August marks the start of a new blog series where I’ll give you a Behind the Scenes peek into each of my books. This week, in honor of heading back to school, I’ll give you a peek into our family adventures of dorm moving that prompted the book: Into The Dorm!
When we packed for our first dorm move – over six years ago – we thought we had it together. The list of do’s and don’t’s from the school. The list of ‘must haves’ for our daughter and her new roomie to feel at home. The lists of things we thought were essential and useful.
We got it all wrong. Oh, most of the important things got to the school, but during the unloading it was clear we’d significantly hampered the process. We’d used more open totes and crates instead of boxes, thinking about multi-tasking.
But when nothing can stack, it makes carrying things up flights of stairs or even into the elevator a far bigger challenge. We didn’t really plan efficiently and we didn’t utilize the hamper or fridge as extra ‘packing space’.
All these years and countless moves in and out of dorms, we’re better at it. The kids make lists – and use them. We use boxes (and label them) more than totes and crates. We have separate staging areas so the right fridge winds up at the right school with the right child. (this is important since we typically pack towels or tshirts into the fridges).
We make car load lists for moving in and moving out. A tool we discovered when were all so thrilled we had extra room in the car, only to discover the fridge was standing there shining back at us from the garage.
Now we do final walk-throughs before we call a load complete – which is the only reason the carpet got into the car one year and the only reason the hairdryer and haircare box made it to the car another year.
Heading back to school is a time so full of promise and excitement and I hope some of our lessons learned help make your transition (be it this year or years from now) easier for your family!
Live the adventure!
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