Save, sell, garbage

This has been the name of the game at our house over the past month for me. Why? Because we are making a BIG, cross country move to Indianapolis, Indiana in August. Brian has decided to go back to school. He will be attending IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) to get a Master's degree in medical science. It is a one year, non-thesis pre-professional program that should help him get into dental school. We will be living at Manchester Village, a subsidized housing complex where about 15 LDS student families live, mostly dental and medical students. It turns out my old college roommate, Kristin (Smith) Gillespie, who is from my home stake in Orem, UT is living there right now. Her husband will be completing his last year of dental school this year. I am still shocked at what a crazy small world it is and am excited to already have a good friend there. It is going to be a big change for us... a place we have never been, away from both of our families for the first time in our marriage, and Brian in school again. We are really looking forward to the adventure.

Moving all of our belongings 2200 miles across the country is very expensive, so we have decided to sell practically everything except basically our kitchen stuff, clothes, some toys, and memorabilia.. whatever we are able to fit in a small trailer we will tow with our mini van. Therefore, I have been going through our house from top to bottom sorting everything into one of three categories: save, sell, or garbage. I have been selling items we don't use on craigslist left and right, and yesterday we did our first ever yard sale with two other families in our ward. I was pleased with how much we were able to sell and get rid of, and that we were able to make $175 on items we don't plan on replacing anyway! It was a lot of work and though I am glad we did it, I am glad it is over too.

I hate to do a post without pictures, so here is the one shot I caught yesterday at the yard sale. This is Maybrie and her best bud Sadie. I found them sailing in the boat that didn't sell while we were cleaning up! :)

Though we are not leaving for Indiana until the first week of August, we will be moving out of our house at the end of the month. We will be traveling to family reunions for a couple weeks in July, so we thought we might as well save rent money since we will be gone so much anyway. Gratefully Brian's parents are letting us stay at their condo here in Yakima. This week I was able to sell both of the kid's dressers, which is great, but it also means that their clothes are just sitting in plastic tubs on the floor in their rooms. As I start selling our furniture on craigslist we will have more and more empty spaces, possibly sitting on the floor instead of the couch for a bit. It is always hard to know when to post items to sell, not knowing when someone will buy. Oh, well. It will be short lived.