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too much stuff!
Dec. 30th, 2010 10:40 pmThis has been a week of deadlines becoming sooner than originally planned. Given the travel estimates we'd worked out in advance I expected ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clovis_t to arrive on Tuesday sometime. On Monday I was making good progress on packing, and hoped to be done before he arrived on Tuesday. However, about midday I got a text message that they expected to arrive in a few hours. Yipes!
I got most things packed before they arrived, but not all. Once they arrived they suggested that they wanted to load the van on Tuesday and leave on Wednesday morning, so that they could get back to the UK sooner. However, my host in Geneva,kirieldp, wouldn't be home before Thursday. This meant that if we went with plan A, and I rode with them to Geneva I'd need to get a hotel for one night. And I'd not have any time to clean the apartment. Therefore enter plan B--a train to Geneva for me on Thursday. Cost more than the flight from there to Sweden, but worth it for that extra bit of time.
I continued packing on Monday, but got too sleepy to finish so went to sleep early. I've already posted about the adventure that arose from that. On Tuesday I spent the morning packing, then we took a break to head to the city center, since the passenger along on the adventure hadn't yet been to Milan, and the Duomo is worth seeing. Soon after we got home, and while we were waiting for the rice cooker to finish making our dinner the phone rang. It was the other SCA family in Milan, calling to ask if now was a good time to come pick up stuff--I'd asked them to come collect things that didn't fit into the van as it would be better to give it to them than toss it.
However, we hadn't started loading the van yet, so didn't know what wouldn't fit! Yipes! Told them to come on over, since it was the best time for them. Therefore we stopped what we were doing and started loading the vehicle. She got the easy part--wait for the lift to open across the hall from the apt, and then put boxes into it and send it back down. He had the sweaty job--take the boxes from the lift down the last half flight of stairs and out to the street. I had the interesting job--trying to arrange the boxes that were available at any given moment into a logical arrangement.
We were perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the way done when they arrived, so we closed up the van briefly and brought them upstairs and I started offering them things I wouldn't be taking with me. They refused the microwave and iron, since they have those, but took the popcorn popper. We decided to give them all of the boxes of "optional" books. It hurts to give away that many boxes of books, but it turns out to be a very good thing--they wouldn't have fit in the van.
We managed to get all of the boxes that were packed and in the apartment into the van on Tuesday evening, but that used up all of the available room, and I had more things I still wanted to pack, and I also wanted him to take my kiln to the UK to give to an SCA person there who offers fabric for it. I've had it since we lost my step-dad back in 2003, and never even opened the box to look at it--it is time to give it to someone who will use it. Between the kiln, the boxes of enameling powder, and the books on the topic there were four boxes that still needed to go in.
Therefor I got up early on Wednesday and mostly emptied the van, organizing boxes into piles by size and shape, and then re-loaded the van, this time making the most efficient use of space. It is *much* easier to load a van when you can see everything that needs to go in at once, instead of only 4 or 5 boxes at a time. By the time I was done I had that thing packed full from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The kiln boxes did fit, and some of the bedding. Alas, we forgot to pack the weights, whichclovis_t had wanted, and would have fit into tiny corners that were too small for boxes. We might have been able to get in more of the bedding, but he was eager to get on the road, so I just thanked them, gave him more cash for trip expenses, and sent them on their way.
By the time I fished with the second van-loading my arms were sooo sore! I felt like I'd just done a serious day of rock-climbing (something I really do need to do again, soon--it has been too long!)
Did some of the house cleaning and sorting out what was left that evening, and finished the task this morning. Took some stuff to the donation box down the street, left some stuff on my desk at uni and told my boss that it was available for anyone who wanted it, and brought the rest with me. Some of it, like my yoga mats & yoga blocks will stay here forkirieldp, and the rest I'll take with me to Sweden.
I *just* managed to get the apartment clean enough for my standards on time to head to the train station. Alas, I wound up sleeping for part of the trip, so only got to see some of the pretty scenery between Milan and Geneva. Am now enjoying a nice visit here, and use of her computer for internet access. Alas, I can't check my mail, because I get an error message when I enter in my password, and I can't tell if the issue is the fact that this keyboard is mapped differently than the keys are labeled, or if I'm misremembering which password to use for what account. Fortunately, I can log in here, FB, Yahoo, and Skype, so I'm not totally cut off.
clovis_t to arrive on Tuesday sometime. On Monday I was making good progress on packing, and hoped to be done before he arrived on Tuesday. However, about midday I got a text message that they expected to arrive in a few hours. Yipes!I got most things packed before they arrived, but not all. Once they arrived they suggested that they wanted to load the van on Tuesday and leave on Wednesday morning, so that they could get back to the UK sooner. However, my host in Geneva,
kirieldp, wouldn't be home before Thursday. This meant that if we went with plan A, and I rode with them to Geneva I'd need to get a hotel for one night. And I'd not have any time to clean the apartment. Therefore enter plan B--a train to Geneva for me on Thursday. Cost more than the flight from there to Sweden, but worth it for that extra bit of time. I continued packing on Monday, but got too sleepy to finish so went to sleep early. I've already posted about the adventure that arose from that. On Tuesday I spent the morning packing, then we took a break to head to the city center, since the passenger along on the adventure hadn't yet been to Milan, and the Duomo is worth seeing. Soon after we got home, and while we were waiting for the rice cooker to finish making our dinner the phone rang. It was the other SCA family in Milan, calling to ask if now was a good time to come pick up stuff--I'd asked them to come collect things that didn't fit into the van as it would be better to give it to them than toss it.
However, we hadn't started loading the van yet, so didn't know what wouldn't fit! Yipes! Told them to come on over, since it was the best time for them. Therefore we stopped what we were doing and started loading the vehicle. She got the easy part--wait for the lift to open across the hall from the apt, and then put boxes into it and send it back down. He had the sweaty job--take the boxes from the lift down the last half flight of stairs and out to the street. I had the interesting job--trying to arrange the boxes that were available at any given moment into a logical arrangement.
We were perhaps 1/3 to 1/2 of the way done when they arrived, so we closed up the van briefly and brought them upstairs and I started offering them things I wouldn't be taking with me. They refused the microwave and iron, since they have those, but took the popcorn popper. We decided to give them all of the boxes of "optional" books. It hurts to give away that many boxes of books, but it turns out to be a very good thing--they wouldn't have fit in the van.
We managed to get all of the boxes that were packed and in the apartment into the van on Tuesday evening, but that used up all of the available room, and I had more things I still wanted to pack, and I also wanted him to take my kiln to the UK to give to an SCA person there who offers fabric for it. I've had it since we lost my step-dad back in 2003, and never even opened the box to look at it--it is time to give it to someone who will use it. Between the kiln, the boxes of enameling powder, and the books on the topic there were four boxes that still needed to go in.
Therefor I got up early on Wednesday and mostly emptied the van, organizing boxes into piles by size and shape, and then re-loaded the van, this time making the most efficient use of space. It is *much* easier to load a van when you can see everything that needs to go in at once, instead of only 4 or 5 boxes at a time. By the time I was done I had that thing packed full from floor to ceiling and wall to wall. The kiln boxes did fit, and some of the bedding. Alas, we forgot to pack the weights, which
clovis_t had wanted, and would have fit into tiny corners that were too small for boxes. We might have been able to get in more of the bedding, but he was eager to get on the road, so I just thanked them, gave him more cash for trip expenses, and sent them on their way. By the time I fished with the second van-loading my arms were sooo sore! I felt like I'd just done a serious day of rock-climbing (something I really do need to do again, soon--it has been too long!)
Did some of the house cleaning and sorting out what was left that evening, and finished the task this morning. Took some stuff to the donation box down the street, left some stuff on my desk at uni and told my boss that it was available for anyone who wanted it, and brought the rest with me. Some of it, like my yoga mats & yoga blocks will stay here for
kirieldp, and the rest I'll take with me to Sweden.I *just* managed to get the apartment clean enough for my standards on time to head to the train station. Alas, I wound up sleeping for part of the trip, so only got to see some of the pretty scenery between Milan and Geneva. Am now enjoying a nice visit here, and use of her computer for internet access. Alas, I can't check my mail, because I get an error message when I enter in my password, and I can't tell if the issue is the fact that this keyboard is mapped differently than the keys are labeled, or if I'm misremembering which password to use for what account. Fortunately, I can log in here, FB, Yahoo, and Skype, so I'm not totally cut off.
