thanks Shelley.  I could not find any videos or instructions so I decided to order the book from Bethanne Nemesh, "The Devil's in the Details".   It was $25 which isn't too bad.  I'm hoping there will be some things I wouldn't have considered.  She also has an online video or DVD but I didn't want to spend $79.

I think your DH camping apartment is perfect. A place he can go and be outside but still have a little inside comforts too. Yup the housing market is gonna go down like a Jenga game!!!!! 

Spent all day packing so far and am taking a well needed break. Most of the things in the house are now in boxes, just have some dishes, pots and pans and misc things to go and the inside will be done. DH is making headway in the garage but he still has a long way to go. We are thinking it will be one more trip but at least the inside of the house will be empty and the rental company can prep that and then we can finish up the garage and around the yard some. DH got up in the middle of the night and scheduled some packers for us for two hours tomorrow morning so we can just focus on packing boxes and they will put all of it in the truck!!! Last time we had packers too and they moved all the furniture and heavy stuff in 2 hours, this time there is no furniture just lots of boxes for them.

We are no longer purging anything but rather moving it as we do not have time to sort stuff. We have a great space in DBIL's hanger space at the little private airport to store stuff on shelves so we can go thru stuff there. I already have all my fabric and sewing stuff in the basement and am already going thru stuff in the past week. We also are leaving stuff here in our shed like all the furniture we are keeping as we will be back so that makes sense. I also packed up all the family heirlooms a couple of years ago in heavy duty plastic bins and labeled it all for the girls to get someday...........they did not want it now but maybe down the road they will, if not they can sell it and get a little cash, a lot of it is antiques.

I would love to hear what you think of Bethanne's book when you get it. If it is really good I would like to get a copy too as I love some of the finishes I have seen on her quilts.

I was just searching for sources of the bead garlands and ran across actual garlands.  certainly that would be easier, but I'm guessing the plastic beads would flake off after time.  But the silver ones we have for our actual Christmas tree still look just fine and I don't take any special care of them, just toss them in the box and drag them out again each year.  hmmm, thinking.

Not a problem .. glad you clarified that the technique was from a book.

A house for that little in a big city, that would be bliss down here.  At the beginning of the year we were able to buy a 2 bedroom apartment in Wellington, New Zealand, for NZ$1M.  We sold one of our houses in Melbourne, Australia, (very old and tired), the following month for AU$1.4M.  Even regional and rural prices are through the roof in both Australia and New Zealand.  It makes it very hard for people.  My son laments that he won’t be able to buy a home.

Sharon in Melbourne, Australia.

Shyraz said:

buy a 2 bedroom apartment in Wellington, New Zealand, for NZ$1M.  We sold one of our houses in Melbourne, Australia, (very old and tired), the following month for AU$1.4M.

HOLY MOLEY!  That's just unbelievable. 

It is Shelley.  And now that the Reserve Bank here has increased the cash rate, interest rates are starting to rise and as mentioned by Ami, people will have to start re-evaluating if they can afford to keep their mortgages going.  I can only see sad times ahead for those on a lower income.

Shyraz said:

partment in Wellington, New Zealand, for NZ$1M

Good grief!  That is unbelievable!  We bought our house in 1977 for $35,000 and I worried about how we would ever be able to pay it off.  It's a 4 bedroom ranch on 3 acres.  Now, $35,000 will hardly get you a car.