen with promises that exceeded results. Trust me, my daughter has tried every product that promised "thick, full hair" since she was 8. So, a big drive to the toxic dump will be an outing in the final weeks.

But after two full days of packing the basement (the scariest part of our house, for sure), I am feeling confident I can get this all done in the remaining weekends. One weekend for each floor, for sorting and packing and delivering the unwanted's. And then one weekend for those odds and ends.

With many, many, many more boxes to come. The movers estimated 90 - I wonder how accurate they were?