Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Preparing to Move Abroad

So - now that our bosses and teachers all know - I thought it might be time to make this blog-official - we're moving to London in a couple days. For the last year and a half, we knew this might be a possibility, but weren't positive it would come together - leaving us in an awkward state of purgatory as we waited but couldn't move forward on other options. Finally, sometime this fall, the offer came together - and it became a real thing.

Why are We Moving?
Both Spouso and I had been in our jobs for a few years, and were starting to look into new opportunities, when he got an offer out of the blue. We're both excited about travel, but don't get to do much of it here. Kiddo is still young and not in school yet, making it an easy transition for him. We can stay there for 2 or 3 years and be back in time before he starts school, and at a good time for me to get a new job - so everything sort of fell into place.

Sorting through all the stuff
As soon as he signed the contract, I was overwhelmed by the mass of all the stuff we would need to move or get rid of. I started a list of all the places I knew our stuff tended to accumulate - the kitchen, garage, closets, etc - and then assigned them to each of the 6 weekends we had free. We would spend Saturdays sorting through all of the stuff, pulling out the things that were broken, unused or outgrown, creating huge piles of unwanted stuff. This worked out fine in the beginning when we were sorting the easier rooms, but because of the renovation, we couldn't access a lot of our things. So when that finally was finished, we did a huge blitz sort of all the remaining rooms. Everything got at least a quick once-over, but we didn't get to sort some things as thoroughly as I'd hoped.

all the small appliances that won't work

Getting Rid of the stuff
Sorting things out turned out to be easier than actually getting rid of most things. Obviously, we did some huge trips to goodwill for anything that could be used again but didn't have big value. We did a big trip to the dump for things like paint that couldn't be reused. We also did a trip to a second-hand construction store for house stuff, like old lights and doors that had value. Some of our bigger furniture got sold on Craigslist, and lastly we sold our car. We didn't want to store anything here, but ended up with a pretty big pile of things to be stored at my dad's house, including tools we won't need there, plants, and any small electric device (like lamps) that won't work there. We also sold our car, which was sad, but ultimately easier than figuring out how to store it.

Buying New Stuff
As we went through each room, I found a number of items we were missing, like wine glasses that had been broken, or winter gloves with holes. Since it's cheaper and easier to shop here and I didn't want to land and have to do any extra errands - I started shopping for anything we needed.  Of course this was a little contrary to the getting rid of stuff goal - but helped make me feel a little more ready.

while shopping for a new winter hat, boyo checks out the bikes.

Fixing Up the House
Our plan is to keep our house for when we return, so we needed to find a way to rent it out. We contacted a management company, but then they advised us to fix up the house wherever possible to get maximum value. So - obviously we had a major renovation going on already, but then also tried to fix up anything else, like the main bathroom and office, or general paint touchups. There were a million things on that list that I wanted to get to, but ultimately ran out of time.  We had a mad scramble to pull things together for a photographer to take pictures, and then basically considered it done.

just a reminder of the new beautiful kitchen

office finished

The Last Fun Things
Getting through all the to-do's was really a full-time job, but we tried to squeeze in a few fun things. We planned two date-nights for fancy restaurants that we'd always wanted to go do, and managed to fit in one last trip to some of our favorite museums.

a nice night out

a very nice meal out

last trip to the national aquarium

trains at the botanic gardens

checking out the American history museum

a final meal at one of our favorite markets

Family and Friends
Even though the timing of all of this was terrible in most ways, it was rather handy that we were leaving over the holidays because it gave us an opportunity to say goodbye to all our family. We had my mom for Thanksgiving, spent Christmas with my mother-in-law, and then got a chance to see my Dad and brother just after Christmas. We were even able to squeeze in a quick trip over to visit my grandfather.  We did not get to see everyone, but tried to make an effort. A big sendoff party was discussed, and then squashed, as it sounded even more stressful and chaotic after 2 very stressful months.

Thanksgiving with my mom and family

Christmas with my in-laws

2nd Christmas with my dad and brother's family

a quick stop with my brother to see our grandfather

Thoughts - 
The timing of all of this was a total mess, but completely out of our hands. Obviously, we wanted the renovation to be done much earlier so that we could actually enjoy it ourselves. Having to pack up and paint over the holidays was just terrible, and on top of that - my work got super busy at the end, leaving me to work up until the last minute instead of being able to take off earlier. None of that was anything I would ever choose to repeat - but I was thinking it would be nice to sort through all of our stuff more regularly so that things don't pile up so much. Maybe I'll try to remember that before it's time to pack up and come back home again.

What does this mean for the blog? 
Well, we're moving into rental housing, so this blog will no longer be about house projects. Instead, I imagine this will be my main way to keep family up to date on all our adventures, hopefully with lots of fabulous travel photos. Currently a group of large men are busy packing up everything we own - and we fly soon - so the next post will hopefully be after we land. Wish us luck!

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