As I learned last year, selling a home, particularly one you've occupied for a long time in the process of raising a family, has its challenges. It's nothing that can't be handled if you plan ahead - way, way, ahead - lower your expectations about making money on the sale and brace yourself for the mysteries and indignities of the attic.

1. If you're worried about selling your house in a tough market, and counting on it taking at least five months to find a buyer, someone will make an offer in five days. Be prepared. Or at least be prepared to have no life until the house is cleaned out and empty. Work, pack, clean, sleep, and repeat for seven weeks.

2. Twenty years is a looooong time to acquire "stuff." Doing the math, 20 years cannot be cleaned out in seven weeks. Perhaps 20 years can safely, without going insane, be cleaned out in its half-life of 10 years; so I guess I should've started in 2003.

3. When you're packing your baby's clothes, blankets, and other items, do yourself a favor and DON'T BOTHER! Vomit, poop, etc., reappear after 15 years in the attic. It's like mystery ink, activated by the 130-degree heat of the attic in August. If you want to leave a cryptic message for future generations, write it in diarrhea, bleach and wash it, then leave it in someone's attic for several years.

4. Throw away the kids' "Way to Go!!" school papers, your daughter's purple cast from 2001, and the jeans you wore in college because - trust me - you won't want these things in 20 years no matter how sentimental they appear to you now. You won't even want to look at the jeans. Stupid jeans, mocking you from the clear plastic bag.

5. And why did I keep the stroller that I actually RAN OVER with the car in 2005?

6. Take what you thought you'd profit from the sale of your house and divide by one-third. Septic systems aren't designed to last 50 years. Even though the system appeared to be working fine, inspectors will sniff out a problem, and buyers/banks will want that crap fixed (No pun intended. OK, yes, pun intended).

7. Check all greeting cards before throwing away. So far we've netted $55.

8. Your junk drawer is just that - junk! Take it off its tracks and heave it in the garbage can. Otherwise, that'll be 30 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Spend that time carefully looking through greeting cards.

9. Don't forget to thank the people who help on the love/hate journey of selling and relocating. In the heat of the relocation battle, and the attic, it can be too easy to take the help of family and friends for granted.

10. And, a final thought: How does a person end up with so many freaking allen wrenches?

Meg Palonen Czmyr is the director of the Slater Library in Jewett City, serving the towns of Griswold and Lisbon.