Monday, April 27, 2015

Unpacking

Moving day has come and gone, and so have quite a lot of boxes and bags and furniture wrap, leaving room for the important things:


Yarn.

Before I talk Yarn though: can I revisit the boxes?  Omigosh, the BOXES.  There were THIRTY... just for books!  And about twice as many for everything else, most of them very very large.  To paint the picture for you, our enormous living/dining room was about 85% stacked boxes when our (wonderful) movers left us, plus narrow channels for weaving between them.

It wasn't fun filling those boxes, and it hasn't been fun emptying them, but I will say that it is much easier - if much less practical - to decide what to keep and what to give away when surrounded by the consequences of acquisition in an otherwise fresh clean space.  Pete has already taken five boxes of books to Goodwill and there is another box waiting to go.

I stopped unpacking long enough to grab about five hours' sleep that night before I was up again to get on the subway to catch a bus to meet Trish who drove us, after a quick stop at Starbucks for caffeine, to this year's Knitter's Frolic.  Trish had kindly offered to shop for me but I said No Way, because the Frolic was the carrot that got me through it all.

Zoom for emphasis:


While we were there we ran into somebody, I forget who because Sleep Deprivation, and as we were showing off our finds she said Hey! When I was at the Stoddart booth they said somebody had just bought twelve skeins.  Was that you?

(guilty as charged, folks.)

We had to leave the Frolic about 11:30 so Trish could drop me at a fancy celebratory luncheon for the sister of one of my neighbours, who had an adorable new baby boy about a month ago.   It was super nice of her to invite me - she also asked three other neighbour ladies on our block, and as I've been stuck inside packing on the days we've been at home I haven't seen any of them in ages. 

But when we got there?  and everybody was all dressed up with heels and jewelry?  and my neighbours took all my shopper bags to the table they'd chosen for us?  WOW.  Beyond nice.  We sat at the end window of a room with windows on three sides overlooking the grounds of the historic property, essentially in a pool of sunshine.  We ate real food of the healthy, time-consuming-to-make variety which included a deep green salad.  We chatted, with each other and with the friendly and interesting cousins of our hostess.  There was no dust, there were no boxes, there was no requirement to get up from our chairs, and briefly, there was even a baby to admire!

It was so. so. relaxing.

Then I went home and it was back to furniture moving and box identification and heavy lifting and no sleep and the taxes, due on Thursday at midnight, looming over me... but guess what?


I have twelve skeins of favourite yarn for my new carrot.  Bliss.


I'll show you all the yarn next week... I am still up to my eyebrows in busy, because after we do the taxes and clear away the initial arrivals, we have to empty the rest of the house and bring more stuff to the condo.  Ray is starting demo next Tuesday and whatever doesn't make it out before then ain't gonna make it farther than a Dumpster.

Have a great week in the meantime and I will see you soon!


4 comments:

Yvette said...

I recognize that green Stoddart! I have a skein of the same. Beautiful.

Mary Keenan said...

Oh Yvette, I am so glad you got some! I had to make a conscious effort to leave yarn behind for other people when I was choosing mine ;^) I did break down and get two of one other colour though, heh

Darlene said...

Mary, didn't anyone ever tell you to send stuff to Goodwill BEFORE you move. Just sayin.

Mary Keenan said...

Ugh... I tried Darlene - I tried *so hard*! and then I ran out of time. This after years of shedding stuff to Goodwill on a regular basis for years, too. How can I still have so much I don't need?