The Megan and Eric Guide to Packing

Box Tetris

I love getting rid of things. That's weird, right? It just brings me so much pleasure to clean, remove excess, and be left with only the possessions that I truly love and rely on. Moving halfway across the country is a pretty perfect activity for someone like me, so as we trek across the western US, I thought I would sum up what the past few months have entailed, packing-wise.

Step 1: Purge continuously, throughout the year. This makes it much easier to pack for a cross country move. There’s no need to hold onto those free paper coasters that you won from a dinky museum giveaway 1.5 years ago, ahem.

Step 2: Garage Sale! Thankfully Mom has a garage only 2.5 hours away from Austin to use for the sale.

Step 3: Donate, donate, donate. Books and videos to Half-Priced Books, school supplies to Staples, bike parts to Yellow Bike Project, and everything else to Goodwill.

Step 4: Make sure you have friends who ‘will never say no to anything’. A sister just getting set up in an apartment is also a useful dumping ground.

Step 5: Make an incredible surplus of meals in your last few days of having a fully stocked kitchen: pad thai, pesto pasta (using broccoli, kale, and basil pestos found in the depths of the freezer), zucchini bread, blueberry pancakes, pound cake, cornbread, thai stew (curry minus the coconut milk since you forgot to buy it at the store), wheat bread loaf, baked asian buns, tomato and cheese grits, and sushi...phew!

Step 6: Pack the rest into boxes scavenged from recycling bins. Now you’re ready to load up a shipping container bound for the best coast.