Trees and Memories

The work on the house is coming along fine. There was a lot of stuff, as you can well imagine, from 20 years of two lives having been lived there, and artifacts from our lives before we moved here, as well. I have gotten rid of many pounds of things; I was going to say "a ton," but I suspect well OVER a ton has left here in one pickup truck or another.

Today DL cut down some trees that were actually damaging my garage -- just saplings -- and she took a truckload of stuff that she'd culled out of the garage and thought she would find useful. These are culled from things that I did NOT want to ever see again. She will donate some of the items on my behalf, too.

Annette also took a truckload of stuff. Part of her load was boxes of things that I had thought that I'd sell on eBay, but... I've since thought better of it. I just don't have the time, energy, or patience for that sort of pursuit right now. Another day I might find it fun, but .. not now. I told her to take the stuff, that I never wanted to see it again, and that she could pocket the proceeds. I'm happy. She's happy. And whoever might buy the stuff will be happy. Doesn't get better than that!

Now I have to go through the rest of my office, finalizing my piles of things. The most important piles for me are the piles of things that I am going to keep, either stored in Annette's house, or brought back to my Tucson cottage in this little RV. That pile, obviously, must be quite small, since there is a limited amount of space and cargo-carrying capacity in this RV. I am choosing things to keep, as if I'm shopping within my house, picking out the things that I love the most and will use the most. Or that mean the most. I am keeping a couple of small boxes of things that are just simply memorabilia.

I'm giving things not only to my friends but also to charities around town. Teachers' Warehouse, Red Cross Book Fair, Community Kitchen, Goodwill, and Backstreet Mission have all benefited from my purge. Oh.. and Amos at the Recycling and Solid Waste Center has benefited too! When I went in there today with a car FULL of stuff, he helped me to offload it and then HE thanked ME! He said that I'm helping him to keep his job! LOL! I just love Amos.

Last night we had a storm! It actually was so windy and branches were snapping with such urgency that I opted to go into the nailed-down house for a bit. I used the time to shred some paper. My power did not go out (thank you REMC Bloomfield!) but it did flicker once. I returned to the RV at about 9:15, I'd guess.

Neither Maddy nor Eddie gets scared of storms, thankfully. I had one dog, a silver mini poodle named Alex, who would go nuts when it stormed. The only way he could be calmed was to be put into our bed. I was reminded of this when I found a card today that Michael had given me. It was from the pets, and Alex had "signed" it and thanked me for sharing our bed when it stormed.

I'm exhausted today. Oh.. and I just realized that I have not had dinner, and have not fed my pets, either! I'll feed them first. ;)