I actually blogged about this a little back in 2008.

Moving preparations continue. We are at T-3 days until the packers come. T-9 days until we leave the area.

We are starting to gather the items we don’t want the movers to pack. Some of the items are for our personal use for the week of homelessness. Clothing, towels, school-related items, paperwork, DVDs, a small TV, some lawn chairs. Many of the items are for security reasons: jewelry, photographs, my violin, our Wii system, insurance policies.

In North Carolina, it was easy to put the items in a room: Timmy was outgrowing his toddler bed, so sold it. We then moved Timmy’s stuff into Jacob’s room and the guest room we had. You can see the picture in the link above of how full it got.

It wasn’t so easy here. Our current “Do Not Pack” room has our full-sized guest bed disassembled and propped up it’s edge. It’s going into the living room just before the movers come. So far our room has the important paperwork, sleeping bags, air mattress, my violin, my worm bin, some cleaning supplies.

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

When the packers arrive on Tuesday, the room will be closed off, with a giant blue masking tape “X” across the door.

There will be some other items that can’t necessarily go into that room that also won’t be packed. Dave’s train layout, Howie’s dog dish, the couch we’re trying to sell on Craig’s List. That’s where these will come in handy:

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

I printed them out the other night — 4 “DO NOT PACK” statements to a sheet — and had the boys cut the strips for me. They had fun with this. I’ll probably let Jacob go around the house taping them in place on Monday.