moving house

My parents are moving. They've lived for the last ten years in the same condo in Chicago, and in that time, their garage, always a scary place, has become so crammed full of cake pans and Christmas decorations that just walking into the place is sure to unleash a whole stream of invective from either of my parents.

The movers are coming next week, and for each of the last three or four weekends, my parents have spent long hours in the garage, trying to decide what they can purge from their lives. Last week they stumbled across a box containing all of my dad's report cards and yearbooks. They sat in the living room and laughed about his bad grades in conduct in first grade, and then returned the whole box to the "save" pile.

When it comes to my stuff, I've always been a "less is more" kind of girl. I'll pack two suitcases for our whole family of six to go on vacation for two weeks. I like my posessions, but I also think I'm pretty good at winnowing.

But when it comes to things I've written, it's a whole new story.

You see, I too am moving house. About two years ago, I started blogging. I went to blogger because it was free, but quickly left because it was plagued with problems. So I've been paying to blog at Typepad since January of 2006. In that time, my friends who stuck with blogger have gotten cool templates, added music, and formed a tight little circle with their fellow blogger neighbors, since you can click on their names in the blogger comments and go directly to their blogs. To get to my blog, you have to follow a convoluted path, or else remember the url, which is also not so easy.

So I've undertaken the (large) role of moving all 407 of my posts over to blogger. It's a big job, and sort of like my dad's report cards, even the silly posts are making the move with me.

I'll keep you posted. Once the archives are moved and the place looks good enough for company, I'll invite you over.

--originally published 8/4/07