I have too much stuff

It feels like I may never be finished packing but the movers are coming tomorrow morning at eight so I have to be finished before then. I suspect I may be having another late night tonight. I'm nearly at a stage where I have one room (the bedroom) completely finished, which means I can start shifting boxes in there. That moves those boxes out of the way of the few cupboards in the sitting room that aren't quite finished yet. And then it's the bit I've been dreading, the large built in, stuffed to the gills, cupboards in the hallway. If I don't quite have the kitchen packed up it's not the end of the world as I'd be able to finish it in the morning while the movers start on everything else. Since I'm on the 4th floor and there's no lift, they'll be taking a while to get everything down. But the hall cupboards are right beside the front door so they absolutely must be emptied before they start.

I went through most of my jars at the weekend. Any of those which were just empty jars of bought foodstuffs (friends used to donate them to me, it all got a bit out of hand) have been deposited in the bottle bank. I've only kept the ones I actually bought - the glass is defintely tougher and, to be honest, most of what I want to do involves actually processing the jars in a water bath so they need to be proper canning jars. I do still have quite a lot of chutney and jams but since I didn't make any at all last year, and very little the year before, anything I do have is a few years old at this stage. Much as it pains me to do it, I'm trying to be at least a little bit ruthless and keep telling myself "new beginnings, new beginnings, new beginnings". So, I've decided to dump the contents of anything left and just bring the cleaned jars. That's work, of course, but a friend is coming over this evening to help so I think I'll set her to that task. People have been very good about offering to help but I find it very difficult to let people be at my stuff and so much has to be sorted first that it's hard to find things where I can just say "pack that, please". My poor sister was over for a few days visit, planned long before I ever knew I'd be moving so she didn't exactly have a relaxing holiday. I'm so glad she was here though, I'm not sure I'd have been able to do it without her and I'm very certain I'd be far closer to being a complete basket case if she hadn't kept me going the last few days. She left yesterday so now I just need to get finished. And when I'm in Ireland in two weeks I'll return the favour, as she'll be moving house then. No rest for the wicked...