We thought we had done quite a bit of work sorting, but turns out we have way too much stuff. At first our shipping company wanted to pack up all of the long term storage first. I didn’t think anything of their choice until our sorting always resulted in “to-go” piles. Turns out it is much easier to decide what you need than what you don’t need. So we asked them to start with our shipment.

The first decisions were what to take in our luggage, what we want but don’t need for 6 weeks (air shipment), and what we want but don’t need for three months (sea shipment). The timings aren’t just how long it takes to get there, but also adding the time it takes to clear customs which can double or triple the actual shipping time.

So how did we do? Despite me at work in a different city and M dealing with four kids and the shipment on his own, turns out not so bad. Since we are going into a furnished apartment, we had hoped to take all of our art to make it feel like home. However when I arrived home the day after the shipment left our house I realized that the packers left several large pictures on the wall. Not sure how they got missed, but it will just force us to buy lots of new pieces! Tough life.