My mom is downsizing and moving away...

becunning2

My mom has just bought a smaller house in another town. Granted, it's about a 45 minute drive away, but I live within walking distance from my mom, and I'm a bit bummed. I know, I know. It's not like she's moved across the world or even to another state. But still, I'm close to my mom.  And when there's a crazy holiday blizzard again, I can't walk the two miles to her house anymore...  She call me to see if it's okay to walk her dog over and stop by. No more last second "I made too much awesome food, do you want to come over?" phone calls.  If you can't tell, I'm close to my mom.

Anyhoo, this leads me a bit to a mini vent.  My mom is downsizing.  She's purging all sorts of stuff.  And she wants ME to sell things for her.  Apparently, she's never figured out craigslist/eBay. And every day, she's adding something new that she forgot to add to the list. So I'm selling a car, antiques, pewter teapots, winterberry dishes, other things, and a ginormous collection of Lord of the Ring toys. Seriously. My mom has four HUGE boxes of mint in box toys.  I've just spent 4 hours cataloguing them and trying to research prices on eBay. *facepalm* Oh, and I'm not done yet because now I have to organize which ones I should sell where and for how much because my mom "doesn't want anything to do with it." Granted, I know she'll pay me for helping her out... and I know I could've said no... But gosh darn it, my mom is moving away, and I'm selling stuff from the house and watching her give away other things too.  Boo!

My mom = geek.  If she's sad about downsizing, it's because she can't keep her toys.  Hehe!

DanieKA

That sucks. Even though 45 minutes isn't bad in the grand scheme of things, if you're so used to her being close, like I'll be over in 5 minutes for leftovers close, I can see why you're a little bummed. 

As far as selling stuff, are there flea markets/antique stores/re-sale places in your town? While selling things online may be easy, if you don't want to have to keep up with all of your listings, etc. maybe you can unload a bunch of it on a store and let them do the work? Especially if you have the stuff in your house. Until it sells, you're kind of a storage unit for all that stuff! That would drive me nuts!

Hope it works out. 

becunning2

Most of it is staying at her house until she moves. The only thing over here right now is her army of Lord of the Ring Toys. An ARMY! I have a six person dining room table and they don't all fit. They're piled on top of each other! If I had everything of hers I'm selling, it would drive me nuts, definitely!

There are places like that, but she's not in a super hurry to sell anything and would rather get a better price than what'd she get for them at one of those places. We're also in a college town, so she'd be really lowballed by those places here.

I kind of have mixed feelings about it. She's happy. And I may end up graduating and moving away and laughing that I was sad about only 45 minutes. But it's definitely hard to be helping her sell the stuff that's been "home" for me.

QuiltingNurse

I made the choice to move 14 hours from home. The entire back storage room in my parents basement is filled with my old things and other random things they don't use anymore. I get upset when they threaten to throw it out if I don't go through it and take what I want. I feel like I'd be losing a part of my childhood if it was thrown out. They talk about selling the house and buying a condo in the next few years and I want to cry. 

I like to know when they're out of town and what they're doing, they find this so strange and really don't think its important that I know every weekend they go to the cottage or to visit friends. I feel like because I'm so far away I miss out on everything that happens with them. I can completely understand and relate to you missing your mom when she moves away. Being 45 minutes away can feel like much more when you're used to being so close. You can always call her, text and skype too and hopefully that will make it feel like she's not so far!

thejucheidea

I've lived in eight houses in the Nashville area since I was born because my mother always found some minute thing wrong with each house. I have no identifiable home but the one that I personally moved into a year ago and I hope I don't move from it for at least another seven to ten years.

Three houses ago, our downsizing was to a house that was about half the size of the previous one. My mom sold a ton of our possessions by creating a flea market that other vendors came to. It was weird.

I live about thirty or forty minutes from my parents right now. It's nice to know I can go see them but at the same time I like the solitude. I try to go to lunch with Daddy every week, but I don't see my mom much. She spends a lot of time with her work.

elannis

I do not envy you on having to sell all that stuff. We have a pile of stuff in our living room that we're trying to sell on craigslist, but I haven't even got half of it online yet, so as you can guess, no luck yet, lol.

I also know how you feel about being far from your mom. I'm close to my mom too and now live an hour away so I don't get to see her nearly as much as I used to. It stinks when the holidays come because we're so far away and also because we can't just do the little day trips as well when we have to wait until after work and then by the time I get there it's almost time to leave again. Thank goodness for modern technology though. There's always texting/calling and Skype! : )

becunning2

@Liv:  I hope so too. We'll still have Thanksgiving at "home" at least. And my mom is actually moving *closer* to where I'll be student teaching, so I may stay with her several nights a week while I"m doing that to save on the commute/gas. Maybe then, her new house will kinda start to feel like home? (I hope!)

@Quilting Nurse:  I know what you mean!  My mom dropped off a box (all that remains is a box!) of my sister and my old baby clothes. They're mine to keep now. I told her she could get rid of the old ceramic masks we made in elementary school though...

@Ahstillwell:  Hehe. I was teasing my mom when she was talking about downsizing to a four bedroom house. (She didn't, but it's one she looked at).

@Elannis:  Hehe, I call and text her on a regular basis (almost daily) and we live a few miles away! I could go back to using skype regularly though. I haven't since the BF got back from his study abroad.

Thanks for letting me commiserate everyone.

bsidebella

My mom moved from NJ to Arizona last month. It's been super hard on me because she's the only parent I have (my dad died in '08) and I feel really left behind. We were/are really close, and I used to visit her once a week. Now, with my new job and the time difference, I'm lucky if I talk to her that often. She got rid of a lot of stuff too when she moved, and I ended up with quite a few things (like her couch).

You know, cunning, I have a friend who sells toys on ebay, collectables and the like (Transformers and Star Wars and comic book-themed things, etc). Would you like me to get in touch with him to see if he can help?

becunning2

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_not-engaged-yet_mom-downsizing-moving-away?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:136Discussion:9f9add48-dbf8-4499-bb81-3d18fab9ff4fPost:d3fa55dc-c521-4199-a0c1-1c03a1c63879">Re: My mom is downsizing and moving away...</a>:
[QUOTE]. You know, cunning, I have a friend who sells toys on ebay, collectables and the like (Transformers and Star Wars and comic book-themed things, etc). Would you like me to get in touch with him to see if he can help?
Posted by bsidebella[/QUOTE]

<div>Hmm... maybe. I did some eBay research. There's an eBay store in town too, but then I'm paying someone else to do what my mom wants to do. It's a hassle right now to sell them, but I'd rather the more money be going back to my mom then paying other people to do the work. So, probably not, since I imagine it wouldn't be free. :) I do have some nice items though that are going for about $100 on Ebay. </div>