Military Husbands

(This is part of an ongoing series on Permanent Change of Station moves. To read the rest of the posts, click here.)

4. Get Organized. As your moving date gets closer (ours is 6 days out!), your To-Do list will get long. A lot of the things that need to get done all have to happen right at the end.

We had our pre-move inspection last week, during which I made sure the inspector took note of insane number of books we own. I also made sure she heard the story of our last pack-out, when the packers arrived at our place only to take one look inside and say, “We didn’t bring enough boxes,” whereupon they left for another hour and a half.

Between the morning's delay and their long lunch, they were at my house until 10 o'clock that night.

In an effort to avoid that this time, we're trying to be super-organized. Check that: my wife is the organized one; I'm just trying to be as useful as possible. So last weekend we disassembled the office and touched up the paint. We moved furniture. We filled Rubbermaid tubs with stuff that we’ll be bringing in the cars.

This weekend we're organizing the basement, taking stuff down from the scary loft, and donating or throwing out everything we know we won't need at the other end.

Here’s a handy (though by no means exhaustive) list of a few things you’ll need to think about after the jump:

-Take care of any necessary doctor/dentist visits. Do this before you move so you don’t have to wait for all the paperwork to catch up with you at your new duty station.

-Get your prescriptions refilled. If they're even close to running out, stock up now.

-Prep your house for the packers. Bring those boxes down from the attic. Bring your tools up from the basement. Put anything you don’t want packed into a separate room or closet with a sign on it that says “Don’t Pack Anything in This Room!”

-Get empty weight tickets for your vehicles.

-Make a packing list.