Endless lists...

I live in Mt. Airy now. How wacky is that? It hit me tonight as I was driving home after coffee with Chrissy and Eleanor that my route home did not involve the Schulkill Expy, and hopefully not a big parking search. And lo, there was my spot in front of the house! My house.

But in the end, it's not so strange. All of my stuff is here, and it's the same stuff. I still use the same pots and pans, need to get the same lunches together to take to work. It's just the underlying set-up of each day is still in the formative stages, i.e., the house is a mess.

Which is only natural given that I moved in two days ago. And given that I'm still missing a bunch of furniture, I cannot really decide how things will be set up, where all of the bookshelves will go, etc.

Instead I'm making lists:

-Lists of things to buy

• A hose


• A third telephone


• A spade


• A new lampshade for my bedside table

-Lists of things to do

• Plant the flat of pansies on the porch


• Wash all of the pots, pans, dishes, etc., and decide where they will go in the kitchen


• Iron the now washed curtains and hang them


• Sweep, sweep, sweep


• Figure out an interim solution for linen and hanging clothes storage


• Arrange furniture


• Unpack


• Taxes

-House projects that need doing sooner than I thought

• Closets deep enough for modern hangers


• Shelves in closets for linens and other storage


• Shoring up the kitchen and laundry room walls and floors

And on, and on...

Sage advice...

Never have PMS while you're moving. It's just a bad idea. The emotional impact of, well, everything is so much more than it would otherwise be. I think.

The thing that has gotten me over the past few days is the constant remark from many people about how much stuff I have. And with the exception of a very few people, it's never, "oh, how many lovely, worthwhile things you have," it seems to be, "you have a lot of crap you shouldn't have and now you're going to make us move it."

This is, of course, extreme, but I'm not sure that it's wrong.

So as a result my reaction has been to pack and move as much as possible myself with mainly the help of my family who understand and share my love of stuff, and who will love me no matter what. And the comments push all of the buttons about my inner guilt about having so much stuff, though I love it, and not wanting to ask people for help because they might say no, or tease me about my stuff and how much I'm making them carry.

This moving/packing/buying a house/leaving my apartment and Center City thing has been emotional from the beginning, and uncharted territory for me for the most part. It's easy to forget that people go through this all the time and survive. And maybe the secret is that everyone has too much stuff, but that it's easier to notice someone else's than acknowledge your own.

So for the next several days, please bear with me and I wade through the emotional minefield. I ask for patience and kindness.

Who thought it was a good idea to have 7,000 items of hanging clothes???

Several thousand of which I moved today. Boy was that a crazy chore:

-load all clothes into car - ~8 trips, plus two trips for the rest of the rubber stamps
-drive to Mt. Airy
-park in front of house with flashers on - the only spots are too far down the block to unload stuff; cars can mostly squeeze by
-move clothes currently on first floor to 2nd floor racks - 4-5 trips up stairs
-take clothes from car to 2nd floor - 6-7 trips
-take clothes from car to first floor - 4-5 trips
-periodically drop pieces of clothing onto the street, against the icky stuff on the stairs; step on pieces of clothing
-wonder where the nearest dry cleaner is
-wonder how we will get downstairs clothing and rack upstairs...

Boy am I happy that chore is over. Ick.

The house is getting quite full of stuff that needs to be distributed to its proper place, but I'm hoping to have help with that on the weekend. Thank goodness for Mom. If she hadn't come to pack with me this weekend, I don't think I would have gotten a quarter of the stuff done that we did together, including a trip to Ikea. She's amazing!

In the house/out of the apartment

-All books
-All rubber stamps and craft items
-All hanging clothes
-All but essential bathroom items
-All but essential linens
-All but essential kitchen items including pots & pans, plates, bowls, etc.
-All breakables - china, pottery, vases, lanterns
-All tea pots
-All but essential fuzzy critters

Still to go:

-the essential stuff
-pictures, calendars, and other stuff on the walls
-curtains
-food
-electronics
-small appliances
-large appliance (a/c, microwave)
-furniture
-bed
-clothes hamper full of dirty clothes

Not to mention the tons of little things that will appear between now and then - the fans, lamps, objects that defy boxing, etc. But we're getting there. The trunk is packed with things I will take up after class tomorrow night. I will do the same for Wednesday. Food on Thursday, I think.

I'm having two house projects done in the near term. Right now the 2nd and 3rd floor hallway walls and ceilings are covered with this spray on popcorn goo that has left sharp points that scrape your skin, grab your clothing, and flake off leaving a constant mess on the floor. That's going away sometime this week - at least from the walls. I'll do the ceiling later. $180 - I'll take it!

And then next week I'm having my one leak fixed, installing bleeders on the two radiators that don't have them, giving the refrigerator its own circuit, and making sure the outlets in the kitchen and laundry room are properly grounded. Who needs $600 anyway.

I'm excited that I'm getting close. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. Will I be anywhere near unpacked by Passover - I doubt it, but the journey will be fun!!

My apartment looks like a bomb hit it...

...but in a good way, I guess.

Mom and I had a great dinner, got home just after 8, and proceeded to attack. Mom packed breakables in boxes that are really too heavy, but well packed, while I attacked the front closet. The good news about the closet is that as full as it is/was, many of the items were already contained in boxes, bags or crates. Find of the night - the box in the bottomw back corner in the closet of stuff mom gave me from the house in Bayside - still all wrapped in newspaper. I can't wait to see what's actually in there...

So I need your advice - should I try and strip some or all of the woodwork in the house. It's fairly likely in the period the house is from that the woodwork was painted white. But nevertheless, I'm thinking about it. Here are two pictures. Tell me what you think.

This one is my house.

This one is from a house one block west on Durham

The stripped cabinet is gorgeous with the glass top and mirror panels, not unlike what mine had originally. I thought I'd try the cabinet for a test piece. Thoughts??

And more packing...

Well, Packing Weekend, Part II is imminent. Mom has just arrived, and is now on the parking oddysey, and I'm sure between the two of us, we will get the job done, or much further along.

The books are all in the house, as are all of the dance materials, most of the critters, and the first few boxes of stamps and craft stuff. Thanks to George and Paul who helped me carry it all in after class tonight. This weekend I want to get in the kitchen stuff and a lot of the hanging clothes, and the rest of the stamps. And whatever else we can manage.

I wish I didn't have to work tomorrow, but there it is. Mom will receive the appliances. I will lament the non-appearance of the Texas furniture. Tomorrow evening we will converge for more packing.

Did I mention that I hate packing. I just want to be in the house. I don't want to go through the process of having gotten there.

Ramblings on the move

Well, the rubber stamps remain impervious to efforts to get near them, but the books are all in boxes and ready to be brought over tomorrow night, as are the dance binders, one box of linens from the bathroom and who knows what else. I'm guessing I can fill the car pretty well with thes things and other stuff that was already in boxes - boxes of shoes, if nothing else.

I'm kind of worried about the Texas furniture and the fact that the company supposedly delivering it only has phone numbers and email addresses that don't reach them. And they have the furniture and over half of the delivery fee. And they may not deliver the furniture when they are supposed to. Jenny says to call the police. Mom says not to worry. Any I hope she's right, but I smell a rat.

Tonight I dug up one last box of letters and cards (one last box until I find the next one...). It was even a prety box meant to hold photos or other keepsakes. I went through the box and saved the two spools of thread, a pair of scissors, and my immunization record from 1991, and threw the contents of the box and the box itself out. Trash night tonight. Everything goes right on the curb.

And speaking of trash night, I now know where I can get a recycling bin. I'm disappointed to be moving to a place that doesn't recycle plastics. It was so exciting when they started taking plastics in center city. I'm still going to separate them out from the trash and take them somewhere to be recycled when I have a load. It's such a shame that single stream recycling isn't in all parts of the city yet.

Tomorrow the plan is to leave work expediently, eat dinner, perhaps pack a few last boxes, and then pack the car. I will teach class, and then go up to the house to unload boxes. By the time I head down, mom should be here. That will be the most helpful thing to keep me working - company.

Keep sending good packing thoughts.

These books are made for packin'

I have this horrible feeling that I packed one of my library books...

One of the downsides of packing and moving is that you get into this zone where you're going to pack this first and this next, and oh, this would fit so perfectly in that box and where is the thing, and on and on... And in the midst of it all, it's so easy to forget that the all of the ordinary tasks of life have to get done too - the laundry, the dishes, writing the dance programs, the grocery shopping. Tonight I managed to get home from Swarthmore by 10:30, make dinner for tomorrow and the next night (gotta get to GCD early tomorrow for a nominating committee meeting - that goes on too), fold yesterday's laundry, wash a bunch of dishes and make a bunch of others dirty. Was there any packing in that list. Nope. And it's after 12:30 and the only other thing I can manage is bed, maybe preceded by some stretching.

But then, I knew that Tuesday would be hopeless for packing. I'd just hoped I could fill a box or two before bed. Now I think sleep would be more useful. Tomorrow... Tomorrow after the dance I will find parking immediately and fill a bunch of boxes to load into the car on Thursday before class and take them up to the house Thursday after class. Then Mom will be here to give me the impetus to keep going. Tomorrow I will box up the last books and then attack the rubber stamps and craft items around my desk. I wonder if a lone person can handle the extra-sticky to itself plastic stuff that I intend to wind around the rubber stamp boxes to keep them shut in transit. Guess I'll find out.

Please send along some extra-strength packing virility with a chaser of arm and back strength

Moving right along...

I have a house!!! Really and truly. And a mortgage. And a six-foot ladder. And a tool box. And a dryer shut-off valve. And seven bedrooms all of my very own.

This picture is from Sunday, taken with George's cell phone, displaying my brand new mailbox and beautiful house number (Thanks Deb!).

What the picture doesn't really capture is the vast quantity of dust that is all over my person and that seems to grow everywhere in my apartment. I feel like the dust has won here, like all dust that exists in the city of Philadelphia, and probably the state of Pennsylvania, originates here.

And yes, dust discovery has escalated since packing has begun in earnest. Moving began on the day of closing, in fact, because the instant you pack boxes in my cluttered apartment, you run out of places to put them. So the plan is to pack and move, little by little, so that by official moving day, there will be furniture and clothes, and so much more, but lots will already be in the house. So far, 2/3 of the breakables are there and at least 3/4 of the books. I've unearthed things hiding under the bed and under the dressers, on top of the closet and at the bottom of the closet.

The slightly discouraging thing is that there seems to be no end in sight. Starting to pack lets me know how very far I have to go. And I know I will get there, but will I get enough done to be moved on the 29th is the question. Maybe. I just have to keep working.

Tonight I managed to do 2 loads of laundry, eat dinner, pack about 14 boxes (mostly boxes of books), pack the boxes in the car and take them up to and into the house. Tomorrow I will try to finish packing the books after class (I think 3-4 more boxes will do it), and begin wrapping the rubber stamp boxes in plastic in anticipation of moving those on Thursday after class.


But now I will sleep.

The morning of...

I was going to write something meaningful. But instead, here's the poem that Deb wrote and sent to me last night, brazenly published without her permission. This kind of sums it up...

Twas the night before closing
and what do you think
Joanna was so keyed up
she could not sleep a wink


She had crossed all her t's
and dotted her i's
but she couldn't help dreading
a last minute surprise


Her mind spun and wandered
Unable to settle
She said, "I'll make tea"
and she put on the kettle


And as she sat sipping
that soothing balm
she took some deep breaths
and began to grow calm


She had the down payment
ready in the bank
for that she was grateful
she had Mom to thank


The house had passed inspection
The mortgage was approved
She'd made holiday plans
before she'd even moved


The hardest part was over
and though packing would be rough
she had lots of friends & family
to help her move her stuff


So Jo, whatever dances
may lead you to roam
let me offer congratulations
on your very first home!

Packing. Rats.

Happy Tuesday, my first free evening of Break, my first chemical-free day in weeks, and my first real packing evening.

I know you all know this, but oh my do I have a lot of stuff. There's nothing like seeing exactly how little fits into one box to really bring it home to you just how far you have to go. I believe I'm going to be packing until the cows come home.

In my head the packing won't take too long and is very compartmentalized: books, craft stuff, kitchen stuff, breakables. But then there's everything else - the contents of the bathroom linen shelves, the noxious chemicals, all of the hanging clothes, the shoes, the stuff (no better word for it) in my front and back closets, electronic equipment, heck, clothing. And there's so much of it, and I have 2.5 weeks, and...

And I will get it done, but gosh.

Andrew helped me pack 8 boxes of books and dance stuff, and wrap up all of my cds and tapes tonight. I'm happy for any kind of start, and now eager for the boxes Peter will bring me tomorrow so I can just keep going. And I really can't wait for Mom and Deb because doing the stuff on your own is especially unfun. And besides, mom is the super packer, and there is no one I would rather have helping me pack the kitchen and breakables!

So for the rest of the night I will putter, wash dishes, stretch, sort papers, throw things away, do my last bit of handwashing in the apartment, worry, stretch, and try to get a good night's sleep...

This is me as I am now in a calm moment:

It won't last...

Taking the good with the bad...

The Bad:

-I threw away many tubes of lipstick. Okay, they were old and all approximately the same color, but I loved them. Never mind I still have at least ten or so left that I don't wear often...

-PT costs $40 a session. Not too many sessions in my future.

-The Ikea Win Your Mortgage Payments for a Year is only at stores in the NYC area. I can't enter in Philadelphia. This is tragic because I was going to win.

-I really haven't done enough packing-wise. I've sorted some stuff. I have plans. But I finally got packing tape today, and this cool plastic wrap stuff that Melissa used. I'm also getting a bunch more boxes on Wednesday. Tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow...). Tomorrow I will pack many things.

The Good:

-I went through a few more drawers today and threw out many things and piled more to go to the Salvation Army on the weekend.

-I unearthed the mezuzah of Grandma's that I had and discovered that it was intact and had the scroll inside. I want to hang it with Mom and Deb on Friday. That will be perfect. It almost makes me cry to think of how lovely that will be.

-I went to PT today and got some good stretching exercises to do. I also walked to work at a very normal pace with normal sized steps carrying my bag and didn't ache. I even made one follow-up appointment.

-I made my plane reservations to fly to CA in July for Mendocino!

-Joanna P. came over for tea!

-I got through a bunch of stuff on my immediate to-do list, with a few more to go before I get to bed, including more stretching!

-I had a great time at the Boston Ball, saw a bunch of friends, danced every dance, including the skippy one pain-free, got partners, grinned a large percentage of the weekend.

What's left:

-Pack! Pack everything! Now would be fine.

-Finish my GCD program now that the date is not Jane Austen-ish.

-Finalize the Neffa demo program.

-Pack more.

-Memorize five Spring Ball dances. The last five.

-Go to the bank and withdraw huge sums of money.

-Close on the house. Jubilate!!!!!!!

Longing for a nap...

Someday I'll get back to weekend posting. Really I will. But not this past weekend.

It's amazing. A week ago I was in back pain-induced misery and ready to cancel my Boston Ball registration. Then the miracle of drugs happened and I decided to go to the ball, but not do any of the skippy dances. Then it was the ball, and as usual, I did every single dance, hard floor and back pain be damned. And had a fabulous time!!

Then before the ball I'd pretty much decided that since I was staying with Susie in Lynn, I wouldn't go to the after-party in Arlington - not exactly on the way home from Watertown. Then I decided to pretend Arlington was on the way home, like Lansdowne can always be on the way home if you try really hard, and, you know, just stop in to the party for a few minutes. And then suddenly it was 3am, which meant it was really 4am (who thought it was a good idea to put the time change on Boston Ball weekend I want to know!), which meant straggling into bed in Lynn a bit before 5am new time. Hence the need for a nap and the excuse for scattered posting.

And now, after the long drive on not enough sleep, and despite the fact that my laptop didn't get the daylight savings memo, I'm off to an early bed, and expecting to yawn my way through the day tomorrow. But in the end I count it worthwhile.

Physical therapy starts tomorrow, along with packing in earnest now that I can pick things up from the floor. Wish me luck!

Longing for shelving

One week from tonight, I hope to be a homeowner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I told someone recently that I was buying a seven-bedroom house, he wasn't at all shocked as most are. He said, "Great! One room for you and six for the books." That's about right.

One of the things I dream about are ample bookshelves, especially built-in ones. I've been collecting pictures...

I thought this idea was ingenious. They took a room with open rafters and nailed up sheets at certain points for instant shelves. I think this one works best it the ceiling is already fairly low so that the books are accessible.

While I'm not sure about the color of these, I find them to to be the quinessential shelves - that combination of open shelves with lower cabinets that allow ample space for books and decorative objects. Oh for a wall that big!

This one cleverly hides the built-in book shelf behind the door but has that added bonus of the built-in desk next to it. It may be a bit much, but it's certainly on the right track of an idea.

I like the idea of some combination of open shelves and shelves with glass doors (stay tuned for some kitchen ideas along thos lines...). While glass doors inhibit access, they cut down on the dust big time. If you have as many books and other items as me, dust has to figure prominently in shelving design considerations...

I feel a little mixed about this idea. I like it in concept, but I'm not sure I want that cantilevered affect inside, and like the first phot, books that might be too inaccessible. But if you're not blessed with space, I say take it!

In the new house I have to do some major space planning and thinking about which books will go in which room, where are the current bookshelves going to go, where do I eventually want to put in more shelves. Cookbooks near the kitchen, obviously, and craft books upstairs in the craft room. Novels in the parlour. But where does one store their 80+ books about tea.

I wouldn't give up the challenge of figuring this out for anything.

Wait a minute, Mr. Postman...

Tonight I am recycling my past. Literally. I've just taken five bags of paper out to the curb, years of birthday cards and holiday cards, letters to me at college and at [dance] camp, graduation cards from college, high school, and yes, jr. high school.

The motives for this purge were twofold: rid myself of many boxes of stuff that I would most likely never look at again and didn't want to move, and to try to find my original birth certificate and SS card that are somewhere in the same envelope, someplace.

Well, I did not achieve the latter. Of the former I have reduced the seven or so boxes down to one medium size box and one very small box. I call that a success.

But what I really gained from sorting through everything was not a rehash of the past - I didn't read it all - but rather an appreciation of how in touch people were with me. In college, Deb wrote lots of letters to me, and Mom sent me cards quite often. I got letters from college friends over the summer and winter holidays. During my years at camp there were long letters from Jennifer, postcards from Eleanor and Emily and lots of other people. And throughout the last 15 or so years, there have been postcards from Susie, letters from Susie, clippings, drawings, tufts of down, pictures of cats, and stickers of turkish pop stars.

Just thinking of all of the paper, of all of the time people took to send a note or a card, makes me feel really loved. That memory had gotten lost, or fuzzy and faded among all of the others.

Though I love email and the speed and ease of all of these electrons, I hope there's still a place for paper in life, so that in 15 years from now I'll have another half dozen boxes of memories and chronicles and connections to people to remind me that there were many moments when someone was thinking of me.

Send me a letter sometime, would you?

Out-boxing

Ha! You can change the time! You can pretend that you got home from Swarthmore in time to write your post before midnight. Well, don't tell, but it's actually 12:14am as I begin...

My bedside table looks like a veritable drug store. Yes, I went to the doctor today, and probably that act alone made my back feel better. I'm not dying. I have some steroids and a PT appointment for Monday, and I expect to feel perfect tomorrow morning. I may revise this opinion, but nevertheless, I am optimistic that my back will recover and I can go back to strict house obsession.

---------------------------

One of my major projects before I move and as I start to think packing is to de-clutter. I take things to the Salvation Army in dribs and drabs - books, clothes, random stuff I've acquired, but I need to do a more thorough job of this. I've been reading of this slightly more radical concept of the outbox, especially as promoted by the folks at Apartment Therapy. What they suggest is that when you go through stuff with an eye to de-clutter, anything you feel iffy about goes into a corner of your apartment designated as your outbox. And it sits there. One week, two weeks. Over time, you will either begin to detach yourself from your out box, or realize that some of the items are indispensable to your like, or most likely, some combination of the two.

I expect that this will work well for me. I have stuff that I like, but that I haven't actually associated with in years. In some cases, it's been because I've had not room to display or even look at said stuff. For others, I hang on to it for nostalgia.

Today I began to go through boxes of cards and letters with an eye toward tomorrow's paper recycling. I found that I could part with most of the stuff I looked at with little trouble, that the three boxes I sorted through was reduced to one small box (admittedly there are at least three more boxes to sort through). I hope the rest of the papers, and even the rest of that closet will go so easily!

One thing I have found to be true for myself is that I have a limited threshold for de-cluttering. The mood will come on me to go through stuff, and I will get a nice pile of stuff for Goodwill, and then just as suddenly, I will begin wavering on something. That's when I know I've gone through enough for that moment.

One thing I know for sure is that I will never live in a clutter-free place. I like my stuff too much. New clutter will replace deaccessioned clutter. But wish me luck in the next several weeks!

So, what's in your outbox?

A proper cup of coffee?

I gave in a made a doctor's appointment for tomorrow morning to get some advice about my back, etc. I expect to be all well by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. 'Nuff said.

I've gotten all my topics and days mixed up what with house and health issues, but I wanted to share a few of these amazing coffee froth images that I got in an email. Apparently there's a restaurant in Vancouver that specializes in coffee are while you wait. Amazing!

It almost seems a shame to drink the coffee, but maybe the picture is worth ordering a cup with milk and cream. Once.

Ups & Downs

Weekends are great, but not for blogging this weekend, or likely next. Too much to do!

This was a weekend of ups and downs. First the downs: My back, which seemed to be on the slow road to recovery last week to a gigantic wrong turn yesterday when I tried to lay on the floor to have a really flat surface for my back, which felt great but had the unfortunate end result of me not being able to get up from the floor. As I couldn't stay there forever, I managed to get up, but I'm sure tore something or things yet again. I couldn't dance on Saturday and left the workshop halfway through after being in agony and crying a bunch of the time.

Saturday night at home was not much better. I stayed in bed and struggled, taking an hour to get up. Today was better. I walked around, occasionally not so awkwardly. I showered. But I give in. Tomorrow I'm calling the doctor. I'm tired of being injured and unable to move and dance normally. I want to be better right now.

The ups: I have a stove! I feel like I should name it!

The bigger ups: I have wonderful friends who care and who are here to help. Last night Wes brought me ice and advil. Today Jenny came over to keep me company and to help me do the mundane tasks that are stupidly hard just now - dishes, laundry, and picking random things up off the floor that seem so far away. Val called me just to make sure I was okay. Ronnie came to get me and made dinner and got me home. People are amazing. Thanks to all of you out there for helping me in so many ways.

I'm daunted by the prospect of getting to work tomorrow, but I can do it! I'm only carrying my lunch, my notebook, my datebook, and my folder of stuff about the house!

Send good, healhy back thoughts!