Because we just can't get enough of moving

OK, it's been a few days since I've had any time to post anything here. I want to maintain the habit of keeping this updated, otherwise I'll get lazy and forget about it. It's just that I've been working those extra hours keeping Honeywell and the tax man rich, for all the good being burned out at the end of the day is actually doing me in terms of making productive progress.

But, no work rants. At least not now. Now I want to post about our moving experience. You would have thought that we would have gotten enough of moving boxes and furniture around when we helped Maria move.

But, as things worked out, we spent the last weekend tearing our apartment apart so we could put it back together. We had been talking for a week or so about taking the upstairs portion of the house we're in the basement of. Unfortunately, we found out that it had been rented pretty much the same day we had started thinking about taking it. All along, we figured our backup plan in the event that we didn't get the upstairs would be to set up our second bedroom as a dedicated computer room and office. It was previously being used for storage of boxes. Many of the boxes are empty or nearly empty. Many of them have stuff we haven't bothered unpacking from our move in 2003. And I think there are even a couple that I never unpacked from my move to Canada in 1997. If I've gone this long and not missed whatever it is that's in there, it must not be that important. We keep thinking that "someday" we'll settle down and figure out where we actually want to live. Maybe. Then we'll actually unpack all our boxes and find places for all of our stuff. Or maybe we'll take a look at it, ask "why did we bother even moving this so many times?" and give it away.

In the mean time, getting the computers out of the living room will be a big benefit, and it will also give Norah some much-needed space that she'll be able to put to good use in her aromatherapy practice.

One really cool thing that happened last weekend was finding a free desk that's going to work out really well. It'll be the work desk for serious business, like paperwork, paying bills, etc. We're going to be enforcing the "no clutter" policy. At least that's the idea.

How, you ask, did we get a free desk? Well, we realized we needed some kind of desk that wasn't going to get covered up with all of our various computer stuff. We figured we'd go over to Office Depot and check out their folding tables. That's what we currently use for our main desk, and it works pretty well. Plus they're cheap. As we were driving over there through our neighborhood, we saw a desk that someone had put out at the end of their driveway with a sign that read "FREE COMPUTER DESK". We didn't need much convincing. After a quick check to make sure we had enough space in the black truck for it, we grabbed it up. I thought about going home to get the other truck with its extra cargo space, but Norah reminded me that the desk would probably disappear in that amount of time. So we just took it in the truck we happened to be driving at the time. And so many people ask whiningly "why do you need a truck in the city?" Because they're so much more than just a transportation appliance to carry myself from one point to another. They're tools. People who can't see that have no imagination. That's why.

Anyway... back to our current big question: where in the world are all of these boxes going to go? As of Monday, we had stacks of boxes everywhere. In the kitchen, in the laundry room, in the bedroom, on the couch, pretty much everywhere we looked there were boxes upon boxes next to even more boxes. But, at least the computer desk was in place. I'm slowly trying to formulate a plan to put the network back together to avoid the unruly mess that used to prevent me from doing any work on the computer. It was easier to avoid being eaten by the cable monster, so I tended to only do things that absolutely needed to be done with them.

Norah has been figuring out good homes for a lot of the boxes, and the piles are slowly dwindling. I'm quite impressed with how well she can pack a whole lot of stuff in to a very small amount of space. We're not quite there yet, but hopefully this weekend we'll be able to make some good progress. Especially with the empty boxes. If we collapse those down, they'll be much easier to store.

The irony is that we picked probably the worst possible time to start a project like this. I'm stuck at work doing my mandatory overtime. Norah just started school. The weather is warm enough to go places, although recently it's turned hot, hazy and humid, so there's also a lot to be said for staying in the air conditioning. But, there is no such time as a perfect time, and having this done will make things much better on both of us.

I'll try to get some pictures of our new setup once it's all put together. No guarantees when that will be, though. Keep watching this space...