Boxes & Apple Butter

My eldest daughter let me know how many ways she’s enjoyed the homemade apple butter (made from mom’s Island apples) I sent her for Christmas. I offered to send more, and she said the jar was lasting. Shortly after she confessed to being a tad hasty turning me down on resupplying her. I replied that more was on the way. That was three and a half weeks ago.

The first thing I did was look through my cache of collapsed cardboard boxes, which are accompanying me to the Island next week in order to continue packing the house. None fit the bill. My next intention was to pick up the right-sized box at the post office. I failed to do this on my weekly trips to check my P.O. box. Deliveries to the house arrived in oversized boxes.

On Wednesday I volunteered in a demonstration garden associated with my county’s Master Gardener program. Toward the end of my time in the garden, a few of us were recycling, you guessed it, cardboard boxes. I exclaimed to the gal who was running the endeavor, “This is mine!!” She laughed at me. 😂

My usual aversion to hanging onto cardboard boxes is fueled by my mother’s dementia-driven need, while still living on the Island, to keep every single cardboard box that walked into her life. And further, to cut down cardboard into perfect squares that filled large cardboard boxes, which rendered them unliftable. I’ve said it before: I can’t fix my mama, but I can control the lingering signs (Getting rid of the box collection that seemed to represent security, and that would be so handy now) of her illness. So, yeah, zero extra cardboard unless I’m packing up a HOUSE, or it’s getting close to Christmas.

I mailed the apple butter to my daughter yesterday.