Kitchen Packing 101

So I've been sitting here, feeling all smug about how much I've been able to pack in advance and how prepared I am to move. Well, last night slammed me back down to reality - I still have a LOT to pack. While my room may be white and my bookshelves are bare, those kitchen cabinets were hiding a lot of goodies. I started by emptying all of my belongings out of the cabinets and putting them all on the kitchen table (good thing we eat in the living room!). When I ran out of room on our not-small dining room table, I started to get worried. I own a lot of stuff! For six years I have been accumulating kitchen items so that when it came time to finally live by myself, I wouldn't have to buy anything. Well, it's safe to say that I've succeeded. To make matters worse, I have absolutely no idea how to pack all of these oddly shaped, mostly fragile items for a trek across the country. The biggest move I've made is from College Park to Arlington and I barely owned anything, and I certainly didn't own any stemware.

Why had I previously thought it was an excellent idea to own red wine glasses, white wine glasses, champagne flutes, and martini glasses? When was the last time I even HAD a martini?? Thankfully, my margarita glasses are plastic. But that was my task for last night. I wrapped them all carefully in paper then tried to fit them properly into a box. I threw in a few layers of dish cloths for safe measure, but I have no idea in what state they will arrive.

I miss the easy packing of books and DVDs. Nice, square, impossible to damage items that required much less strategy when boxing up. Kitchen items leave me with oddly shaped holes and missing spaces that cause me to wander the house, looking for items to fill the voids. I am now randomly placing items within a box generally marked "kitchen" and, combined with the not-so-occasional glass of wine or beer that accompanies packing, my unpacking will certainly be highlighted with "why did I pack THAT in THIS box?" moments. Or, perhaps the unpacking will also be accompanied by beer and wine and everything will seem completely logical!