Reality Bites

I’m not an experienced packer and mover by any stretch. It’s been almost a quarter of a century since I last shifted a household from one location to another and while I’m not even moving an entire household, the packing is stacking up! One day of packing and I’m running out of places to put the boxes. I haven’t even started on the office with its many drawers and 400+ books, or the bedroom, living room or kitchen yet. I think it will be four or five truck loads, rather than the two or three that I originally estimated.


During a knitting break after supper, I was struck by the fact that I have been alive long enough to have lived in one place for twenty-four and a half years, which kind of made me feel old until I remembered that I have children older than that. Then I felt really old. But in a good way - knowing that diapers and teenagers are well behind me and never to be repeated.


Dogs, however, are apparently not behind me. It seems that we may have joint custody and they will spend a week with me and a week with him due to the new fact that he very well may be starting work at a camp job in May. I’m almost loath to admit that I was a little disappointed. I love my dogs, but I had psyched myself up to leave them and was looking forward to not having to deal with the hair and the food and the poop and the responsibility. Now I have to figure out how to get a fence up much sooner than I had hoped to have to. Then again, he hasn’t got the job yet.


I digress...


Packing went relatively smoothly. As I was clearing off the sideboard, I found a little trinket box that the Lord of the Manor gave me for Christmas two years ago. On the inside, bottom of the box, in a fun cursive script it says: Love; heartfelt and true. I burst into tears, wrapped it in paper towel and stuffed it into a box that I marked “random stuff.” I followed that with some vigorous dusting and rounding up of free-range dust bunnies that were enjoying the spring breeding season beneath the sideboard. I was slightly chagrined to learn that the vacuum wasn’t foraying into that space on any kind of a regular basis. I will have to have a talk with him about that once we get to the new house.


The Sally Ann pile started to amass as well. My first executive decision regarding things to eliminate from my future was to get rid of a bunch of wooden puzzles that I had inherited from my niece for my grandchildren. Not only do I hate having to hunt down all the pieces after they leave, but these particular puzzles have the ever-so-annoying feature of being electronically enhanced to make the sounds of the animals or vehicles that are depicted in the puzzles. I’m only taking quiet toys with me.


With the noisy toys will also go some old vases that had been collecting dust in the cupboard and a few other odds and ends of like value and usefulness. One woman’s junk and all that!


Today I am tackling the bedroom, clearing out the closet and the night stand and weeding out clothes that I see no point in moving. I’m determined to be fairly brutal about it and hope that fantasies of ever being skinny again don’t interfere with the culling process. It could go either way!


It’s time to face reality once again. First I have to go into work for a bit to do advance cheques for the staff, go pay my house insurance premiums, deposit my expense cheque from the conference trip and pay a couple of bills. Funny how no matter what is happening regular life does not stop or even wait for you.