Caitilin

hi everyone

i'm moving in a week time, and treating it as a mock move to canada, ie, i have four piles 'canada', 'needed here', 'ebay', and 'freecycle'. I'll p robably end up taking the first three as i'm runnning out of time to ebay it all but these items will simply go with me to be ebayed.

So now i'm looking at what i want to take, and as i'm not taking a container, but going myself and baggage (either excess or on a freigher or passenger liner maybe), i'm trying to cut down on bulk. The mundane crockery went into 'needed here' but the medieval went to 'canada' as I can use that for both....;-)

obviously its giving some interesting insight for me, but books are an issue. I want to take them all and i have two of those big roller bags full of them. I 'm a techie and interested in just about eveyrthing...i've already consigned most of the fiction to the 'needed here' one, bar the dutch fiction which will be impossible to reaqurire - i tried after the fire of 05 and only just got some of them after visiting belgium.

How did you all decide waht to take and what not?

YYZlover

Hi

You're treating your upcoming move exactly as I intended to do with mine. However, my next move was very sudden and by the looks of it so will my next.

Unless the books are irreplaceable - bin them or sell them to used bookshops.

Tech books I've binned most or given to charity. Tech books have a "sell by date" as tech is on a constant improvement.

But like you, I will go with allowed luggage, excess luggage and possibly ship one tea-chest as it has emotional value and an be filled with other stuff also of emotional value.

I'm looking forward to thrift shopping and craigslist searches for new household contents.

Caitilin

b-b-binn them?! *stares at you in mock horror, nay shock*

but thats my dm's guide and all my lovely books?!

I'll ebay 'em first ;-)

after I grab the isbn's.

In some ways its very refreshing to be lightening the load this way. The bike is excess baggage though, as its worth taking! And mum's embroideries are the emotional baggage.

Zoe Bell

speaking as a couple who must have donated over 1000 books to oxfam before we moved , these are a few of the tactics we employed.

It it is common and in print it can be replaced if necessary
if you haven't read it in over 10 years it can go
I also had "ruthless" moods where I went through and was quite heartless about which books went into the donation pile. After which Ben was instructed to remove said books from where i could see them and not to let me look at them again, in case I "rescued" them.

Also when sorting through piles of boxes in the attic. If you don't know what is in a box , don't open it. If you can't remember what is in it , then you don't need it !!!

Caitilin

i'm rather short an attic and boxes in it - moved 4 times in four years but right now i'm assuming if i haven't used it in a year - it goes. Barring christmas decorations which i didn't put up this year and are hand embroidered by my mum.

Caitilin

you sound like a gypsy too. Why are you moving?
i'm moving as i have an evil landlord, mice and no washing machine

YYZlover

Why I'm moving? I'll go where my work takes me. I've mmoved back and forth during childhood between spain and sweden. I've lost more things in my moves than I can remember having and have come to the conclusion that things are just things.

I have one table cloth that was embroidered by my great grandmother. That stays with me. I have another constant - a teddy-bear I've had since I was 7-ish. Teddy stays with me and has lived in Sweden, UK and Canada and even gone on lengthy trips.

As much as I am a gipsy I need some kind of anchorage. One is having a set of keys to a place called home. I can be away from home as long as I have keys with me. My teddy is an anchor as well.

I have lived in mansions and bedsits.

My country is Canada. My home city is Toronto. I currently reside in Sweden but hopefully not for long. My next move is Canada.

I just turned down the offer of a free house of 130 sqm. Only for two months but as I'm going on a reccie in a month it was no point in accepting the offer. I wouldn't have even if I was planning on staying longer. As long as I'm in Sweden, the 13sqm cottage on my parents farm is perfectly sufficient.

And if I can survive with just enough things to manage work, sleep and entertainment in such a confined space (kitchen and bathroom is in the main house) then a studio/bachelor condo will be a palace. Although I wouldn't mind a 1 bedroom + den.

Caitilin

hmm. mine are my passport and panda bear. And knowing where i'm going to be staying, more or less*grins*

but hte panda i've had since i was turning 4, and he's travelled the world. Got his own passport.

For moving though, the pet snakeling has to come too. All the rest..as you say..is just stuff.

But iw ent through a hoarding phase after the fire, and its only been 3 years..i'm coming out of it nicely, but I wans't even back in my flat and tring to recover till sept 05...two and a bit years then to shake all the side effects.

Caitilin

ok after packing some boxes...kitchen equipment is half keeps half goes (i'm keeping my lovely cast iron pans, but the stainless steel can go. So can most of the other stuff). Books...IT and fiction is going, or will be once its ebayed, but some cookbooks, a dutch-english dictionary, and a few ohters are staying. Mostly teh books that would be nigh on impossible to get hold of again, as they dont' have isbn numbers or were made for a select group. Clothes all classify as comes, cosmetics all as nots. Cothes will be cut down this year anyway. Edibles all classify as nots. And i'm going to be ebaying a lot as soon as i've moved all this. Resigning myself to moving it all, then ebaying so to speak, which is a bit of a nasty thing, as it means more work, but with one week left i'm out of time to ebay properly, and things will go missing or break in a move.

And of course, there is another lesson folks, start early.

Jay Bird

I probably spend more on books than clothes, and realise that yes, this is unusual for a woman, but there you are, that's me......so I kept most of my books, donating those I knew I would never, ever, use again to various charity shops, which still meant parting with hundreds of them. I've already managed to gather another few hundred in the few years I've been here! When I return to the UK I am not parting with a single one......not ever!

I live in rural SW Ontario where many of the small towns were originally settled by Dutch immigrants; the local libraries all have sections devoted to dutch books, as do many of the charity and thrift stores.

YYZlover

We just had a dinner party here and in the middle of it it dawned on me that one thing I was missing in UK was my cast iron pans. Dang impossible to find there as well. Widely available here in Sweden in charity shops for pennies. Then the dinner guests pop their heads up from their plates of food and blurt out "we have several cast iron pots and pans not in use. Come on over and grab them." I fell off my chair. Saves me loads of time as mine is somewhere in a HUGE pile of my accumulated stuff in the barn.

Cosmetics are already narrowed down to what I use and nothing else. Got to love Art Deco and I've sourced out the Canadian dealer.

I have 4-5 cookbooks that will go with me.

Most IT books will be going ebay or to friends who may have the need for them.

On a different note. One of the guests once had PR status. He moved to just north of Kamloops working as a cowboy at a farm. Unfortunately his PR status is not valid anymore.