MOVING DAY!?

I recently moved my 75 year old mother from her 80 year old home to an apartment some 60 miles closer to the hospital she works in. Because she could not move until the sale of her home went to closing this turned into 5 month process. She lives 400 miles away. Making the required repairs, finding and securing her new apartment, packing up her home, moving her and then unpacking her new home caused me to make several trips a month, the shortest taking 3 days and the longest 2 weeks, caused a great deal of stress in my home as we juggled school, work and our daughter in order to get this move completed. Well, the move is done, her new home is unpacked, pictures hung, phone and cable tv are on, address changed at the bank, credit card, post office and DMV.

So, our stress level has come way down, but not all the way. Part of moving her was disposing of any items she could not move to her new smaller place or that she wanted to divide among us kids. With the exception of my sister, who lives near mom, I have been moving these items to Va where myself and 2 brothers live. Well, its all here. In my home. Crammed into our only unused room, that is to say no one sleeps there, in our small home. My stress level has been going back up as I have been unable to get this stuff sorted and out of my home.

So, therein lies the problem. Too much stuff, that doesn’t belong to me, in our home...

There really isn’t an effective management technique for this stresser, all we can do is persevere, and keep at it until the job is done. We have delayed our gratification by exerting an enormous amount of self-control as throwing the stuff through the window and into the yard would be instantly gratifying. One thing this experience will help me with in the future is the knowledge that will drive me to be very assertive when telling dad to hire a company when he moves... The kid ain’t doing this again