Uncovering Treasures...

Box after box after box after box....  There seems to be a never-ending source of boxes.  I look at them, I open them but the piles never seem to get any smaller.  

Right now I make two steps forward to clear off an area in the kitchen and then I open another box and that area gets cluttered up again plus another area... so one step back.  It does not help that the packers seemed to make no clear way of packing any box.  They have things from the kitchen, from the porch and the living room all in the same box.  They look for things to make the box full and less likely to shift, but it is not all from the same place.

For example, Kate made a beautiful stained glass cottage that has a wooden base that fits inside with a light.  I have uncovered the cottage.  It was nicely wrapped and in the middle of kitchen stuff.  It survived the trip but the garden archway, which has small stones covering it was askew and may need some gentle tweaking.  However, the wooden base with the light and the cord were not in the box and had not been left in the cottage to give the base structure... as I might have done.  But I was not a professional packer.

The boxes are all labeled.  Things are from the mstr (Master Bedroom), Dining, Living, Bath, Kit, sewing, bsmt (basement), garage, craft, bath and then a small list of items inside.  Yesterday I opened three that listed cutting board in the list of what was supposed to be inside.  Only one box actually had a cutting board, so I am quickly learning that the list does not have much relevance to what is actually inside.  They had to carefully mark them for passage through Customs at the borders to Canada and back into the USA.

So I am now looking at each box as a treasure hunt.  The room listed is probably where the packing began but not always the only room.  The one box I have been looking for is the one from the attic and is my Grandmother's Noritake china set.  It had been living in the attic since my Dad brought it to me after my mother passed away.  I have fond memories of Thanksgiving dinners using the china when we would be in Illinois for that holiday.  But I had nowhere in Parkesburg to put them where I could use them.  The kitchen in this house has 2 cabinets in the kitchen that have glass fronts.  One already has my everyday dishes inside one... I bought a new set upon arrival here in Fairbanks.  The other one has been reserved for Grandma's dishes which will once again become holiday china.  I have been working through the piles of boxes in the dining room to find that one box as I knew it had been brought into the house the day the movers arrived.  Yesterday I was able to see it in the pile and I am now one box away from being able to open that box and get that cabinet filled.

I have found my air fryer, Instant Pot, big food processor, little blender, hand mixer, medium and small roasting pans as well as two bags of opened potato chips that had been carefully packed... in the bottom of a box of kitchen stuff.  To say that the chips were now crumbs was an understatement.  I also found a bag with 2 small, sweet onions.  I am just happy that I found them before they went soft and gooey. But I have not yet found my big mixer, Crockpots or ice cream maker.  I have located some of my cutting boards but they were in boxes that were not labeled cutting boards.

The snow on the ground.... just a dusting, even by Parkesburg standards... seems to be hanging around.  The long term forecast here is for temps to not get anywhere above the 20's, so while it may not be of any significance, it may very well be the base snow for the winter.

No animal sightings around the house in quite a while.  So no exciting events or moose sightings.  And no Northern Lights either.  I may not get them as brightly down here in the valley as Rob and Kate get them on the mountain.  But I am looking forward to the possibility of seeing a variety of strengths of the phenomenon.

So, I am off to get my day going.  Heading out to pick up a couple of things.  Tomorrow Rob and Kate will be spending the day and we are going to the theater tomorrow night.  We will be seeing The 39 Steps, a Hitchcock movie based mystery/comedy.  Looking forward to it.

Happy Halloween!!!