Moving saga: the curse

I mentioned the great blessing of having a loving church family help us move. I dare not sound the least bit ungrateful, because we are not. But the down side is the great curse of moving, which you all know is the boxes. They were all conveniently sized for moving--not too large nor too small. As long as we didn't pack our coin collection in one, we were considerate of those who carried them. Now those conveniently uniform boxes have become sinister anonymous boxes. Here's one with our important papers in it! This one has a plumber's helper and some old wiring. Why did we save all that? Somewhere in this house (or in a box in the garage) is our good telephone home base. I remember wrapping it in green stretch wrap in order to keep the phone unit with the base and wiring, but in the confusion of moving day I set it down and while my back was turned someone threw it into one of these anonymous boxes.

It's not easy to take the Christmas present attitude when finding the toilet paper or Metamucil. But there is a spot of joy in the experience nevertheless. I notice that Barbara's jewelry cabinet was carefully wrapped with a blanket and that green stretch wrap. Well done, but the blanket was one of the Uhaul rented blankets which have some tattletale revelation of purloining printed all over it.

There is an extra pain in downsizing. When one spends 26 years filling 2000 square feet of house with personal treasures (and junk), it is amazing how little of it fits in a 1300 square foot house. When our friends asked "Where shall I put this?" It was too easy to tell them to stack those boxes under the gazebo. We had done some preparation for the predicted rain, so this mountain of boxes is draped with plastic drop cloths. Perhaps, failing to come through with a fire, it will instead be a flood that will help us reduce our plentiful stock.

Somewhere along the line I hurt my back. It feels like the time I had broken ribs. When I slowly move in careful motion, it only hurts a little. But when I move suddenly, or twist certain muscles, I get the electric jab that tends to open my eyes very wide. So how am I going to lift these boxes and sift through them? No, Barbara, I'm not making this up, it really hurts!