Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011

Category Archives: Freecycle


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Attitude Makes The Difference!

As I was browsing through Status Shuffle on Facebook last night, I came across this status:  “Attitude is the difference between an ordeal or an adventure!” Even though I’m sure a move from Wisconsin to Florida was not the intent of whomever came up with that particular status, I realized that it really has become our philosophy.

Every single person who learns of our move says one thing:  “take me with you!”  Some express the sentiment that they could never do that themselves due to various commitments.  Moving across several states can be considered a huge ordeal.  There are so many considerations to think of:  hiring movers, the packing, researching the area, the packing, finding a new home to live in, the packing, and settling the children in schools, just to name a few.  Did we mention the packing?  :=)

As we have mentioned previously, we choose to think of our move as an adventure.  Things are falling into place nicely, but it’s not all a bed of roses.  There are so many uncertainties, such as where will we live, what do we need to pack in the car with us, what if the movers lose some of our boxes?  The packing itself is a huge proposition and not for the weak of heart.  We have given away a lot of our belongings, some we will not miss, some it hurts to give away.  Even though it’s just “stuff”, it’s funny how we can become so emotionally attached to things.  Mayflower has estimated our box quantity as 102 packed boxes; it will be interesting to see how many boxes we end up with.

Overall we are very pleased at the progress we have been making.  Our original goal was to be done with the downstairs by April 18th.  I don’t foresee that happening; the kitchen itself will probably take a couple weeks in itself, and we haven’t started there yet.  We pack as we have time, but we are not in super packing mode yet.  Our goal is to pack one box a day:  some days this happens, some days not.    We however feel very fortunate that we have had so much time to sort through things, discard what needs to be discarded, and put certain items on Ebay/Craigslist/Freecycle.  It ensures that we will be taking only those items that are meaningful to us.

As we approach our 100th day out, we have been working on a special blog post.  Be sure to come back and visit us to check it out!



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What a week!

Dear friends,

It seems that we were caught up in our daily life this past week and therefore didn’t put as much attention to our move as we would like.  Even so, we did manage to get a blog post out, make a run to Goodwill and donate two pieces of furniture to two different recipients in our local Freecycle group.  All in the name of progress.

I don’t believe we’ve formally shared this fact on our blog, but our youngest son Ben has autism. We wish to share this information to provide hope as well as information to other parents who may have a child with special needs, and are considering a long-distance move. When I refer to keeping things as normal as possible for as long as possible, he is the reason why.  We are acutely aware that this major life change, while good, will be hard on him especially.  Right now he is very excited to move to Florida; he has really embraced our dream, and it truly is a dream we all share:  Mark and I would not consider moving if it proved to be a true hardship for either one of our children.

On Monday, I met with his teachers and staff for his annual IEP meeting.   I have been very open with the school as far as our moving intentions, so they have been aware for a couple of months now that we are relocating.  We are moving forward with his IEP as if we were staying here, and modifying his curriculum to meet those needs.   Until we have our permanent residence, it is too difficult to guess what might happen in Florida.   The special education teacher has put in several phone calls to Clermont Middle School, all of which have been not responded to at this point, and I admit, it’s a little disheartening.  Our intent is to place Ben in public school, but I am also willing to homeschool/virtual school him if the public school district does not meet our needs.

Tuesday was our Ben’s 11th birthday.  We celebrated by going to Chuck E Cheese for dinner, and then back home for an ice cream cake and presents.

Wednesday was “spend a lot of money on car repairs” day.  :=)  We currently have two vehicles, but we made the decision from the start that we would only be moving one. Unfortunately, the car we are selling decided to have a flat tire, so we replaced that on Wednesday.  We also brought in our other car for a tune-up, as we had a $20 coupon to our favorite auto repair shop.  $700 later, our car is in tip-top shape :=).  We will be bringing it back in July to make sure there are no additional repairs that need to be completed.  We are using the sale proceeds from our 1st car to pay off the loan on our 2nd car.  We are excited to be able to begin our journey without car payments.  We considered trading in both our cars for a newer and bigger vehicle; we have our eyes on a Hyundai Santa Fe, but as long as our car is in good condition, we’re going to wait and save up money for a bigger down payment and look at buying a new vehicle in a year.

Thursday was St. Patrick’s Day as well as Catie’s orchestra concert.  The corned beef turned out delicious in the crockpot, and Catie played her violin beautifully.

Today (Friday) we sold a craft storage container for $5 on craigslist,  did some decluttering in the sunroom, and our Mayflower rep brought over a huge stack of boxes for us.  Right now the challenge is where to put the packed boxes.  We are still four months away from our move, and while we live in a fairly big house, there really is little available room just to stack boxes.  This is why we have started to donate/sell our furniture this early.   Catie has her solo ensemble choral performance tomorrow, but we are hoping to find time to empty out the secretary and list it on craigslist.  We are fortunate in that we have a small foyer by the front door, and this enables us to put our furniture or other belongings there while they await pick-up.    The area in which the secretary is in will allow us to place quite a few packed boxes there.

We also went to the local book sale at the Fairgrounds:  it’s our yearly tradition and we always spend at least $30 in books and magazines.  This year we spent $0.   Every book or magazine was looked at in the context of :  “Do we really want this bad enough to move it?” And the answer every time was “no!”.    It really wasn’t as enjoyable this year because of that.  While this transition time in moving is necessary and worthwhile, we also long for the day when we are settled in Florida and able to relax into routines, and yes, acquire “stuff”.  :=)

We appreciate your readership:  please feel free to add us on Facebook if you haven’t as of yet, and we love to read your comments about our adventure :=)  Some of our decisions have been made because of your feedback, so we do appreciate them all.

Enjoy your weekend!


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Keep Moving Forward!

Monday, February 21, 2011

We are sending through an update on where we are with our move.

For those of you following our journey, you may remember that we had set a goal of completely clearing out our basement items by March 31. We are pleased to say that 90% of what we had in the basement is either gone or in the process of being dealt with.  If you had seen how packed our basement was, you would be amazed. We are amazed, really, at the amount of things we had that really were there because we were lazy.  🙂  It’s easier to place things in a box and put in the basement instead of deciding what to do with them.  It really feels great knowing that it’s all gone.

Otherwise we are slowly moving forward.  We had the flu bug visit our household the past couple of weeks; thankfully our unwelcome visitor seems to be finally gone. Last weekend our checking account was compromised; thankfully no funds are missing but we are still working with the bank to get it all straightened out. We have put some items on Craigslist and Ebay, and have made some money, which goes into our piggy bank to help with the move.  However most of our belongings are being donated, either via Freecycle or Goodwill.  We believe strongly in paying it forward and helping others in need.  We are both co-owners of our local Freecycle group; Jen started it in July 2004, and two years later Mark agreed to come aboard as group owner.  We are currently 3,170 members strong, and has proven to be a great resource in our community.  If you are not a member of Freecycle, we encourage you to visit http://www.freecycle.org and join a local chapter.

Mark and Jen


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Long Distance Moving

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Everyone should prepare for a long-distance move. Now, before you think I’m crazy, hear me out.

I think I shared that one of our goals is to have our basement emptied by the end of the March, and that we intend to go through at least one box a day to achieve that goal. We’re definitely on track with that. The interesting thing about this is that we are not keeping most of it. As we go through the boxes, we are very selective about what we keep.

To preface this, we have moved four times in our thirteen + years of marriage. Our first move was from Chicago to Fond du Lac, each of us driivng a U-Haul truck through rush hour on the expressway. Yeah, that took a few years off our lives! The other three moves were within the city, using U-Haul each time. For each move, we have brought all our possessions with us, minimizing some but not really taking an intense look at what we own.

So as we go through the boxes now, for our fifth (and what we hope) our final move, we find that it’s really freeing to let go of what we own. Do we really need to move a 24 year old typewriter to Florida? What about all the saved baby clothes? (Our youngest will be 11 in March). No, really we don’t. We keep what is truly important to us, take pictures of/and discard the rest. We are not doing a huge rummage sale before we leave, but we are donating to Freecycle and Goodwill.

It’s not always easy, and sometimes it’s downright hard to part with items. But for us we are keeping our eyes on the goal, and we would much rather be in Florida minus possessions, than in Wisconsin with possessions. Yes we could move with all our stuff, but it begs the question, do we really want to? And our answer is no.

It’s a wonderful feeling, which is why I say everyone should prepare for a long distance move. Even if you have no intentions of actually moving, pretend you are and discard the clutter out of your life.

You won’t be sorry you did.

Jen


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The Plastic Shoebox

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

One of my passions is to collect recipes. Ok, not really a passion but a hobby. If I see a recipe I like, I will cut it out of the magazine or paper and place it in a plastic shoebox. When Naveen and I were first married, I did this a lot. There never seemed to be time during the day to sort through the recipe clippings and organize them, so the shoebox moved with us from our home in Chicago to Wisconsin. This was twelve years ago, and believe it or not, last night I finally sorted through that shoebox. I recycled most of what was in there, and the chore took me one hour. Twelve years to store one shoebox. One hour to sort through the shoebox. Yikes.

What does this have to do with moving, you ask?

It makes me wonder, as I look at all our belongings, do we really need all this stuff? Have we held on to it because we really received enjoyment from it, or do we keep it because that’s what people do. They keep their stuff. The pressing question for us right now is: Do we want this badly enough to move it, or can we replace it when we arrive in Florida? We have already made a mental list of what we are selling, and what we are moving. If it has sentimental value or is not easily replaced, it will move with us. Thankfully, the ‘selling’ pile is larger than the ‘keeping’ pile.

The next question at hand is: Do we have a rummage sale to try to sell our possessions, or do we simply Freecycle/Craigslist/Goodwill it? Traditionally we have not done that well at previous sales, but we also were not motivated by a move to Florida, either. We do not live on a busy street, and we would not be able to team up with other families, which I know are two of the big rummage sale “no-no’s”. I’m just not sure it’s worth our time and effort to hold a sale. But then again, it is money that could be put towards moving expenses. Thoughts?

We are excited to be moving forward with our plans; we have updated our website and are so ready to become residents of Florida. Our goal date is September 15, 2012, but we are not opposed to moving earlier if the opportunity arises. We’re so glad that you are following us on our journey and hope to be posting more regularly.

Jen