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Keep on Packin'




I've been having lots of help packing for our move, lucky for me, so the pain has been minimum.  Two sisters and a niece came to visit me for 4 days last weekend and they motivated me to get back into the packing mode.  We accomplished packing the kitchen and the dreaded pantry.


 I'd say that half of the food in the pantry was out-dated and went into the garbage. I am so glad that our new house does NOT have a pantry.  I'm very bad with a pantry.  It gets out of control way too fast and soon I can't find anything or know what's even in it.  Now that I cleaned it out and packed it up, I feel so cleansed.  A big accomplishment. That's why I'm reading the popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Japanese author and cleaning consultant, Marie Kondo.  I try to keep her concepts in mind while I'm packing for this move - only keep items that bring me joy - but when I start to unpack and put things away, I will really study her guidelines because I don't want to clutter my new house full of stuff and then forget what I have.  I'm sort of on a time crunch here, but when I unpack, I will have a lot more time on my hands in Seattle.  


My niece helped me by posting stuff on Craigslist which I haven't done in the past.  She is an expert at it and did it all on her smart phone. Amazing!  I ended up making $230 in 2 days. My sisters also have experience on Craigslist so they gave me pointers on Craigslist etiquette like taking down my post as soon as I sell an item, don't barter down on the price on the first day (which allowed me to get full price - which was still a great deal), etc. Much easier than a garage sale...

Everyone who bought stuff was so nice and I enjoyed talking with them.  Some drove really far to get a measly $30 item..really??  Most the stuff I was selling was horse or animal stuff which I definitely will not be using in Seattle.  Actually, I haven't been using any of it for the past 9 years...Claire was very happy when we sold her the horse trailer since she has 2 horses in Montana and I'm very happy to help her out after all the help she gave me last weekend.


 We did have to leave the house one morning for a real estate agent to come show the house so we went out to breakfast.  Packing works up a good appetite, you know.

We did eat well and I fed my visitors the favorites during their visit including Herbs de Provence Lamb Chops


with macarons from Trader Joe's for dessert which are supposedly the closest thing to the real thing from France. If you've never had them before, they are a sweet meringue-based confection made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar and almond powder. The flavors from Trader Joe's package are fig, salted caramel, coconut, pistachio, apricot and lemon.  They will change up their flavors for the season.  I bought some pumpkin macarons in the fall.  They are a perfect little dessert that have just the right amount of sweetness, a real special treat.  Everyone ought to keep a box in their freezer for that special drop-in guest.  My guests went through 2 boxes in no time.


How can you resist? They taste has beautiful as they look.

We had a second barbecue of salmon from Bruce's fishing trip that we are trying to eat up so we won't have as much frozen fish to move. 

I threw on some little squash, again from Trader Joe's, to go along with the salmon that made up a delicious meal.


A lot of our patio furniture is also packed but we managed to find enough sitting spots for everyone to enjoy a nice evening
and a nice sunset.


Half of our house, including patio furniture, is currently being stored in pods.com. We had them come the beginning of May to put all our stuff in for "staging" our house. The pod is now in Washington state ready to be delivered to our Seattle house's driveway next week when we will start to unpack our stuff into our new house (with my bible in hand - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up)  After 17 years of accumulating stuff, we'll see if this book works for me.  


We also had an Open House last Sunday which meant that we all had to exit the premises in perfect condition.  I let my visitors know this ahead of time so they were prepared.  So, we planned a really fun outing of wine tasting in our Idaho Wine Country called Sunnyslope Trail.  It consists of around a dozen wineries, 2 of which we visited last Sunday.  Our first stop was Bitner Vineyards which also had lovely live music to enjoy.
I liked their special wine selections...
Cheers to Bitner Vineyards!

Our second stop was Hell's Canyon Winery which is my favorite.  They have a spin-off called Zhoo Zhoo wines which is the daughter's line of wines which are also really good.


We really enjoyed their grounds,




their beautiful gardens 


and their chickens.
Who says packing has to be a pain.  This has been way too much fun.  This week I'm doing the same, just keep on packin'.












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