Well, I finished packing today - every box is sealed up, labeled and ready to go on Friday. I got this done in eleven days with no help from DH other than occasional heavy lifting. That includes going through every closet, drawer, cabinet and nook and cranny of the 3600 square foot house to sort out what to take, what to donate, what to throw away and what to deal with in the spring when we put the house on the market. Above and beyond the 3600 square feet was a fully loaded, large attic storage area above an oversized two car garage plus the storage space in the garage. I left DH at home when I did this so I could do some serious purging as he has a very hard time parting with anything. He has no idea what all he has/had and will never miss all the crap I got rid of.

In addition to that I spent a few days at home going through the basement storage area and sorting all that out as there were some things in there that we're taking with us. We loaded that stuff in a cargo van and hauled it to the lake place to be moved. I managed to get rid of a bunch of crap from that area too when DH wasn't looking. I was hauling some stuff to the car to take to Goodwill and I was afraid he'd open the containers and start retrieving items. He asked what was in one box and I told him it was my old college textbooks though it was actually old paperbacks that he probably would not have wanted to part with.

Anyway, it's done. The next big job will be in the spring and that will be ugly because it will include DH's stuff including such things as books from his father's office that no one in the family wanted to part with so it ended up in our attic. Uggghhh.....not going to think about that....just going to enjoy getting settled in the new place. We'll fly there for a few days in December to take delivery of our things and then drive down in January with the cats and stay through March. Then back to MN until September. I'm doing some test runs with medicated cats in carriers in the next couple weeks - hope that works out.