Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Earl is in box-making mode, having visited the local box company today and purchased 25 of its finest containers. He’s taping the bottoms like a madman and stacking them in the family room. Good thing we have a vaulted ceiling.

This may seem premature since we’re not moving for a while, but it isn’t. Actually most of our furniture leaves our home in two weeks, on Day 16, to go to an auction house. And when you move from a large place to one half the size, the decisions of what to bring with you should be made carefully. Almost surgically. Otherwise the new place will look like a warehouse from the get-go.

The good news is we’ll have less to clean and care for here after October 1; the bad news is that we need to start packing those items that are not making the cut to the new home. Hence, the box-making. Rule #1: The boxes must be relatively small when you’re discarding books. Rule #2: They must be relatively large for bedding items. Rule #3: There is always more to pack than one realizes.

So we’re heading into the weekend and getting a jump start on the packing, because –given everything else we’re involved in — Day 16 will be here before you know it.