Okay, I’ve made up for lost time, that’s for sure.

I finished clearing, cleaning and disinfecting the linen closet.  The shelves are made of plywood that’s painted.  It’s quite rough in texture.  My mother had lined the shelves with sheets of plastic, tacked into place, to protect her linens.  I haven’t decided what I want to do with them to fix the roughness on a permanent basis, but I still needed to do something to cover them, so they won’t damage my stuff.

Cardboard to the rescue.

I cut a couple of boxes we’d unpacked previously, to fit the shelves.  It worked out quite well.

It’s amazing what getting that one thing done led to.

I was able to unpack 8 boxes.  I was also able to move two long bins designed to fit under beds, under the bottom shelf.  These hold things like our collection of canes, umbrellas and shinai in one, badminton and tennis rackets in the other, so we do want to keep them handy.  They stick out of the closet, which means the door can’t be closed, but the door is broken, anyhow, so it doesn’t really matter.  At some point, they will actually get unpacked to more permanent places.

With the linen closet now clear, I could not only unpack my linens, but move some of the ones already unpacked and shoved into the wall of shelves.  I was then able to pack a bit more of my mother’s things away, which in turned helped clear more shelves.  I was then able to clear and clean 2 columns of shelves in the wall of shelves, then unpack boxes of papers, binders, folders, board games, etc.  Some of it will need to be gone through and put into more permanent places, or at least better organized, but the main thing is they are no longer in boxes.

All that finally allowed me to unpack my last box of linens.  These I was saving for last, as it included things like an antique, cut work embroidered linen table cloth, and table cloths and napkins embroidered for me by the same amazingly talented family member who gifted me with the ceramic sugar and creamer set that the movers broke the creamer from.  She’s actually the one who inspired me to get into crafting myself.  I’ve also got items embroidered and crocheted (some pieces have both) by my great-aunt, who was amazingly skilled.

One box, oddly, was half blankets, half kitchen stuff.  The movers packed that one.  I unpacked the blankets half, then took the box out to the dinging room.  After I stopped for supper (which my daughters were awesome enough to make for us), it was there anyhow, I unpacked the rest of that box, too.

The best part is, I no longer have a wall of boxes along my side of the bed that I need to squeeze past.  Yay!  There’s now just a few things than need to be finished up and re-organized in the bedroom before it’s done.  Well.  As done as it can be, for now.

The next major area of boxes that needs unpacking is my office.  Some of them are my crafting materials and tools, but not all.  As usual, the challenge is, where do I unpack them to?  I still need to work out a space to unpack all my cookbooks in particular, since I do want them actually near the kitchen.

All in good time.  Right now, I’m exhausted, but in a good way.  I think my goal for tomorrow is not to unpack anything else, but to rearrange our bedroom and maybe even *gasp* vacuum it.  I do wish we could rip out the carpet.  The lumps and bumps are quite the tripping hazard.  That, I am thinking, will wait until we can install the second bathroom.  If we’re going to be doing construction in there, anyway, that would be a good time to get rid of it.  I have no idea how we would take out that wall of shelves, though.  It’s more than 10 feet long.

Ugh.  I can’t start thinking about that now!  Especially since it’ll probably be years before we can come up with the money to do it.  I’m more interested in getting more boxes unpacked and hopefully finding the stuff of the girls’ that’s missing.  I don’t hold out much hope for that, though.

The Re-Farmer