Progress?

 I'm still packing. Yes, slowly. Although the last few days I've had more energy physically, there is still a frustration with trying to balance the need to box things up in uniform containers with other people's need to be able to load the boxes into their moving container pretty much all at one time. 

The books we wanted to keep were heavy enough, and I made a point to pack them in fairly smallish boxes. Paper is pretty dense and small boxes get heavy quickly. It's probably pretty lucky that nearly all of the boxes which were available were fairly small ones. 

Then we got new neighbors. With lots of large boxes. So packing two boxes a day was making progress. The challenge was making them something which could be lifted. Not to mention moved around. Most of them are stacked two deep here and there around the house. Roadblocks. Some are along a wall where furniture leaves a space. Others jut out into the room they're in. Often an extra pillow - of which we seem to have a bunch - fills the top to ease the weight. But unfortunately, books are not the only heavy things in the place.

Rocks are plentiful. Start with sets of beautiful polished agate bookends. I'm still looking at them on their shelves. Each half is literally quite a handful. Then there are all the beads, cabochons, slabs, fossils, and so forth I've collected over the years. Some were intended for lapidary, some for making jewelry, some just collected for their beauty and maybe to pass down to a new generation in hopes they might appreciate the variety and beauty of rocks. As I was cleaning out the niches and compiling them in a single location, I discovered things I hadn't even seen in so long I had forgotten what they were. Or even that I'd had them.

Since there is no way I will be near the proper equipment to use 95% of them, it's time to get rid of them. Properly of course. It doesn't, fortunately, take a lot of energy to sort through small pieces of rocks and organize them into bags of multiple items ready for a garage sale. Three days did it. There are now three large bags on the living room floor full of small bags of multiple items ready to go over to the club. Prices per bag will be a quarter. I figure those bags will sit there until some time in February. After all, I don't see it as a good thing if I'm still coughing all over them and trying to sell them, even if I'm not contagious, or even at prices a tiny fraction of what they'd cost in a store or online. The tiny rest of that stuff, things like selected beads, wire, hand tools, are all packed into smaller boxes and set inside a tote. They fill it up, and yes, it's heavy. Even after pulling out about 80 pounds to sell, it's heavy.

That doesn't include the bookends of course. I still walk into that room and see those. But at least the tote had handles on each end for carrying. It's stacked inside the former closet on top of another tote, and under a very sturdy box. A very sturdy box. It's still empty of course, because it's perfect for all the little boxes still cluttering the shelves in there, the former library. Those little boxes will be filled with as yet unmade glass projects. I know what they are going to be and how they are going to be packed, each in bubble wrap in a little box. They will be more delicate than what I previously was making, and need the protection. However, they will also be heavy, despite all the air space. I know, since I'm hauling a bunch of pieces to the club later this morning for cutting, and I know how heavy those are. Glass is just another rock, after all, just one that flows under heat, like obsidian from a volcano.

I'm taking Rich along, partly to help carry stuff in, but also to keep me "legal" in club terms. Sundays are days the club isn't used except on very rare occasions, and most of those have been me, popping in to pull something from a kiln and put the next thing in one, or perhaps sending out a club email when others aren't on the computer for other business. On those times I'm always in there with the door open, in case. We're all seniors and even apparently healthy ones doing simple things can have a medical incident. Another person is needed to alert 911 if needed, and the door must be left open for access. The staff do not have keys, nor can they see if somebody is helpless inside if the door is closed. If I'm just on the computer for ten minutes, there is usually a staffer walking by in the hall who knows I'm there and my expectations for leaving.

I have specific projects in mind. Less than 2 months, best (or worst, depending on how long it takes the house to sell) case to get them done. Many of those are already designated for specific people. Others will find recipients later. Some of the designated ones are for people along our route north, and will be packaged in some of those little boxes separate from the rest, kept in reach in the car as we go. I have to wait to pack the rest, not just because they're not done yet, but because of the possibilities for glass disasters. Glass does what it wants to, not what I want it to, though increasing skills and experience do help. And it does break upon impact. If something is ruined, it can't be easily substituted for with something else if that other thing is packed and sealed away. 

That is the long way of saying I'm still walking into the library, seeing full shelves lining the walls. Not empty ones looking for another fresh coat of paint. Packing materials fill the shelves as well as empty boxes. Even wrapping paper and gift tags are involved. Until I'm finished with glass, it will be so. It really doesn't help, except with a lot of persuasion, to know those shelves have been cleared out twice now since we got back south. The books are gone.The jewelry makings are packed away, or ready to be sold but sitting off in another room. The shelves are still loaded as high up as I can reach, and the center of the floor is still loaded with larger packing boxes, still empty and waiting. 

Soon as I'm done with that room except for the final loading to head north, and the shelves are emptied, ready for the painting, the center of the floor will again be ready for filling, this time by Rich. He needs a place to put his stuff in, ready for his leaving. He can't organize until he has a space to put things in he needs to keep or sell. Since his stuff has the most chaos, it's pretty much a stopping point for him, so I need to clear the middle out for him. I believe we can do it while leaving room to go around the walls painting shelves. He'll be able to pack vertically once organized and clear space for his area to be cleaned and painted. It's that... or a dumpster. Hard stop. Covid hasn't helped things speed along.

Progress? I'm trying to convince myself.