Can I Sob Here a Bit?

If you do some internet searches and (especially!) ask questions here, I'll bet you can find cheaper ways to do a lot of the things you need to do.

Thanks.
Luckily, I've been an avid reader of The Tightwad Gazette, so really, we're pinching things that have already been pinched (poor Lincoln).
Mainly I'm looking at the moving costs, but we think cheapest will be a do-it yerselfer truck. Then to decide if it's worth driving the two wee ones, or if it's better to fly them (ages 2.5 and 9 mos). It's a 22 hour drive (straight, probably longer with these 2) or a 4 hour flight. Decisions, decisions. Of course, nothing that others have not done and accomplished!!

Hadn't heard of Craig's List or FreeCycle...awesome. Also, the drive info was helpful, as we are moving from northern Utah, and I found that we will have to drive through flat, boring, nothing but sage brush, Wyoming. Yay. Perhaps I'll look into those flights...

Trust me on that one.

EVERYONE should use Craig's List for everything if possible, you'll get the best prices for everything and can sell stuff on it too. We found our new apartment on it. If you go to http://www.craigslist.org/ it will take you to the San Francisco page, and on the right there are listings of the different cities it services. The city Lists include surrounding areas, so for South Bend you might want to click "Chicago" or something like that.

Freecycle is http://www.freecycle.org and you can join your (old and new) neighborhood one that way.

As I said before, do lots of internet searches! The Tightwad Gazette was written when the internet was piddly.

Our local recycling company sponsors our freecycle-style site, something like Twin Cities Free Market.com

And yes, Southern Indiana really does have a twilight zone feel. We stopped at a gas station when driving through -- endured some very ugly racist graffiti in the toilet the likes of which I had never seen in all my driving through the deep south -- and I was ready to lock the doors and stay put until Michigan!

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

As a frequent cross country rover with a little kid in tow, I'm tellin ya, unless BOTH your kids are very good travelers and fall asleep in cars for hours and hours at a time, fly.

When you're travelling with a two year old you should stop the car every two or three hours and let them run around for 1/2 an hour, just to keep them sane.

2000 miles is what we moved in a U-Haul and it took us four days of steady driving, stopping only for gas, food, and sleep. DD was 2 1/2 and we let her romp every time we stopped somewhere that had grass, and tried to stop to eat at places that had playspaces, but like I said, four days. I was exhausted and I hardly drove.

I thought Wyoming was beautiful, actually. We drove through Missouri, naturally, or as I dubbed it, "the big easy-bake oven", Nebraska (flat, flat, and more flat--no other place is as flat as that), Wyoming (mesas with "rocks" on top a la Wyle E. Coyote, no kidding), Utah (an austere beauty that reminded us of the Scottich Highlands), Idaho (Twin Falls at sunset, spectacular), and of course, Oregon, through the Gorge, unequalled splendor.

Honestly with two such very young ones, I say fly, but please feel free to ignore me.

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

I write three pages of nonsense/deep thoughts most mornings and I find that talking to myself, or more importantly, listening to myself, really helps. Writing helps me focus on the listening because you can't write a dozen thoughts at once so you're forced to finish one at a time. It has helped me feel so much better - takes me 30-45 mins on average, now I'm well-practiced.

I've done the big move thing, though of course we didn't have a choice about driving (Singapore to UK!), and there will just be days when you wonder why on earth you've made such dumb decisions, what's wrong with staying put anyway... second guessing yourself is destructive but it will happen. Writing helped that too because it made me admit to it all. Writing here when you feel rough often helps too, as you noticed.

Find as many little ways to cope as you can - anything that gets you through because it isn't easy, no matter what. Stores of chocolate and Coke for the worst days helped me!!

and feel free to come on here and whine whenever you need to, because that's what we're here for, as long as you share the highs as well as the lows.

Kerri.

Whenever we do the almost 24 hour straight drive to visit my parents in Florida,we leave after dinner,driving all night, and arriving around lunchtime. We have been doing this with kids for years,ever since the first one was an infant. We only stop for gas and coffee refills and bathroom breaks(usually all at the same stop). It can be done and we did this before DVD players were in cars!!! Best of luck.

We live in Texas and we drive to northern Utah to visit family about once a year. We went last November with all 5 kids, but none of them were toddlers or crawling. We do have a portable DVD player for the car now, and it is wonderful, but we didn't always have that. If you will be driving back to visit family much, you might consider such a thing a good investment.

We used to live in California and drive to Utah (much shorter, but if there is anything uglier to drive through than the northern Nevada desert, I don't know what it is) without any kind of media entertainment. Anyway, if you decide to drive, one thing you might try for your 2 year old is a little walkman type tape player. You can get one at Target for $5 and if you don't have tapes, record some CD's onto tapes. My kids love having their own music to listen to and we save them exclusively for long trips.

Where in Utah are you? I grew up in Logan and went to college at the U--where I met my DH. I miss the mountains and my family, but I have really gotten used to not having any snow! Winter never was my favorite time of year.

Lauralyn

I second the DVD player. We made it from New Mexico to Atlanta in 2 days with an almost 2 year old, 5, and 7. Every other movie had to the the Wiggles. LOL! We stopped every 3 or 4 hours (playlands at McDs and Burger King are great along the interstates when you don't have time to try to find a city park).

Hey Lauralyn! How are the twins!?