I always knew I wanted to document this process in some shape or form. But life comes at you fast...man plans, and God laughs. Try as I might to keep track of milestones and significant events, things just started going downhill real quick. HOWEVER! I'm ridiculously close with my sisters. So if I know something first, my husband will know second (sometimes. 😬. I have to add that disclaimer because he'd call me out on it real fast when he reads this post), and my sisters third (or second. LOL). So. Luckily, our What's App sister chat is a treasure trove of key events and emotions.
From time to time I'll be sharing screenshots of the chat as receipts. LOL. Like this gem...
Thus, on January 24, 2022, is when it hit that we were likely going to be moving to England, and my first comments were that I was going to throw up (#BigUpAnxiety) and that I needed to start throwing away shit. LOL. By this point, my husband and I had already discussed 'what if' scenarios and we pretty much knew that we would be selling our house because the funds from the sale would be enough to fund the move as well as help us establish ourselves in the UK.
Another thing I did when we found out we would likely be moving was to create a spreadsheet. 🤓. At our age, if it ain't written down, it ain't happening. Fail to plan, plan to fail, blah blah blah. I IMMEDIATELY put together a 'To Do' list and a timeline of what needed to be done and when. I had sheets for a budget, what we'd be selling vs taking with us, fees, a packing list and a cancel list (subscriptions, memberships, bills, etc).
Listen man...Moving is hard. Moving OUT OF THE COUNTRY? Worse. If there isn't some sort of organization, or at least a loose attempt at organization (I mean organisation), you will lose your shit. Literally and figuratively.
The second thing I did was to start decluttering. From our years and years of watching House Hunters International, we knew houses in England were MUCH smaller than we're used to in the US. We also knew that shipping was going to be pricey. So we needed to sort through EVERYTHINGGGGG to determine what we wanted to keep vs what we could get rid of. After all, we're talking at least 30 years worth of paperwork, memorabilia, photos, bullshit, etc. for two people (plus one kid, because, let's be honest, Celeste is only three and barely had anything worth keeping...or anything she'd ask about when she got older 🥴). My house also served as home base for other family members, so I had a few boxes of their items as well.
Concerning the items we were keeping, we also needed to sort them into what we would need immediately vs what we could do without for a few months and therefore could be shipped. Regarding what we could get rid of, we sorted those into what we'd be selling, what we'd be donating, and what we would be giving away. My sisters and best friends made off LIKE BANDITS.
I set up my timeline to declutter at least one room a month. And every day I tried to declutter items such as bookshelves, nightstands, etc. (I might share a video of me tackling the bookshelf in my next post. 🫣)
Not to sound like a nerd, but in my job, we follow the Agile methodology of project management, and my absolute favorite (I mean favourite) thing about this is breaking down projects into smaller and smaller actionable tasks. So that's the approach I took when it came to downsizing. And if you think you've downsized enough...trust me....downsize some more.
Learn from Jaime: If there's one thing I would have done differently it would have been to start downsizing/decluttering as soon as we made the decision that we were serious about moving, instead of waiting until when we knew we were moving, because we still ended up bringing some things that I'm sure we would have been able to sort through better if we had enough/more time.
Enjoy this video of me freaking out when it hit me that we were going to be moving...and ignore the speck on my glasses while I work on the next post. 🥂
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