Putting our Exit Strategy into action

We've been quiet for a while on here. Time has just been flying by! Both of us have been very busy with work. Term started for me on September 22nd and when the students return, my workload always increases by 100-fold; to the point when you can't really get much done because there are so many plates up in the air to keep spinning. Kristen has been working on her PhD changes (just finished them), doing a couple of research projects for CEMP and still volunteering at the Y. Every Friday for the past few weeks, we've just been shocked that another week has gone by. The weekends have been busy, too. Between my dad visiting, another two-day martial arts seminar, planning/executing our return to the US, keeping an eye on the election, and our usual chores, there's not much time for rest! That's why we are REALLY looking forward to our one-way flight to Florida on November 19th. It will be so nice to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at my mom's. But before that happens, we have a lot of things to get done. Kristen and I were talking about it last night. There are so many little things that need to be planned and considered.

• Decide what we want to take with us. When we made our initial trek to Europe over 5 years ago, we came with two suitcases each. Little by little, we have amassed more belongings purchased here as well as the things we have been bringing over from our various trips back to the States. It's not a lot of stuff by American standards, but definitely enough to warrant bulk shipping. And we're still selling some things.
  
• Schedule an "inventory" appointment with the estate agent so that we can get our deposit back. Because we are flying out on the 19th in the morning, we need to leave the flat on the 18th, which means the appointment needs to be on that morning. By that point, we need to have the apartment spic-n-span and our suitcases packed so we can just walk out the door after they've checked the place. Then we're going to stay in a hotel near Heathrow that night so we can have a relatively stress-free morning on our departure day. As bad as appointments with various external parties usually go in this country, I am a little paranoid that the estate agent won't stick to it. Therefore, I'm going to be on them like a hound-dog to make sure they don't screw it up for us.
  
• We've picked an overseas "removals" (moving) company and have paid a deposit. They will come by to do a quote based on what we are going to ship. We have scheduled the collection day for November 14th (when they will come to our apartment to pack everything, put it on pallets and take it away). But it's sort of difficult to figure out what we want to ship and what we will put in our suitcases. Obviously, most of our stuff will be shipped, but which articles of clothing will we pack for Nov./Dec. in Florida (pretty mild temperatures, but sometimes a little nippy) knowing that, come January, we will be driving across country to Portland, OR through parts of the country that are going to be butt-ass cold. Which items do we not mind being without for 8-12 weeks as our belongings float across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, into the Pacific and then up the West coast? And what about our bed linen? And other daily-use items? We're staying here for 5 days after the removals company takes our stuff. Plus there's the futon mattress that we've put on top of the mattress that came with the flat. Do we just surreptitiously leave that behind? Or do we need to try to dump it somewhere? What if we miscalculate how much stuff to send with the shipping company and how much to pack in our suitcases? I suppose we might need to do a "dry run" of packing the suitcases to be sure.
  
• We also need to cancel all our utilities. That needs to happen fairly soon because most of them require 30 days notice.
  
• Another issue is our mail. We don't really get that much, but we need to make sure that people aren't receiving our post here long after we're gone. We'll cancel any subscriptions we can and also purchase overseas mail-forwarding from the Royal Mail. Either 3 months or 6 months.
• Set up health insurance for when we arrive in the US. No more NHS after the 19th! We will take advantage of it before we go, though. Free health check-ups and teeth check-ups.
  
• Figure out if we need to get part time jobs in Florida for the 1-2 months we're there.
• Give away/throw away condiments, spices, flour, liquor and stuff like that if we haven't used it by the time we are cleaning the flat for the last time.
• Re-hang all of the landlord's frames and artwork.
• Transfer all of our £s to the US and make sure that we will be able to close our bank account without being there. We will have to leave it open until our last paychecks go through and we receive our deposit back from the flat. Related to this, we need to cancel all direct debits.
• Take a last couple of touristy trips. Probably just up to London for a day soon. There are still a couple of places we wanted to see there. I really want to go to the Tate Modern. It's a great city, so we really just want to see it one more time and say farewell. Probably won't be there again for a very, very long time.
• Keep our fingers crossed that we won't be moving back to 4 years of McCain/Palin. Yak, gag, shiver with fright!