Interesting site. Good to know you can buy this stuff, since your tax dollars bought it once already. Cheryl

Not that it will be easy, but these are the steps I'd follow, for both of you: 1) Go through every single thing (music stuff and military stuff). Sort out the absolute necessities, the I'd like to keep it if we have room things and the things that can easily go. No duplicates, unless it's something that needs replacing regularly, i.e. it makes sense to keep extra guitar strings around, but it makes much less sense to have three electric bass guitars that all pretty much sound alike. Sell/donate/toss whatever you can. 2) Then sort everything, like with like. All the guitars together. All the cables together. All the amps together. All the military stuff sorted the same way. Look at the amount of space each category takes up. See how much room you are devoting to all this stuff. Yes, it is your livelihood, for both of you. But I think you need to both take a good, long look at it all, so that you can determine if it is possible to live in a small one bedroom condo and continue to keep all of it. 3) Do another round of decision-making and see if there is anything else that can be let go. At the same time, look at all your other possessions, clothing, furniture, pots and pans, books, computers, etc., to see what can be discarded. By getting rid of other stuff, you make more room for the important things, the music and military gear. 4) Figure out a workable storage solution. In your case, it most likely should be one that you can pack up and move, if you are in the military. Ikea has a lot of good systems. I think the Pax wardrobe system, which can be customized with shelves and drawers would be a good bet. Yes, it will cost money. But if these things that you are storing are necessary to your careers, you should treat them with respect and store them properly. And imagine life when you can open a door and see neatly labeled shelves and drawers and just reach in and pull out exactly what you need, without having to move duffle bags and stub your toes on an amp and have fifteen tangled audio cables fall on your head. The Pax system has the advantage that you can close the doors and not have to look at all the stuff when you aren't using it. Explore other options, like hanging guitars on the walls or building a rack for some of the amps so that they can stack (and then use the sides of the rack to store more cables and such), or stacking, labeled bins for your military things. Think upwards for storage. If you get a shelving unit, get the tallest one you can, to make the most use of vertical space. Install a shelf running all the way around the room, a foot or so below the ceiling. You can store all sort of things in boxes or baskets up there. If your boyfriend is in a band, is there anyone else in the band with more storage space who could store some of the stuff? You could also maximize the existing storage space in the condo to give you more room. For example, if you have a decent sized bedroom closet, you could have a closet system custom made to suit your needs and then get rid of your dressers, freeing up floor space for more music equipment. Or re-do the kitchen storage to accommodate both food/utensil/kitchen equipment storage and storage for music or military gear. Depends on how much money is available for this sort of thing and how long you plan to live there. A more expensive option is off-site storage. There are climate-controlled self-storage units. You would have to weigh the extra cost with the increased cost of a two-bedroom unit to see which is the better deal.

If you go to PO Monday just pick up a customs form--they helped me with my first one--LOL--very easy- As far as listing everything, NO, I usually just said candy & cookies--Pack it as full as you can (20 lbs, I think) I taped the ends shut, but you CAN'T use duct tape--My baking is horrible, so I always send Oreos & bubble wrap them-- Heres a list of what I sent for Thanksgiving--- Cookies, gum, beef jerkys, water balls, Pringle tater chips, powdered drinks, candy bars & about 30 Tootsie Roll pops--The suckers really go over big! My GS said he takes a few things from the box & then puts the rest on a share table!! LOL I can't remember everything else I sent (old age) Tell your nephew thank you from me! If all goes as planned, my GS sdhould be home for good the wk before Christmas! Boy, are we all excited! Donna (^_^)

I have no experience with West Point but my husband is a Naval Academy grad and we are currently sponsoring several midshipmen (basically we are their home away from home). Plebes (freshmen) are extremely restricted on what they are allowed to have in their rooms when it comes to personal items. Basically NO personal clothes aside from undergarments - only clothes issued by the school. For example, they have gym gear (shorts & tshirt) that they are allowed to wear at our house when not in uniform but unless they are not leaving our house, they must be in uniform. They can leave personal items at our house and wear them IN our home, but not if they go somewhere, like the movies, to a restaurant, etc. my garage is stacked with personal items that belong to two of our mids (who are now sophomores) that they either can't have or don't have room for in their rooms. They can't bring their own bedding, etc either. I'm fairly sure West Point has similar rules especially for their plebes/freshmen. My advice would be to give him money. Because they are unable to work in college, including in summer, they have no way to earn money. They do receive a stipend but it is very minimal. I know our mids would very much appreciate cash. I imagine West Point cadets would feel the same.