"House Camping"

Time seems to be accelerating as we rapidly approach our two-day moving sale. We need to thin down even more as we do our very best to stay below the 18,500 Lb relocation-plan-limit on our personal goods. We have a lot of stuff we're just not going to risk going over that limit for fear of how fast the cost will start to add up. Mark, the moving company representative, explained that going over the limit by just 1,000 Lbs will cost us approximately $1,500! If you live in the Louisville area, please come out Oaks Day or Derby Day (8am-Noon) and check out our moving sale. We've listed it in the Oldham Era and one Craig's List. Our address is 1007 Forest Lane, Goshen and you can find directions in the listing on Craigs by searching our address.

Rebecca and I have been spending a lot of mental energy calculating our steps. We have to - the moving company rolls-in just three days after our moving sale. The real trick is deciding what to set aside from what the movers will take. Since it takes 5 weeks for the container with all of our belongings to be transported to our new Alaskan home, we'll need to hold out certain items...namely, clothing!

It's a little tricky to articulate the timeline perfectly, but the following is an attempt to describe our current plan:

• Moving sale this coming Friday and Saturday (4/30 & 5/1)
• Moving company arrives and boxes up everything the our family owns next Tues & Wed (5/4 & 5/5)
• Moving company packs the 53' container with everything our family owns next Thurs & Fri (5/6 & 5/7)
• Moving company takes Rebecca's Ford Windstar and ships it to Alaska (5/24)
• Rent car for Rebecca (5/24 - 6/18)
• Last day of our home rental agreement...we officially move out of our rental home (6/6)
• Andy, Erin & Holly (the dog) start the 4,500-mile drive to Alaska (6/6 - 6/17)
• Rebecca, Katie & Jillian stay-over at a friend's home for one week and in a hotel for the following week.
• Rebecca, Katie & Jillian fly from Louisville, KY to Anchorage, AK (6/18)
• Late evening, June 18, Andy & Erin pick up Rebecca, Katie & Jillian from Anchorage Intl Airport. We might drive everyone home to Palmer, 45 minutes away, but there's a strong chance we'll spend the night in an Anchorage hotel since everything at home will be in boxes!

As you can see, there's a significantly long period of time (5 weeks)where our family is doing what I call "house-camping". Starting next Tuesday, we'll be left with a handful of suitcases, the clothes that will fit into them, whatever is set to go with Andy and Erin on the cross-country road trip and a LOT of borrowed furniture.

God truly has provided for our needs in the "borrowed furniture" category. Our 50-something next door neighbors are Gary & Jown. They have a garage-full of their parent's furniture stored-in-waiting for their children's eventual use, whenever they buy their first home. About three weeks ago, I mentioned in passing that we were just starting to consider what we were going to do once the movers took our stuff. Without hesitation, Gary started rattling off all he could lend us in the interim while we were waiting for the kid's school year to end. What a blessing! Not only was it just what we needed, but it was all just a short walk across the back yard to the neighbors garage!

So the adventure is about to enter the next phase: a borrowed card-table for a make-shift dining room table, borrowed dishes, lamps and beds. Really...not too shabby! The refrigerator and stove came with the rental, so that's covered. Oh, and our washer/dryer...we negotiated with our landlord's son (he's to be the next tenant at the home we're renting) and he said he would buy them from us. So we get the use of these until the last day we live in this home. I'd say, all-in-all, if this is "house camping", we're going to be all right.