How NOT to prepare for pack-out--2

Why sort out an enormous pile of books, clothes and toiletries when you can make jewelry?  The sorting was particularly painful this year because we are shipping to 4 destinations.  I am not kidding.  Imagine five packers here at once asking where everything goes:  storage, China, Virginia for language training or Austin for vacation.  I am not complaining, because the government pays for it and hires a good company to do all the work.

So, all in all, it was an excellent time to procrastinate.  Those cluster earrings are done one bead at a time.  What a pain.  My English neighbor comes over once a month with her own bead projects.  She introduced me to an English designer called Azuni.

These are typical: teardrop shapes and dangles inside of loops.  Dangles and loops were the inspiration for the necklace, with a ruby dangle inside two loops of beads.  The earrings are actually the first project I wanted to try 10 years ago when my mom first introduced me to beading.  Needless to say, I would have been in way over my head back then.

How not to prepare for pack-out was a post in Oman about the phenomenon of getting sidetracked with unimportant details.  In that case, spice jars needed labels and you can still see white labels on two of the black lids.  Back then, I caught myself after I had done six and quit.  By the time I got to the destination, the project was not important enough to finish.  Here and now, the packers were really strict and would not pack them.  Boo-hoo.  My neighbor generously adopted my babies.  I am poking fun at myself, but these were lovingly collected from around the world.  For example, I could not part with the cinnamon sticks.   My maid had them sent from her own backyard in Sri Lanka.  (Click for a link to that post.)

The movers made us take the two axes out of the camping gear.  One went yesterday in a box by US mail with the spices and the other went in Winston’s luggage.  He has the biggest suitcase, but since he doesn’t bother to fold anything, it is always the lightest.  Troy tasked the boys with breaking up some really stout lumber from his mat for weightlifting.  Troy’s idea was that they jump on it.  They had other ideas.

Wyatt:  We have an axe!

Me: Yikes, I don’t know about that.  Would Daddy approve?

Tristan:  We have badges (from Boy Scouts).  We earned them.

Me:  OK.  Be safe.

Wyatt is making little angled chops on both sides until it is weak enough to break.  I am amazed at my own kids.  THEY know how to prepare for pack-out.