We're at less than a month before we move into our Motorhome. Now, it's crunchtime and we have to get this stuff out of here.  I think I've finally come up with a process that seems to be working, fingers crossed.

We have four piles now.  

The first is trash.  Most everything valuable has already been donated.  

The next pile is what we will store in tubs at my mom's house. This is sentimental stuff that we just can't bring ourselves to discard.  I feel good, though, that it's only six tubs.

The next pile is RV necessities.  Next week, after we pick up Lulu from the dealers, I will start taking one tub at a time and putting stuff away and getting organized.

Lastly, are the RV luxuries.  These are the tubs of stuff (mostly from hubby) that we'll see if they fit into the RV after we get everything organized.  These will stay at my mom's until we're moved in and have everything settled.  If we can find space, great.  If not, the stuff will be discarded.

TOILET UPDATE:  Turns out getting a lid is difficult when aforementioned toilet is 25 years old.  So, off to Home Depot for me to buy a new toilet.  Fairly straightforward, right?

Wrong.  Because the new toilets are shaped differently, once we put the wax seal down along with the screws to hold the toilet in place, we found out that because the toilet was sitting on tile, the screws were too short. Hence the removal of six tiles.  Finding matching 25 year old tile is not easy.  So we decided to go the other way.  My sister, the tile expert is going to lay mosaic tile.  It will be easy to cut and will look great.

​All for a broken toilet lid.

Wow, things are starting to really move fast!  After three weeks of contractors underfoot (who are doing a great job, by the way), it seems impossible to get done what I need to get done.  So, time for a huddle and a new plan.  I think that's been one of the most important parts of getting through this major project.  You have to stay flexible, because things will change in an instant.  For example, what we thought would be a minor ceiling repair turned into a new roof in one section.  Priorities have changed every day and while it's been overwhelming and frustrating at times, we've tried every evening to just sit down and watch some rv-related videos, just to help us remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

So, Change number 312 involves our timeline.  Instead of moving out the last week of March, our new move out date is St. Patrick's Day, March 17.  This will give the contractors two weeks without us underfoot to finish their projects and get the floors done.

Of course, it puts more pressure on me to get things done, organized and moved out.  With a lot of help, we've gotten most everything to be donated already gone.  we now have two piles.  One is storage - things that we'll store at my mom's house.  In addition, since we have so much stuff to move into the RV that we haven't gotten back yet from the dealer, we've decided to put everything that's going into the RV in tubs to be held at my mom's house.  This means that once we move in, I can get one or two tubs a day and put things away at my leisure, instead of tripping over things.

One important lesson I've learned...   I have scanned in three decades of photos.  I did all the most important albums first.  By the time I got to pictures that we may want but are not as important in sentimental value, i put 6 to 8 pictures on the scanner flatbed and scanned them together in one jpeg.  It made the job go a lot faster.

One big project I justhave to brag about - we got our basement cleaned out!  This was the throw all for 28 years and it looked like a hoarder's paradise.  (no offense meant to any hoarders out there).  Hubby kept one tub full of important tools.  My sister got a few things, and our contractor is buying most of out big tools and taking the cost out of what I'm paying her.  The rest?  It took three of us all day to empty it out and throw it in the ditch for pick up, but it's done!  I've been dreading it because it was so full, but it's done.  What relief!  Below are a few before and after pictures of our walls.