About a year before packout:

I start looking at stuff with a beady eye. Do I really want to pack/unpack that again? Can I sneak it out of the house when no one is looking? Can I sucker a freecycler into taking it? Can I take it to my stitch and bitch group and hope it disappears? 🙂

About six months before packout:

I start making lists. Lots of lists. Sometimes I go all out and make a spreadsheet. They litter my physical and virtual desktop. Sometimes I make lists of lists. Sometimes I write things down just to cross them off. The husband likes lists, too. Sometimes we confer on them. But, mostly, we bat post-it notes back and forth across our office like a game of Pong.

I start forgetting things. See lists, above. This is progressive. By about two weeks before packout, I’ll have to think carefully to remember my childrens’ names.

About four months before packout (now):

The music gets turned up. I mean, to eleven. My usual bluegrass, salsa, and pop don’t cut it anymore. Bye-bye Sheryl Crow, R.E.M. and Alison Krauss: hello Pink, White Stripes and (God help me) Aerosmith. I have no idea why this happens. But it feels good.

The workout gets turned up, too. I guess it’s like this: I know there will be all these things I can’t control about my life just as soon as the Evil Empire State Department takes it over, but this little spare tire here? I can control that, dang it. And so, I focus on it. Since Christmas I have doubled my mileage on the elliptical, ramped up all the weights, and lost five pounds. Take that, Death Star!

I start waking up at 4 AM thinking of all the stuff I have to get done. (I really hate this part.)

I make cold, hard choices. Like this. Or, for another example, take the cat. No, I mean really, take the cat. She is a great kitty: friendly, healthy, a great mouser–but part Siamese, and way too opinionated to take on a trans-Atlantic flight. I know, because I am the one who always has to take her to the vet, stuff her like a prickly octopus into a carrier, listen to her howl like a banshee all the way there, then peel her off the walls of the examining room. I’m sorry, there just isn’t enough Xanax in the world to get me and that cat through an airport together. I mean for me, not the cat. So, forget it, she is not on the list. Finding her a good home is.

I make really weird dinners. It’s clean-out-the-freezer time. Bulgur wheat pilaf. Pasta with whatever. Lots of bean-y things. A couple of days ago, we had assorted Costco appetizers from the freezer for dinner. It was actually pretty good. Next I have to figure out how to cook this frozen okra in such a way that the husband doesn’t recognize it. Hm.

I keep bumping into things. I am not a naturally athletic person, nor an especially clumsy one. Built like a Weeble, I never fall down. But for some reason, lately, I keep whacking into furniture, doorknobs, etc.  I have bruises all over my thighs. This usually happens when we move, but I don’t think it was ever this frequent before. Or painful. Ouch.

I start blogging. OK, I don’t know if this happens every time we move, because it just started a couple of weeks ago. But it seems like it could be a regular thing.