A lot to unpack here.

 

Even Kevin has tried to help with the paper problem. 

So here is the deal.  We've been here for five weeks. The movers packed 215 boxes and crates of our stuff.  Yes, we have a lot of stuff.  But remember, both Cookie and The Husband both work from home and out of our home. Still, 205 boxes of all sizes into a 2,500-square-foot house is a lot. 

To date, we have unpacked around one hundred boxes.   So there are, more or less, 105 boxes to go. 

And that isn't counting the art on the walls. 

Our burb picks up trash once a week and yard waste and recycling on the same day.  everything has to go in the can, or the yard waste bag at the curb.  The only time you can put out "overage" is the first trash day of the month. 

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get rid of these boxes so they don't end up wet or bug infested, and recycle them?

But wait, there's more! 

The movers used 24x36 sheets of clean newsprint to pack each box.  The paper wrapped around stuff, wadded up to provide a soft bed to place things onto, stuffed inside stuff, and wadded up and placed on top of said stuff, filled up voids, etc., and so on.   

On average, dishpack box (about 48" tall, 24" wide, and deep) contains about - and are you ready for this, on average, 40 sheets of this crumpled paper.  Less for smaller boxes and more - sometimes a whole lot more -  for huge boxes, especially if they just contain a "lamp".  

That means we dealing with potentially 12,000 sheets of this stuff, more or less.

So when we unpack, each sheet needs to be pulled out, and searched through (to make sure there is no little stuff), and then the sheets have to be laid down and smoothed out. That takes time. It can take one minute or ten to unpack an item. 

And this shit doesn't lay down smooth.  No, you can smooth it out and it'll fight ya.  And try as you might to make neat piles, like likes to slide this way and that. 

That's why after five weeks, we are only into 100, more or less, boxes. 

MOREOVER, those boxes need to be broken down and the tape stripped from the boxes so they can be recycled. 

But there is nowhere to take these boxes as they pile up.   And you can't put things where they need to go because the dumbass movers put the furniture in the middle of the room and boxes against the walls. 

But ah, the good news is that we have found several people who have gladly taken the boxes, and most of the sheets of packing paper.   One woman was in a disability-accessible van talking to a young man about boxes.  Cookie interjected himself overhearing this, and asked "Does someone need moving boxes?"

Indeed.  The woman is the sole caregiver for her son who has CP, and they are moving into a one-floor condo and needed boxes. They took fifty boxes and reams of packing paper.  "How much do I owe you?" I said that we should be paying her.

Then after not being able to give the boxes away on Next Door (ugh) I stumbled into a Facebook group and found that a woman had just posted something asking for boxes to help a friend move. How about thirty of them, I asked, and packing paper, too. Again, I got rid of the boxes and packing paper, and she was delighted that they were free. 

Another 20 boxes went to someone that a friend knew who was moving into his condo. 

And lately I have been having dreams that one day I will wake up and find my home full of the boxes that I gave these people.  Having used them, they returned them. Then I wake up. 

Last weekend I unpacked my office so I am taking it easy until this weekend when we get into the pictures and artwork. 

I am hoping to have the first and second floors squared away by New Year's.  

But the basement is clearly a 2024 project.