In just sixteen short days, we will be leaving for Africa.  Please allow Jessie Spano to illustrate how I feel about all the things that we must accomplish between now and then:

The main chore standing between us and Africa is figuring out what to do with all of our stuff. You would be amazed at the amount of stuff we have managed to squirrel away in this one-bedroom apartment.  We discovered stuff that we didn’t even know that we had, some of which was useful (an old iPhone plug underneath some shoes in our closet, score!), and some of it which was decidedly not (my pre-BAPCPA copy of the Bankruptcy Code that is helpful to exactly no one).

We devoted a large chunk of last weekend to sorting our stuff into six piles: take to Africa, store at our folks’ houses, sell, donate, give to friends, and throw away. There were a few minor disagreements (I didn’t think we needed to retain free hotel shampoos, Marc didn’t think we needed to keep the Twilight books),¹ but we managed to sort a good percentage of our stuff.

But you know how, when you’re cleaning, things get worse before they get better? That’s the state that we’re living in right now. It’s time to execute on the piles: carrying the sacks of give-away stuff to Goodwill, boxing up our books, selling our remaining furniture.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us.  I think we’re going to need a lot of coffee, and to keep our eyes on the prize:

So … is anyone interested in buying a bookcase?

¹ Admittedly, Marc is probably right on both counts. Miniature  items from hotels are probably useful for traveling, and I think it goes without saying that reading Stephenie Meyer’s saga about sparkling vampires once is more than enough.