IT'S OFFICIAL!

So, many of you have already heard that the Germany move is official (meaning we got the firm contract/"report" date). We just got our official "report date" of September 15, which means that's the date when Brian has to show up at his new job.

It's been a bit crazy around here trying to finish up personal projects, separate/sort things into different shipments/destinations, and trying to wrap up "to dos" that have come up in the meantime. I've been a bit busy.

So here's kind of what our house looks like...

The girls' bedroom. For those of you who didn't know what it looked like before, I had a four poster bed in there (of which you can now see unassembled in the background), a computer desk with a computer, and a few of their toys, etc. This is now our "battle grounds" for separating stuff. It's a lot cleaner now than it is in this picture. Whoa did I find a lot of crap under their bed!

The Front Rooms

Moving boxes, shmoving boxes. They're everywhere I look. And ya, they're going to be packing us up (the moving company) but we're using these boxes to do separation...
The Backyard

Brent DeRoest rocks! He totally came over for two days and helped Brian gut out the backyard. In 95 degree heat. Look at my rose bushes. All gone (well at least they're trimmed). They cut down my creeping jasmine plant, trees, bushes, you name it. They even took a trip to the dump (I hate the name of that place) and a load (hate that word too) to the Salvation Army with a bunch of crap that accumulated on the back porch.

The pile (wow these words just keep getting worse) below is from the tree they cut back from the neighbor's yard that was hanging over into our backyard. hahaha.

Garage

Our garage is also being used as "headquarters" for separating. We have 3 different shipments, with 3 different moving companies. One is for stuff arriving in 1 month, another is for stuff arriving in 3 months and the last is everything being packed up in a big wooden box going to Long Term Storage for 3 years. Call me crazy but I had to make little signs for everything so we could keep track.

That means "Household Goods"...I'm learning all these new acronyms the govmt loves to use.

Then we have our shelves of stuff labeled "returning to people", "Salvation Army", "store take-backs", "to be sold", "to be given away," blah, blah blah. You get the idea. There's a lot of separating and gutting out going on. But it feels good to get rid of it all and clean it up.

And then there's this...

The Bathrooms.

Brian has taken it upon himself to spend the three days he took off from work fixing up the house to get it ready for renters. He decided to put in new bathroom sinks in both bathrooms. So, what do you think happened to all the crap UNDER the sink. Yup, this is what I came home to.

(It may not look it here, but the bathroom cupboards were actually pretty organized.) His reasoning was, "we have to go through it ANYWAY. I'm just hurrying us up to do it." I would have been REALLY mad but he had a Diet Coke waiting for me from McDonald's so that smoothed things over.

Last thing: we've just been told we can't bring ANY liquids over, understandably so...flammability, leaking, breaking, etc. But here are some things, (besides the normal things like cleaning products and beauty products like shampoo and conditioner that we can't take), that I didn't realize fall into this category that I'm SUPER bummed I can't bring:

1. NO fingernail polish, remover, etc. The girls are going to be so bummed. We JUST stocked their stash.

2. The brand new industrial size bottle of Olive Oil from Sam's Club (that I just saw while playing with spencer on the kitchen floor. Imagine my sadness when I caught a glance of that)

3. The brand new industrial size bottle of Balsamic Vinegar from Sam's Club. You know how expensive this stuff is!

4. All the brand new, never opened pantry stock I got from the Grocery Game (google it) of shampoos, baby care (lotions/babywash), nice hair products (including all my extra bottles of hairspray, B&B Works lotions), cleaning products, carpet cleaners, Swiffer liquid, etc., etc.

5. And last but not least...no PERFUME! All my nice expensive perfume. I can't even put it in Ziploc bags then in boxes. They won't let me take it or put it in storage. My heart is broken.

So! I guess I'm packing them all up into crates and letting whoever wants at it to go for it. Nan (my sister) suggested I wrap some of the bottles (half empty even) and give it to people for their birthdays (remember? We're on a $5 budget for siblings' birthdays). I thought that was pretty funny. So don't be surprised if you open a half used bottle of 409 for your birthday.