Thoughts on Moving

I didn't think there was so much to moving. I've moved a bunch of times. My parents divorced when I was young, and with joint custody, my brother and I switched houses week by week. My mom moved around but stayed in the same area. She rented many houses and apartments before settling into a rental house for about five years, then buying a house she's been in since. My dad rents his house to the local college in the summer, so every summer we've packed up and moved out - where to has varied over the years but again, always within 30 minutes of all current homes. The farthest I've moved so far was to college, and that was only an hour and a half. But nevertheless, packing stuff into boxes is not new to me.

         
This move though, is much farther. From Maine to Colorado, if I forget something, I can't have my parents bring it to me if they have a free day. And this time, I have to go through everything. As my brother and I got older, we kept most of our stuff at our mom's, so we didn't have to move it out of our dad's every summer. When I went to college, I brought a dorm room full of stuff and left a bedroom full of stuff. I always had stuff at home, and it was always just as I'd left it in my room. Now, I want to pack everything up. I'm not planning to bring every last thing with me, but I don't want whatever's left over to be strewn about my "old" room, so my mom can't use it as a guest bedroom unless she cleans.

I've already packed up a bunch of boxes, but most of it was stuff that had already be set aside to move, so my room doesn't look much different. I'd share a picture with you... But it honestly looks like a tornado hit and I don't want people who don't really know me to see it :-P

Even I can't deny that I have too much stuff. I'm one of those people that everything has a story, and I can't get rid of it because I'm attached to the story behind it. I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff since the summer started, but you'd never be able to tell by looking at my room. I have more craft stuff than I could probably use in a year, but since I like doing so many different types of crafts, I can't part with them. I have ideas for almost every craft supply I have, even if I know I won't have time to do it in the next millenia. But I think some day, I'm going to be bored and want something to do, and I'll work on that.

I really need to just let it go!

One of my packing problems is that I'm OCD about organizing (which, most of the time, you'd never know by looking at my room). If I'm moving my stuff, I have to organize it. I can't just throw it in a box. And unfortunately, with the amount of stuff I have, I don't have space to organize. The floor is too covered to put a box down and dig up all the paint, let's say, and put it in a box, because everything I have to move to get to the paint has to go somewhere and there's no where to put it. Then, I want to move on to the fabric, and there's so much of it that it needs multiple boxes. And once I get those boxes packed, sealed, and labeled, where do I put them? I don't like leaving them in my room because I want to be able to see what's left to pack easily. Fortunately, I can put some stuff in my dad's garage, which is helping. I haphazardly put boxes on the stairs until I could bring them over, and I've already refilled that space. Space over there is very limited too though, so I'll have to figure something else out that doesn't require me to remember a list of random places I've stored boxes.

Have you gone through a big move? What packing/moving tips could you share with me, or anyone else going through a move? Suggestions on how to organize while packing with limited space, or do you think I'll just have to suck it up and make do?