How to Move Again without Losing My Mind

I hate moving. Truly, I do. Some folks might like purging their homes of excess stuff and setting up house somewhere else. Yeah, I'm not one of those people.

But unfortunately, I have to move. We're renting a home while my husband is in law school and our contract is up. We had hoped to renew for at least another year, but sadly the home may be going into foreclosure. So, it's time to find a new place to call home.

We're headed to California for most of the summer, so we're taking a risk and putting our house-hunting on hold for a bit. I'm praying that we find another rental in the same school zone. I adore the elementary school that Ella has been going to for the past two years and don't want to change. So, we'll be storing our belongings until we find a new place later in the summer after our return from California. We're so thankful for friends who are willing to put a roof over our heads for the few weeks between when we need to move out and when the girls are done with school.

So, in an effort to procrastinate from the actual packing, I researched some ways to make the move easier. It's what I call productive procrastination. Hopefully, I don't procrastinate so much that these tips become useless! :) Here are some great articles that I found:

• Moving On: Tips for an Organized Move from Organized Home - Years ago when we moved into our first home, I read up on moving. I stumbled upon this article and LOVED the idea of using printer labels to mark the boxes. Organized Home recommends putting one label in the upper left-hand corner of each side of the box. That way you don't have to turn the box a specific way to see what's inside. Next stop? The store to get some labels!
• How to Move & Keep Track of Your Stuff from Find Joy in the Journey - I gotta say, Shannon is brilliant! Her tips will come in soooo handy since we'll be living across town for a few weeks and storing some, but not all, of our belongings. I'm sure there will be some things that we need for those few weeks before we start living out of our suitcases in California. She uses labels for the boxes too, but I'd use four labels per box instead of one.
• An Essential Checklist for Moving into a New Home from Simple Mom - Tsh has some great tips for actual move-IN day. Our move-out and move-in days are going to be separated by a few months. If I'm smart, I'll make sure that we have the essentials packed and easily identifiable before we head west. Then, after the road trip home, we'll be all set to move-in to our new place.

Do you have any great moving tips? I'm all ears!