When you are reducing your worldly possessions from a big house to what will fit in the minivan, a lot of odds and ends come up that you wouldn’t face in a normal move….

• I have been packing books. Should I keep a dictionary? Or will the computer be enough?
• What should I do with my grandmother’s binder of typed poetry? It is awful but it is hers!
• What should I do with my favorite heavy turtleneck sweater that I knitted for myself? How about the socks I knitted, also?
• How do I feel about imposing on people for help with things like our car license, which must have a street address associated with it?
• I am going to need to sell or give away the middle seats to the van. Isn’t that strange?

We have been letting all of our subscriptions lapse, and have changed all of our banking to “online statements only.” It is very strange to go to the post office and have one little old piece of mail. We are going to use Earth Class Mail for most everything except the car license.

Every time I take a roll of paper towels or something like that out of the cupboard I realize that I won’t be buying them again in a large quantity….we just won’t be here long enough!

I am going through the cupboards and getting rid of all the food items that are old or that we won’t eat in the next two months. I had better make some lentil soup this week, and sometime soon, lasagna.

The van always has at least a couple of boxes for Goodwill in back. Last time I went I attempted to give two boxes of hangars – mostly the clear ones that came from the department store when we bought something. And guess what? Goodwill won’t accept them. They’ll only take the all white plastic ones. So, I guess a huge garbage bag of hangars is going to the dump.

They are finally about to make an offer to someone to take over Paul’s job at work. About time! He likes the guy and we are hopeful that they will actually have some time to transition. Paul has been taking Friday off each week, and is counting the work days until August 3. (21!)