Planning a move is never a simple thing once you've accumulated more belongings than you can put in the trunk of a car. Unfortunately, we have accumulated way more than that!

Since my job now is to get us ready for our big move, the first thing I decided to do is to think about our Mexico plan. We intend to sell our house here and move down there for a six month trial - taking nothing with us but some clothes and the dogs. We'll rent for six months, probably in a couple of different places. If we decide we want to make the committment, we will probably buy a house. But if we don't decide to stay in Mexico, we will move back to the US...probably to a place with a little better climate than Washington State.

First and foremost I need to work on my attachment to things. We want our belongings to fit into a 13' x 10' storage locker. And the things in the locker need to be the essentials - things that we really can't imagine a life without - whether it is in Mexico or here.

I have some wonderful things that belonged to my parents, but my kids would appreciate them as much as I have. I need to just let go.

The things that are already at the top of the "keep" list are:

• artwork
• kitchen things like the Le Creuset, the espresso machine
• our 6' long cherry kitchen table
• a couple of nice rugs

But there are a number of items that I would hate to sell because I use them a lot and love them, like:

• the nordic track
• my very favorite gardening tools

I also need to be concerned with making sure the things we keep are things that will be ok stored for an unknown amount of time.

Yesterday I started cleaning out our basement exercise room. One side of the garage is now "garage sale" stuff, one side is for "dump" stuff. I've already mostly filled the recycle bin. There are a ton of old bank statements that I need to shred, and three boxes of kid memories, my old poetry, old letters, and writing and mementos of my mom and dad. All that will take a while to go through. The couch down there is good, just needs the pillow covers cleaned. I need to see if Phil wants the pinball machine, and put an ad on Craig's List for the couch and other items. Once the room is cleaned out I'll repaint it and get new carpet installed. It's going to be like that for every room!

There is a certain element of fun in going through things - but I have learned that too much stuff is a burden, too.

-Nancy