Mercifully, the hernia operation is over and appears to be a success — but the advice from the surgeon is “no lifting,” at least for the next few days. I’m in no hurry to go through that particular operation again, so for the next few days, it looks like we’ll be spending some time thinking about boxes. Empty boxes. And that’s fine — my guess is that empty boxes make up quite a bit of the clutter in the garage.

If you’re wondering whether the “365 Days” project caused the hernia: No. The hernia was starting to become apparent before the first of the year, when I started this effort. Did the project play a role in making the hernia worse? That’s another question, and not one that I care to examine again, if you get my drift. So it’s light work for the next week or so.

Boxes 55-58: Saturday, Feb. 25, 2023

CONTENTS: When we lived in Missoula, we had a room in the lower level of the house (it held the water heater, if my memory serves) that was unfinished and uncarpeted. It quickly became the “box room,” the space where we essentially stored empty boxes. It would get messy, but I’d go in every six months or so and reorganize the boxes. This worked well until a plumbing leak soaked the box room and, by extension, all the boxes on the floor. Eventually, of course, we tossed out or recycled many of those boxes. This all leads to these questions: How many boxes do we need, realistically — and what, really do we need them for? I’d go into these questions in depth today, but my surgeon has warned me: No heavy lifting.

DISPOSITION: We have four boxes here. I’m not sure what Amazon sent me in that box on the left — in fact, I’m a little embarrassed that I’m admitting that Amazon has shipped me anything, but I’m sure it was something essential that I absolutely could not get in town. It might have been sugar-free Citrucel, which I am having a hard time finding in town, but the box isn’t the right size for that. This box will be broken down and recycled. The white box was used to ship Diane continuing education materials for accountants; this box appears to be useful for gift-giving, so we’ll hang onto it. The box in the middle contained those long grilling cages for shish kebab, eliminating the need for a skewer; oddly enough, earlier in “365 Boxes,” I found those grilling cages, which will now be placed into this box for donation. The box on the bottom is from Shonnard’s and will be useful when we go by there in a few weeks to pick up 2023’s crop of flowers and plants. When the garage is organized enough to have an area devoted to what we laughingly call “gardening,” we’ll keep a couple of these flat boxes there.