The packing fairies failed me

I am putting out an SOS.  This is my Bat Signal, the rocks in the sand spelling H-E-L-P.  I need you webernets!  I am here on my knees…grovelling.

Our house has a contract on it.  We’re waiting on inspection reports and will likely have a bit of negotiating to do, so it could all fall apart still, but in all likelihood our house is going to sell and we will need to be out June 30.  That’s 30 days from now.  Which means one very important thing:

I need to start packing.

I bought boxes last weekend to do just that.  See?

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I brought the boxes home – 11 small boxes, 7 medium boxes and 4 large boxes – and I excitedly set them in the kitchen, prepared to begin filling them with all our life’s treasures.  Then I stepped back and looked around and my throat closed.  I sat down in a kitchen chair and stared at the boxes.

A half hour later, Lee walked by.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged.

“Are you going to do something?” he asked, ever so gently.

“I don’t know,” I replied, my eyes glassed over.  “Maybe I’ll start with the closets.  I can at least pack up the winter stuff.”

So I carried four boxes to my bedroom and leaned them against the wall…where they still sit.

I don’t know where to start, folks.  I just don’t even know where to start.  I can pack up winter clothes, but that means going through the closets, which look like this:

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Clearly, going through the closets is no small task.  They are filled with clothes, many of which should probably be weeded out and donated.  And I’m just not sure where or how to start.  So I asked the packing fairies to come out at night and magically fille my boxes in an organized and efficient manner.

They haven’t responded.

It was suggested that I try packing up things I don’t use, like my fine china.  That’s a much less overwhelming room to pack because there’s not much in it and I won’t be giving anything away.  I just need to pack it.

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But I’m nervous, because that stuff is highly breakable and fragile and I don’t know how to pack it in a way that doesn’t destroy it.  I’m scouring the internet for special boxes and I know I should get packing paper and newspaper.  I do have bubble wrap and a nifty tape gun, so I have the tools.

I just don’t know what to do with them.

I have moved before, incidentally.  But that was back when we were first married and we lived in a little apartment and had17 possessions to our name.  Packing a house?

I need a drink.  A stiff one.  And I really need those dang fairies to do their jobs.

So do you have any advice for me, internets?  Where do I begin?  And please, someone tell me how I’m supposed to do any of this with three rug rats under my feet!