...when you're trying to pack and have no idea where or what you'll be moving into, what the new spaces are, how they're shaped or sized. You try to imagine every contingency despite no knowledge. Should I sell this? Keep that? What if I have to replace A, B, C, and X? $$$$$$$! Wow! and Ouch!
Or do I pack it all, pay the extra premium to pack and ship it wherever, and hope it was worth it?
Then after unpacking, always the question of the boxes. Our former new next door neighbor solved her empty box problem by giving us all of hers. ALL of them. They still weren't enough so we scrounged more. We should have bought shares in tape and bubble wrap, but who thinks of that? Could we "pass it forward?" We asked the family and friends who helped us move in, and who also change addresses more frequently than Steve and I do (12 years!) whether they needed boxes, but nope. The wooden hangers in our new home's closets, where our clothes arrived on their own hangers with more newly purchased ones in other boxes, found a couple of new homes with family. Grateful family, I might add. Just not into boxes right now.
We had other thoughts on the boxes. How about Habitat For Humanity? There was a store on the way to where we shop... which had just closed. Darn. Maybe ask a thrift store when we had all unpacked and more time? Put up a notice by the mail center? Advertise in the local paper? Oops, $$ there. Still looking for free. We'd ask random new folks if they knew anybody needing boxes. No luck. So a widening stack of folded ones grew along the living room window, held in place against it by a single piece of furniture... so far. Eventually they may simply have to be recycled, but I'm cutting up other smaller boxes these days for that purpose, saving a few for specific tasks, and even with a huge recycle bin we haul out every two weeks it's not up to the entire task at once, including regular household recycling. Give us till mid fall.
Note that most of those boxes were left with whole bunches of bubble wrap once emptied. I did select a bit out of that for personal use, like shipping December packages. The rest is reserved... for the grand and great grand kids. It's a growing and extended family, and kids know a good present when they see one, meaning whatever comes wrapped in layers of bubble wrap. They of course ignore the item we adults think of as THE present and go straight to the bubbles. I could probably pack a handful of dirty pebbles, one to a sheet of bubble wrap, and get their undying gratitude. Or at least until the next time they are expecting more bubble wrap and find it's gotten used up by then. (It's a trap!)
There was another issue, a quickly growing annoyance: rugs. We left a house with bare floors to cover and moved into a nearly completely carpeted one. What we brought weren't suitable for bathrooms or the kitchen, they were large and heirloom quality, even the smallest being a thick plush of wool and silk. True, a bit dirty as well, but comparing the cost of cleaning when you have your own rug cleaner to the cost of getting them yourself, well, we figured it was no contest. The bigger two had been bought at auction from a dealer who was going out of business for unknown reasons. There was a mild suspicion that his claims that the Persian ones had been exported before the embargo were just a tad ... optimistic. But many of them sold at a series of auctions, including two to me. There was this large one, pale blue, cream, burgundy, and touches of black. I fell totally in love, put in an absentee bid matching his minimum price, took it home at the end of the day, then to AZ, then back north. After much foot and paw traffic, a couple spills, canines shedding, and a couple haboobs forcing not-too-reluctant dust into the house, its glory was diminished but none the less loved. It only needed a floor. A couple other rugs accompanied it north. Only one was destroyed by a visitor during our years south, and abandoned.
Had we the need for what we brought, they'd be gracing our new home right now. Instead they became tripping hazards, and not just for the slightly disabled. They had to go. I'd stumble over the large one, rolled up and strapped together, taking the entire middle of the room we were busy setting up shelves in so we could unpack other stuff so it could be organized and useful. Luckily I never really fell, but it was close, being always in the way no matter what we were doing at the time. Then it got dragged out into the living room to wait for a new owner, while the other ones found smaller corners to fill in an effort to get overlooked. I caught them both at it, and foiled their plans!
I finally found somebody to solve our problems with all the rugs and a bunch of boxes. There is a family with their youngest child heading off to college, staying in the dorm. The mom is a friend. Today a large pick-up showed up for not just all three rugs but a bunch of the folded boxes, with a promise from me if more boxes were needed they'd still be here. And yes, free. All of them. We're happy to be rid of them, and they're happy to clean them or tape them, as individually appropriate. Their house isn't carpeted, she loves the colors, and her husband is willing to do the cleaning himself, even after I pointed out the worst of the dirt.
Did I mention a small tornado kissed the top of their house a couple years back? Insurance never covers what we think it should, and budgets can be tight even without an extra dose of bad luck.
Now that more things are gone from here, the house is feeling much less crowded, less a hazard, and a bit more lived in. My son will be over this afternoon to help hang more pictures on the walls, now that we've decided where we want them and which ones I can't do myself. (Hey, I did 6 last week!) It turns out that I was wrong about how many shelves I'd need to store my supplies, tools, and completed projects from the club. Four shelves isn't enough, wide and sturdy as they are. But I re-purposed another entire unit, putting its former contents on yet other shelves recently vacated from unpacking, so progress is still happening. I am still discovering things I'd totally forgotten I had, like the tote which had its top covered in styrofoam cups and napkins, hiding a sweet supply of sea shells. In bubble wrap. Some things are still hiding that I KNOW I packed, personally. So I can't stop digging yet.
However...
The temptation is there to let the inside rest and start working on the outside, literally a different kind of digging. Last night I drifted over to a bulb catalog site to drool. I've discovered that the time when flowers mean the most to me is after the ground thaws. Scillas, crocus, daffodils, tulips, iris, violets, and then huge varieties of day lilies, in that order. I need a bed without weeds, newly dug and separated from yard invaders, full of colors other than white snow, and later other than grass green. Then it's done, tuck it away for the fall, let it be independent from the needs of work when it's hottest. I have the space, I have the dreams, I've asked my son to bring over the shovel to enable work to start, clearing out the remnants of the weeds I killed off in late spring, loosening it up within its raised bed for all the bulbs to go in, stretch out their roots, and sleep in expectation.
Do I need to mention I did more than drool? My order will arrive in the fall. Steve thinks some of the choices are pretty interesting, in a good way. He loves tulips so I showed him several to pick from. It's likely time to head over to the yard I planted way back in the 90s and mark what I want to dig out of it - with permission - while I can locate my favorite colors in daylilies. I know already where the "good" iris are.
There is a maybe-problem with the digging in the round raised bed here. The former family put in electricity. (Say what?) It seems they planned to put in a fake fire right in the middle, so they could sit around it of an evening, feed the mosquitoes, and pretend to roast weenies or s'mores or who knows what they had in mind.
Me? I'm totally spoiled with the real thing, wood in a fire pit in my son's back yard, all the family invited, fenced space for the kids to run around in, brats and buns and whatever anybody else wants to bring. Nothing? That's just fine too. We provide OFF! In the fall there are apples on the ground, serving multiple purposes, including a chance for the little kids to pick them up, toss them in the compost, and earn a bit of money for themselves.
Back to the new place, and digging around unknown electric wiring. Nobody seems to know where it connects to outdoor house wiring. Two directions are logical, the AC hookup, and the shed hookup where Steve's scooter stays charged and lights work. I suspect, but can't prove, it's the direction of the shed. The management company suggested I can call 811 to have it traced. However, 811 says that is a private utility and not a public one since it's an add-on. They won't come, but "here are some private references." Those folks don't answer their phones however.
I do know that whichever way it runs, it's buried well under the grass in the lawn. So at least up till the retaining wall, not only will it be safely deep, but it at least starts that low as it enters the raised bed. It may angle up, but here's the plan: dig carefully and gently - trowel if necessary - along where it is at the surface, follow it down about 6-7 inches. I won't be digging any deeper than that in a 10" high bed. If I don't hit it, I'm going to assume I'm safe. I'll loosen the top layer, pull out the remains of dead roots to throw away, add some black dirt or compost since it's settled about an inch from the top of its wall, and plant everything. Once and done. Cover with mulch, and let the plants fill in over the years. Nearly all of what I've chosen will keep everything else out, with minimal care.
Then I'll have to go do heavy pruning on the plants around the outside of the house. They've been badly neglected over the years, speaking of crowded. It will definitely be cool by then. The yellow roses will go away. Pretty for a couple weeks, it serves as a formidable barricade to prevent anybody keeping the limelight hydrangeas in check from trying to grow though and into the sides of the house. Now that would be truly crowded!
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