Lindsey Kuglin, Here, There & Everywhere

I’m finally doing it. After almost 10 months of being in our new house, I’m finally unpacking those last few boxes. You know the ones, just full of et ceteras that just don’t “go” with the new place, still wrapped in newspaper, and waiting for their new spot. In fact, I still have boxes that were packed two moves ago in the garage (I’ve got to get to those!)

It’s funny how long you can live with something as hideous as a pile of boxes. The longer it sits there, the less noticeable it is. The more you look at it, the less visible it is. It might not be pretty, but it just becomes normal.

A while back, I was talking to a fellow reporter from another paper who was lucky enough to have an office renovation. She had been working there for over 20 years, and for that entire time, her computer mouse’s home was on a stack of newspapers that reached from the floor to the height of the table her monitor was on. She said it just became part of the landscape, and it wasn’t an issue in all that time.

Well, these boxes in my home office became an issue for me this past weekend. I took notice of them after I started setting up my niece’s designated bedroom (again, finally!). I started carrying a bunch of stuff from that room into the office, when I stopped and thought “hmm… is this just going to create more work for me in the long run? Yeah, probably.”

So after I was done her room, I started wading through the boxes I so carefully packed at my last place. Frames, video games, Loony Toons mug collection, ice bucket lid (I was looking for that), a few stray candles, loose batteries, a book I was reading mid-move and then couldn’t find, and on and on.

And in this process, it became very apparent that I needed to make a bigger mess than I had originally in order to get more organized. Unfortunately, I ran out of weekend, and now remains a room with a large stack of paper, books, and miscellaneous items in very haphazard (emphasis on the “hazard”) piles of organization.

Moving is just one of those things that never seems to end. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get around to hanging pictures on the walls. Obviously, I’m not in too big of a hurry. Our one-year anniversary of homeownership is the beginning of November. We’ll see where we are then. One thing is for sure, we’re staying here for a long time, if for no other reason than making all this worthwhile.