Paper, Paper, Paper!

I used newsprint to wrap and cushion my belongings when I packed them for the move.

This is two reams of newsprint.

I used three reams of 24" x 30" newsprint. A ream is 500 sheets, each of which, when stacked (and unrolled), measured about 1-1/2" high.

The paper worked great. Nothing I packed was damaged at all. But 1,500 sheets of crumpled paper fill up a lot of garbage bags when you try to throw them away, so I got the bright idea of flattening them out to take up less space.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.  But by about Saturday afternoon, I almost cried every time I opened a box and pulled out the crumpled paper. It was one thing to pull the paper out. It was another thing to sit on the floor and flatten it out. 24" x 30" is big. To flatten it out I had to lean forward and sweep my arms in big circles across the paper. My shoulders, knees and back were aching, and I was taking pain killers every day.

So, WHY didn't I "take my time" instead of unpacking all the boxes between Thursday (moving day) and Sunday (I had to go back to work on Monday)?

Well, what ELSE was I going to do? I had been living with these boxes for four long weeks. I wanted my stuff. I wanted NORMAL.

So how big a stack is one thousand four hundred ninety-seven pieces of flattened out crumpled newsprint? (I had three sheets left over after packing everything.) It's bigger than you think.

I was kinda surprised.

Actually, I was VERY surprised.

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wait for it...

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ok, here's how big.

Yeah.