Back to work (various)... in These titles mean nothing.

I had a good day today. I worked with LL who is a very pleasant woman. We have various things in common and we were doing a reasonable job. It was a long fire engine harness and we had plenty room to stay out of each other’s way. I put heat shrink end caps on the stripped wires. Each harness had more than 30 of them. It was hot and the heat gun used to shrink the endcaps put out a good bit of heat itself. We finished two and then did ten of a slightly different one. By then the day was almost over and we were given separate jobs. I am still setting up mine. It’s a job that’s interesting and that I feel comfortable doing. So it was a good day.

When I got home I watered and mildly fertilized the deck plants and discussed the day with Jim We had various news.

At some point I remembered my friend’s working for herself project. She is clearing out her house. Making things nice. Hmmmm. Four hours a day. Sounds like a good idea. Since I already worked ten hours at my job - see above - I thought an hour would be enough of making the house better. I decided to start with the top left desk drawer in my fatherinlaw’s old rolltop without a rolltop desk. It sits in the kitchen and holds the printer. Before we went wireless our computer was on the desk too. Now it’s just a piece of furniture that holds who knows what and attracts and fosters clutter.

I started at 6:40. First I washed a load of clothes and ran water on the dishes in the sink. Then I tackled the top left drawer. My camera would not work so I do not have a before picture. This picture is a half way done pic.

Keep in mind that I am not good at getting rid of clutter. I am more of a save everything person so this might be rough going.

I kept a box of cancelled checks that my husband had written. He had the most beautiful hand writing. I’ll show you someday. I also kept the check book he was using when he died and a picture of his old high school girlfriend that he kept in his wallet. The wallet was in bad shape and had no sentimental value so I got rid of it.

I kept a stack of old legal papers, letters from my dad’s lawyers dating back to the mid 1950s, and legal stuff from my husband and my life - his mainly, I did not have much of a legal identity while he was alive. I did not go through them. I just put them together and put them in the stack you see on the rear of the drawer.

I kept two phone books, one current and one marked “Save for old addresses”. I threw away about a dozen other phone books. There was about a dozen plat books there too. Plat books have maps of each township in the county and show who owns land and who lives on it. I didn’t throw any of them away. Jim says he gives them to hunters to show them where they can hunt. I organized them (ha ha) and put them in the book case.

I also threw away old computer stuff. The desk is full of old computer stuff and I am getting rid of it

Next picture shows drawer two when I started cleaning it. It had phone books and plat books and you can see a web cam jammed in the left side.

The drawers hold a fair amount of miscellaneous. Funeral cards. Photos. Broken watches, or maybe just ones that have run out of battery. Watchbands. Stuff. Note pads and sticky notes. I kept the notepads and sticky notes. There was a notebook that I had written in. I put it in the bookshelf in my bedroom with my other notebooks. There was a scarp book with clippings from WWII that I don’t think has any family connection but I couldn’t throw that away so it went in with my notebooks. There was a conservation plan for the farm that went there too. A section of the local paper announcing my first grandchild’s birth - it happened to have a letter to the editor by me too, so of course I saved it.

Here’s a pic of me when I was two and a pic of my kids soon after we moved back here and they were seriously into farm play.

Here’s another pic that I took of the World Trade Towers from Battery Park on a night in 1988 or 1989. I’m strangely proud of that picture.

This is drawer number two almost empty. I put a few things back in it. I made a place to keep my camera.

Oh I found a book full of sheets of colored construction paper. And a detailed set of income tax returns from the mid nineties. I could not throw either of them away and they ended up in my books case too.

By then my hour was over but I still had some energy. I burned the papery stuff I threw away. I cleared off part of the top of the desk. Worked on the table a bit. Hung out my load of clothes. Bagged up my nickel and non-nickel cans. Washed dishes - there weren’t a lot.

Jim and I and Gracie and Stripey Butt went for a short walk. Stripey did not want to come home and we had to walk back to find him and then wait for him to get going. I noticed the second crop of wild lavender monarda is blooming. My tame red monarda has been blooming for a while now. It came up by itself in the orchard.

We had frozen pizza. Tombstone 4 meat variety which is pretty good.

Now I’m thinking of going to bed.

Oh and I trimmed my bangs and sideburns.

Last updated July 11, 2016