Summer Catchup, Part 1

I've been putting this off because there's so much stuff to talk about, but that's only making it worse, so....here it is! The beginning of Tim & Dani's Summer Adventures 2011.  Let's start Part 1 where we left off: in May.  Because really, I haven't written an informative post since April.  And it is July.  That is sad.
Here are some of the things we will be covering in today's post:

• Epic Triv Party
• Danielle's Guaranteed Fail-Proof Stress Free Packing Method, along with our endorsement for Moving Companies
• Summer Art Classes at the Springville Museum

aaand

• Applying for Teaching Jobs.

The Trivial Pursuit Party of Epic Proportions was truly epic.  I think we invited probably 100 people and we had 60 come.  It was amazing.  We assigned everyone to a team (Tim and I balanced the teams based on age, content knowledge, and who would work best with whom...it was quite a feat), and gave them their team color to wear.  It was so cool to look around the room and see the different team colors.  Each team had a team captain.  Andrew was team captain for the red team, and even brought red bandanas for his whole team!  It was neat to see the camaraderie that each team developed, even though some of them had only met that night.  The party was a good way to say goodbye to a lot of people that we wouldn't see for a while.   All in all, I think it was highly successful.  We had a sheet for people to guess answers when it wasn't their team's turn, then we tallied all their answers.  The person who had the most points for each category won a little prize at the end.  We also had a grand prize ($10 to Coldstone) for the person who was the best overall.  It was so much fun.  If you weren't there, we wish you had been able to.

So. On to my packing method.  I have developed a sure-fire method to eliminate stress on moving day.  My co-worker Crystal and I discussed it at length, and I am sharing it here with you, free of charge, provided that any time you refer to packing or moving when using My Method, you simply replace those words with "Danielle's Guaranteed Fail-Proof Stress Free Packing Method," hereafter referred to as "The Plan." Easy. So.  Here is The Plan, carefully honed by Crystal Thomas and Danielle Stratford. 

6 months - 1 month before your move: Divide your house up into equal areas of size that you think will take you a day or half day to purge and deep clean.  For Tim and I, these areas were:

1. Guest room and bathroom;
2. Art studio & closet;
3. Kitchen;
4. Living Room, other guest bath, and dining room;
5. Bedroom;
6. Storage space and our bathroom.

Next, take each area and assign it a week.  Tim and I assigned the easier areas that would take less time to weeks when we knew we'd be busier. And we assigned the kitchen very last, because we knew we'd need to use it right up until the end.

Each Week Before You Move: During that week, go through that area and de-junk your stuff.  After you've purged all your stuff and gotten rid of what you don't want, deep-clean that area so that when you move out, you'll only have to do a cosmetic cleaning.  This step takes a lot less than what you would think.  Our biggest area was our bedroom (because we had to go through our clothes & books) and it only took us 3 hours or so total.  But if you don't have that much time, you can do a little bit here and there throughout the week.

Moving Day: the reason it makes moving day so easy is because you know everything in the room is something you want to take with you, so it's just a matter of physically putting it in a box.  Sooo nice!  Because we had done all that stuff beforehand, it was so much less stressful.  Probably the easiest move I've ever done.  AND, since you've already taken stuff to D.I. and to the trash, you don't have to worry about that on moving day, either.  The cleaning, trash, and D.I. trips are already taken care of.  Stress-free moving.  And you're not packing junk, either.

If Tim and I had a moving theme, it would be Tabula Rasa.  Seriously,  it felt so good to get rid of all the stuff we just didn't want, use, or need.  Since we went through all the rooms early, I also had time to get our memorabilia stuff all organized by year into filing folders in two boxes.  We went through all the pictures we had and consolidated them down to two photo boxes.  I can't tell you how great that feels.  We used to have 3-4 boxes of just memorabilia stuff, and now we have two small filing boxes and one bin, and everything is organized and in place. Mentally, it is a great feeling.

But anyway, Tabula Rasa.  We wiped our slate clean from all the junk we had, and we're starting over.  I think it's a good theme to have any time you move.  When you stay too long in one place, you start keeping junk.

I'm really excited to move to Nashville because it will be the first time that Tim and I will have a place of our own to decorate and make our own.  We've never lived in a place that was fully our own, to do whatever we want with it.  We're not buying a house or anything, but we'd like to try and create a space for us that's what we want.

So anyway...we packed up all of our stuff and loaded it into a Upack container.  For anyone that's moving any time soon, we recommend ABF.  We've heard nothing but good things about them, and so far they've been easy to work with.  They even matched Provo's storage rate in Nashville when it was more expensive.  It's taken off a lot of stress.  We loaded our stuff into a cube at their terminal in Salt Lake on July 12th.  They shipped it to Nashville (it's there right now...eek!) and are storing it for up to a month for only $120.  Then, when we move out there, we just have to go pick it up.  All together (storage included), it was around $1200.00.  It seems pricey, but it was less expensive than our Uhaul quote, and that didn't factor in gas costs for a Uhaul and the pain of driving it cross-country.  Anyway, we recommend them.

I know this is getting long, but hopefully you're still reading.  And if not...well, I can't really blame you.  So what's next?  Summer art classes.  They were so fun to teach.  I taught 6 - 12 year olds Observational Drawing and Figure Drawing.  The kids did so good at all their projects.  I wish I could show you some, but they're on our hard drive and it's packed away, so that will have to wait.  And the kids were so cute.  It's what really changed my mind about wanting to teach when we get to Nashville.

At first, I didn't really want to teach.  But Tim pointed out that it would be nice to have a job with summers off (for his interships) and full medical benefits, AND a relatively short workday.  8 to 3, anyone?  I know teacher's salaries aren't that great (especially for first year teachers), but it's still more than what I was making at the Springville Museum, so it's a step up for us.  Anyway, I applied online through the school district and found out a week later that all the jobs were on hold until June 25th because of budget cuts. So. We'll see what happens with that.

Okay, so, there's a little update.  It will probably be boring to read, but don't worry--more interesting stuff is on its way.  I think.