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When we were kids, quite a few of us on the weekend would pester our parents. We were bored. There was nothing on the tv and they couldn’t play the “do your homework” card because we aced it the night before.

The conversation went something like this:

Kid: There’s nothing to do.

Dad: Sure there is, why don’t you grab the rake from the …

Kid (interrupting): No. No. I mean, let’s go out and do something.

Dad: O.K. Go tell your mother that we’re getting out of the house. And son, invite her along.

Bolstered, you run into the living room where mom is fiddling with a jigsaw puzzle.

Kid: Mom, dad says we’re going to go out. Wanna come?

Mom: Sure. My eyes are blurry from this puzzle. Where are we going?

That’s when everything comes to a cold, dead stop. Where are we going? What will we do? No one has bothered to come up with a plan. We’re just not going to pile into the Ford and sit in the driveway.

Without missing a beat, you snap into overdrive, “It’s a surprise!”

Get a Plan, Stan

It’s enough of a pain in the neck to cart everything you own and move to another city, Stressful. But at least it’s the foundation of a plan. There’s more to picking-up stuff, placing it somewhere else. Like with the “let’s go out and do something” example, what if there’s no gas in the car, your little sister wants to go or one of a bunch of other things raise their ugly heads.

Relocating doesn’t mean stuffing your school, the family doctor and your local bank in the truck with the boxes. You don’t want to get to another part of the planet with you possessions when someone says “What do we do now?” A bad reply is “It’s a surprise!”

Week-to-Week Reference Guide

We’ll start a month away from the actual move. At the four-week mark, here’s your checklist:

Three weeks before everything is seated snugly in the moving van, take care of this business:

At the two-week mark, check these from the master plan:

We are now just one week away. Most of the heavy lifting is over. There are a couple of things to finish-off, though:

It’s down to the wire. Three days before the trucks arrive; you have some simple bows to tie:

This should change the phrase “It’s a surprise!” to “It’s under control.” Keep the bolt from the blue for your next birthday party at the new homestead.