Packing And More Packing

It has been a busy time preparing for our second and final move of furniture and household items to Scottsdale. The U-Box containers were delivered on Friday and carefully placed on the driveway by a beautiful female forklift operator wearing a sparkly silver headband (girl power!) I have finished going through everything inside the house that I would like to send except for the basement. There is not a lot there, just some jackets and more wintery clothes to sell and some jewelry props. At first I was going to leave these clothes behind but decided to just send them all. Local folks do go up to the mountains where it is totally winter weather and also their blood is thinner than ours so they feel the need to bundle up when the temperature is in the 50s. I remember in my Marquette days that when temps rose above 50 degrees, that was the time the students would break out their shorts! Since I am always overheated, I was fine with nothing heavier than a light jacket, even in the evenings and only had to turn the heat on a few nights the one winter we spent there. I know that will change with Kuochun along because he gets cold more easily.

I was given the advice to use the clothing as padding material to tighten up the empty spaces in the containers. We sure have plenty! Mother preferred to bin hers up but Kuochun and I put ours in garbage bags. My pieces are folded and laid flat into sections and I double-bagged them. Kuochun just threw his clothing in bags so we will have different size bags to pad the containers with. This was the first time Kuochun has ever cleaned out his closet since he moved in with me and it was still filled with his pre-retirement wardrobe of business casual clothing. We donated some pieces and he will sell quite a bit of the rest. Surprisingly he is not leaving a lot behind and will keep most of it in Scottsdale. We have found that during the busy estate sale season there just is not much time to get out and do anything other than an occasional meal out. On the other hand, there is an endless list of things to do in Scottsdale so we will be getting out a lot more there.

Normally I am the type of person to not worry about things unless something bad happens but this process of moving the items cross country has come with a lot of stress. So far I have been very happy with the U-Haul process and hope that our belongings make it to Arizona safely.

I did not post a jewelry lot this week because there is so much to do. At first I was going to send all of my Replica Surfaces to Scottsdale. Just prior to Kuochun's heart attack he had shipped my Replica Surfaces Studio to me and I had 6 new Surfaces sent to Scottsdale as well. I just had to have the Studio when it first came out and never had the chance to use it here at home. In Scottsdale it should be a different story because nearly every day is beautiful weather and I will be able to take the Studio out into natural light just about any time I want. This is definitely a time where saving shipping boxes paid off. I was able to easily pack up the Surfaces in their original boxes. At the last minute, I decided to keep one Surface at home. I will use the color scheme of the black and white cowhide with turquoise stitching and the black wood Surface here at home and order another colorway of the cowhide on Etsy and create another color scheme to use in Arizona. I have loved working with this combination of materials but the cowhide placemat I ordered is not quite wide enough to cover my light box. This next time I will have a custom runner made to perfectly fit the light box and it will work with the Studio as well. All of the brown and white wood jewelry props will go to Scottsdale, I will keep the black ones here. And finally, over time I bought a bunch of wood lazy Susans and cake plates which I thought I would use as jewelry props. It turns out that they are too tall and the only way to use them as I envisioned would be to take the risers off. They are too nice to do that so I will send some of them away to use as display during our moving in sale as well as future downsizing sales. I already have four medium size cases there but I will be sending the large case with a rustic wood frame and stenciled black arrows because it will look great with the other props. I will definitely be ready to roll when future jewelry selling opportunities come up. I will need to reign myself in though and try to balance work/life better!

For now though I am still in recovery mode due to the insurance company refusing to pay my claim. The retainer is on its way back to me so that will definitely help. The policy is coming up for renewal on October 6 and with the addition of the car it is a good time to change companies. I ran a quote with Lemonade Insurance but it was really high. Mother had switched to AAA here at home but they do not underwrite insurance in Arizona. We have State Farm so I found a local office close to home and with great reviews and they are working on a quote for me. I should be able to get a discount since we have the home and two cars here.

We have not received any news on the car yet so travel plans are still on hold. The U-Box containers will be loaded next Tuesday with the help of a couple of guys from the Dolly app and I am having U-Haul pick them up next Friday. That way if they do not do a great job loading I will have time to make corrections.

Kuochun finishes cardiac rehab next Wednesday and his last doctor's appointment is October 7. The car is supposed to be in October 8 but we will not be there that soon. I have an annual checkup October 17 but I do not feel it is a necessity since my health is good and my last checkup was in December. The U-Box containers have a guaranteed arrival date of October 13 and I have until the 23rd to get them emptied, otherwise I would have to pay another month's rentals. We will see how the plane fares are once we know when the car will be there. Maybe they will be too high and we will end up driving which would all be well and good with me. It would be so much easier to bring the dogs, computer, mid-century modern china set and jewelry in the car. It will be a great feeling to have this all settled, it is definitely a lot with work and everything else going on.

We decided that I would get a new iPhone 14 Pro Max so we could use my old iPhone XS Max as a landline. We were able to get everything switched over and now have the flexibility of having a portable business line. One big benefit I did not expect was that apparently customers were texting the landline by mistake. We are now receiving those texts! It will be extra work to keep checking the phone and sending the texts to Melinda but worth it to keep the communication lines flowing. We do need to go back to Verizon Monday as my new and old phones are overlapping data. For fun, Kuochun mentioned that he wanted a new phone and that caught the salesman's attention. I said it would not hurt to see what the phone would cost after a trade-in. Well good thing we asked because Verizon is running a promotion and the iPhone 14 Pro was FREE with trade-in! All Kuochun had to pay was sales tax on the phone and a $35 activation fee. The only color they had left was Deep Purple so we now have matching phones. It really worked out because he prefers the smaller phone.

There was no new jewelry lot this weekend in order to keep up with the rest but I feel confident that I will be able to post lots these next two weekends before we go. I also plan to post some individual items because if I can get them sold, then I do not have to carry them on the airplane with me. I am planning to split my personal jewelry in half so I do not need to deal with bringing it back and forth. The problem is that I love it all and would miss it!

Finally, I bought an online dog training course called Ultimate Barking Solution. The course is geared specifically towards small dogs and says that we should be able to get their barking under control in 7 days or less. That certainly is good because we do not have much time! The only drawback about the Scottsdale home is that barking is not "allowed" and we quickly found out it is not tolerated either. Once the crunch time of getting the U-Boxes on their way is over I will definitely be focusing on this course.

That is all for now, there should be more jewelry news next time!