Within december, I have to move to a new home (in the same village).
For now, I am checking the moving agencies hoping they will transport all content of the old home to the new one.
But there is a lot of unprocessed / out of date stuff around, mainly in the basement. With Christmas coming, a family event next weekend and major work-related changes a forknight ahead, I feel somewhat overwhelmed.
Any help focussing on the real important things welcome (I tried the forum search briefly without succeeding, but I don´t want to fall into unproductive websurfing).
We are in the middle of a major kitchen rehab which required moving everything out of our kitchen and setting up a “kitchenette” in our family room with a microwave and hot plate. We identified key kitchen utensils and foods which we could prepare, triaged a fair bit of the pantry, and packed most everything else. We bought a good quantity of disposable plasticware and paper goods, although we have been able to reuse most of the plastic stuff so far. A key step early on was a crude estimate of how many boxes we would need, and how long it would take to pack. We were close enough to get it done on time.
We did this just before Thanksgiving.We usually help out with the cooking for my mother in law, who is 89, by cooking a second turkey and extra dressing, as well as a vegetarian entree and meat loaf for Friday night. She had 35 family members for Thanksgiving. A family decision was made to buy prepared food for all dinners.
This past Tuesday my daughter-in-law gave birth to a third daughter, so my wife left town to help with care for the older siblings (2 & 4). I’m conferring with her by phone on some unforeseen kitchen issues.
This is all good and happy stuff. Can it cause stress? You bet! But busy with happy stuff should be happy, so we need to find ways to keep happy. This means compromises. I didn’t go with my wife because her work schedule allowed her to go, but mine didn’t. I’ll see my new granddaughter for the first time later in December. I’m eating complete junk while she’s gone, because it’s hard to prepare nutritious meals now. (Pro tip: a raw vegetable party platter is the easiest way to get fresh vegetables with no cooking and no prep.) For the first time, we didn’t cook our own Thanksgiving dinner, but we did celebrate with many family members from all over the country. I get baby pictures even if I don’t get to hold the baby. GTD is of course an important tool for handling everything, but by itself it is rather neutral to moods and feelings. If you’re good at GTD, you can do it while sad too. Good luck!
