I pick up the strangest hobbies....

Life here in Shadowland is getting ... well... Interesting.

Interesting enough that spending a couple of hours hauling everything out of the garage, sweeping it, hosing the floor down, and then hauling it all back in (re-organized) actually makes sense.  (And yes, I promptly rested instead of going on to the next task.  I am taking care not to zoom back from that pneumonia thing too quickly.  I promise.)

And all that activity wasn't just because I'm feeling like a human being again.  Nor was it a delayed fit of Spring Cleaning-itis.  It wasn't even just so that the floor would look like this either:

It was because life around here is getting interesting.

Interesting enough that I've taken up a new hobby.  You'll never guess.

I'm now a Dumpster Diver!  But I'm very selective. I only dive in the dumpsters marked Cardboard Only.

Why am I doing this?  Good question!  My answer is twofold, but both can be summed up in one word:  boxes.

First, we're having the carpets in our house restretched and cleaned.  This means that we have to move things off of them.  Things like bookshelves.  And CD shelves.  And Movie Shelves.  And all of those shelves are FULL of things that must be contained.  And contained somewhere other than the room in which the shelves sit.

For example, this set of shelves

was full of CD's this morning.  Full, I tell you.  Those CDs are all now in boxes in the nice clean garage.

And these shelves --

were once completely full of VHS tapes (except for the top shelves on the far two cases  -- which held DVDs).  The VHS tapes and DVDs that are no longer in evidence are, you guessed it, in boxes in the nice clean garage.  These are tapes that we've managed to persuade ourselves we don't actually need anymore.  They're bound for the local library, where they'll be donated.

But why are we having the carpets re-stretched?

Partly, because they look like this, and I'm tired of it....

and restretching carpets is way cheaper than replacing carpets.  And partly because, barring some unforeseen miracle, we'll be putting our house on the market, and moving to a smaller one. 

The hardest part of this, besides the looming threat that I'll spend the next two months dumpster diving and packing, is leaving this:

I try not to think about that as I stack up my spoils from the dumpster diving adventures.

Instead, I think about the amount the moving companies would charge me to buy these babies.

Who cares if they used to hold packages of frozen french fries or well sealed bottles of chemicals for someone else's yard?  I think they do just fine holding my A/V collections

and they'll do as well for books, and china, and such like. 

Comments

[kmkat]

That photo of your soon-to-be-no-yours backyard almost made me cry for you. Glad you are feeling better, though.

[Mary]

Hey, good luck on the move! We've moved 3 times and maybe you know this, but often the moving company will give you *their* used boxes for free. Ask, when you get a quote.

And on the smaller house? Trust me, you will love it. *Way* less acreage to vacuum, deal with and pay for!

[marissa]

What a beautiful yard!!!!