packing update

Last night I finished with the Stuff Under The Bed. That was good. I found a box or two of complete knicknacky bullshit, most of which I am happy to get rid of. So I now have about an eighth of a box of knicknacky bullshit to keep, and another entire box of knicknacky bullshit to dump. That's an accomplishment, there. And the stuff I'm keeping includes my Worf and Raphael and Samurai Jack action figures. Yah.

Jorn has taken two trash bags full of stuffed animals over to the new place. There's at least one more trash bag full of them, and maybe two baskets of small ones as well (I need at least one more basket--when I put the little ones in baskets, they're containable and much more displayable). These are the ones we need to keep. I have a crate and a box full of ones it's breaking my little heart to get rid of. Does anyone have small children in their lives who might want these guys? I've got beanies, fluffy bears, happy bunnies, the works.

Last night I also went through a box of random papers. A lot of it--a LOT of it--I was able to get rid of. I honestly don't need five rough drafts of my full masters thesis, so I just kept the one Fred wrote comments on and one clean one, and was able to dump the rest of that paper. Got rid of a lot of cards people sent me three years ago, stuff like that. I also kept a lot of cards, and decided it was okay for me to keep postcards. This is a good thing. I have a thing about postcards, you know. I designated an envelope the Postcard Envelope and just kept putting them in there. I have quite a collection. It would be nice to get a book with clear pages to insert the postcards into, so that I can see both fronts and backs of them. Perhaps organize them by datestamp, or by geographical location. Hmm. Anyway, I put all the correspondence and other papers I wanted/needed to keep into an organizer that Elan gave me that was practically empty. I can't throw away letters that Walt sent me, after all, or stuff from Rhett, or nice comments people gave me about my thesis reading.

The last big thing I did last night was organize photos. I honestly had not put any pictures in my photo album since Rhett's wedding in June 2004. Pictures from last August's birthday party, Bob Brown's wedding, Portsmouth last Novermber, tons of stuff. And because I always save programs and maps and ticket stubs to put with the pictures in the album, I had huge piles of stuff sitting around. I went through almost all of it, put it in order, put it in the album. Found some things I'd removed from the album or found later that needed to go back in earlier sections, and put that away. Now the album is actually caught up through my latest roll of film. Holepunched stuff that's more recent than that so it wouldn't get lost. Put a huge envelope of double prints in the kitchen so people can take them if they want (huge, like going back to before we moved to Boston). This all really had to get done--I didn't want to move the mess, I wanted to have it organized and put away before I moved it. I need to do something with all my negatives that are sitting around--I hate to trash them, but honestly I can scan any picture I have, right? And if I keep the negatives with the pictures that doesn't do any good as a backup if the house catches fire. So I should just trash them. Next I need to clean up all my movie ticket stubs (I'm a packrat, shut UP) and put them in the movie ticket box. My room is now looking not just messy but like someone is moving, which is a major improvement.

I have the longest list of stuff to get at Target this weekend. To my credit, I have clipped a notepad into my day planner and I'm keeping track of all the stuff we need, because there's just so much. Trying to be careful with spending so I won't have to put it on my mastercard, but I think that'll be okay. It's seriously that much stuff.

Jorn's almost done packing his cds, which when you've got 2500 cds is a monumental task. I'm really proud of him. He's been working so hard, and so not living down to my expectations of him. Seems like he really understands what this means to me, and he's really trying. I could not be luckier.

utilities

We have power and gas at the new place. Go me. Now just have to figure out oil, which is sort of important (but at least the tank should have whatever's left over from the last tenant in there, right?) and the cable/internet, which we can worry about later. Like when we have a TV and computers there to connect to.

Any recommendations for oil companies in the Boston area?

::edit:: Thank you for the fascinating and frightening commentary on oil heat y'all are providing. I have every intention of calling up some company and having them top off the tank now, because I am always cold and would rather have it taken care of now rather than be colder later. I will likely go for the automatic refilling since, you know, always cold, don't want to have to worry about it. Also I'm figuring that no matter what company I go with it's going to be expensive, and I'm betting one's not going to be drastically higher than the next (please don't give me a flurry of comments about that unless you have specific examples, okay?). All that taken into consideration, please tell me/us what company/ies you use and would or would not recommend. I have emailed the landlord to see what he says; I also value your opinions. Thank you, everybody!