Cleaning Out in Preparation for the Big Move

Giving away and selling most of our worldly goods has been sometimes quite stressful and at other times so rewarding. Since we are moving to Ecuador with just what we can carry in our luggage, we are truly unloading.

True confession time...Chuck and I both have a pack rat tendency. Through the years we have traveled a lot, on each trip buying treasures and storing them away. After our children grew up and left home we had more and more space to "store things." This was never a problem because we rarely went into the basement to see our "treasures." Out of sight - out of mind.

We have done real well so far. We have put back special items for our children. We have given family and friends some things. We have sold and are selling some smaller items on eBay and larger items on Craig's List.

One thing that makes it difficult for me is that we are not completely emptying the house. We are leaving it furnished because we think it will show better when we put our house on the market next spring.


As I am writing this blog, Chuck is downstairs turning what was his shop into a bedroom.


Our clock is starting to run out of time because our calendar is getting full. We are leaving on October 2 to return to Cuenca for a couple of weeks to get our paperwork started for our residency visa. We will take our first load of belongings in our luggage. (70 lbs. each) We return about October 18 and will have a couple of more weeks.

In November, we will meet our Brazilian friends, Vanessa and Ricardo, in Las Vegas and spend a week touring that part of the country including the Grand Canyon. We will return home mid November. The last ten days of November our daughter and grandson are coming from Puerto Rico to spend "Thanksmas" with our family here. (We are combining Christmas and Thanksgiving since we will be in Ecuador for Christmas.)

Kylie and Bryce leave for home on December 5 and Chuck and I head out for Ecuador on December 6.

It is our intention to leave the house ready to put on the market when we return in April.

In the meantime, we are enjoying family and friends.

Here is Heidi (our granddaughter) at her gymnastics class.


Here is our friend Glenda and Chuck. We are squeezing out as much use as we can of our backyard before the weather turns too cold.


In the midst of this I am selling on eBay. Here is a Russian hand painted Lacquer Khokhloma bowl that is ending it's auction today.


I just discovered Craig's List this month and we have sold some larger items on it. Here is Chuck and his brother helping a lady, who bought our roll top desk, get it into the back of her pickup truck.


We have special items that are not easy to let go. This is our Chrysler Masariti TC convertible that we bought when I refused to ride my scooter across country. We toured the USA in it a couple of years ago. Maybe today we will take pictures of it with the hard top on so we can list it on Craig's List.


If you are interested and would like, you can follow along with us as we sell on eBay and Craig's List. To see our "stuff" on eBay my seller name is Nancy-Carol. On Craig's list we are located in Washington state in the Kennewick, Pasco, Richland area. I list all my items in Craig's List beginning with MTE which stands for (Move to Ecuador). So if you put MTE in the search line everything I have for sell will appear.

I still have two lists to make. One is to prioritize what we are going to take to Ecuador and get the most important there in this first load. The other is to make a list of all the things we need to get accomplished on this two week trip.

We are very busy and very excited.