Packing for the Foreign Service- "It's Our Move..."

Today was my last day of work- very sad. It doesn't feel like a last day, and I even forgot to turn in my work keys, so I'll be back. Haha. We had a happy hour for Elliott (a colleague of mine who is also heading out this week) and I...of course I forgot to take photos at the happy hour with other people, but here are a few from my last day.

Taking down my name placard

My sad looking, empty office- ready for Otha, the new advisor (I couldn't find a "before"photo, but if I do, I'll post it). 

Aside from preparing for my last days at work, the past few weeks, I have also been preparing for the move from Boulder to DC (and Jamaica).

Luckily, we do get quite a bit of support from the State Department. They will pack, move, and store all of our stuff (for the most part), so most of my work thus far has been sorting and purging. They gave us a booklet called "It's Your Move" that outlined the policies, recommendations, and how the whole packout process works. Hopefully I did everything correctly!!

The State Department divides our stuff into a few different categories that I had to sort things:

1. UAB (Unaccompanied Baggage)- these are things that we want more quickly upon arrival to our destination (at this time, to DC, but we'll do this again for Jamaica). Adam was allowed 250 lbs. to send to DC, which arrived about 3 weeks after he had moved there. Those items were things he wanted in DC, such as the Kitchenaid, blender, rice cooker, and Fall/Winter clothes. I get 200 lbs. of UAB, of which I hope to ship our pots/pans, knives, some shoes and clothing, hangers, some short-term scrapbooking items, a shredder, and a few other miscellaneous things. I'm worried I've gone over the 200 lbs, even though it doesn't look like much.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. HHE (Household Effects)- these are the things that we want either stored in DC or shipped to Jamaica. This includes things like furniture, linens & towels, kitchen goods, and in my case...way too much scrapbooking and crafting supplies. The challenge for me was that I needed to sort based on what we want for Jamaica but temporarily stored while we are in DC, and stuff that we want to store in the US while we are overseas. I've tried to group them as best as possible, but I am sure we'll end up having to do some minor sorting once more before we leave. I don't know where all this junk came from!
   
   
   
   
   Stuff going to storage (not Jamaica). Mostly scrapbook albums and camping/winter gear
   
   
   
   The majority of our junk that will be heading to Jamaica- too much stuff. We really need to cut it down some more.
   
   
   The State Department permits us to pack, ship, and store up to 18,000 lbs of HHE, but we are definitely not anywhere near that since we don't have furniture and are coming from a 2 bedroom apartment (versus others who might be moving from a 4 bedroom household). Of that 18,000 lbs maximum, we are permitted to ship 7,200 lbs of the HHE to Jamaica (I am anticipating we are well below that, even though I think we have a ton of junk- any guesses what our number will be?)- this does not include our car, which they will also ship.
3. Checked baggage (or in my case, baggage for my trunk since I'm driving)- I have a small amount of stuff that I am taking with me in the car on my drive to DC. That's right- I'm driving to DC so that we can have our car out there. I'm bringing clothes to last me about a few weeks, our important files, a laptop/laptop bag, my camera bag, and a box of food- because I simply can't throw food away. 

The movers arrive on Thursday morning, I hope to have the apartment cleaned up by Friday morning/afternoon, Mom and Dad fly in on Saturday, and we hit the road on Sunday! Another nice thing about the State Department- since they will have shipped off all my stuff including my bed,  I'll be staying in a hotel in Boulder from Thursday-Sunday. Less worries on my end!

Can't believe it is already time to head out! Not sure I'm ready to bid CU Boulder and Colorado farewell!