Good day, Monday! May 6, 2019

[lucylee]

Oh yes, definitely familiar with Revive Us Again! Sadly, haven't heard it much in the Methodist church I belong to now, but you know, you can take the girl out of the Baptist church but you can't take the Baptist out of the girl.

A Monday attitude all week long? Hmmm.... blessed, that is a wonderful thought! I should look at Wednesday or Thursday as a day to press re-start, not a day to give out and give up!

Happy anniversary to Kathryn & Ken!

Thinking of anniversaries... tomorrow is the sixth anniversary of my ddad's passing. So on this day six years ago, we were in a flurry of activity, getting ready for our long trip to Houston, with no idea how long we'd be there... and we were only there approx 24 hours, having arrived a couple hours after he died. Unbelievable how much has taken place in these past six years... dgs has grown up to be such a smart little boy, playing tee-ball and enjoying school so much... dgd was born... dmom and all her circumstances, going to rehab to get off pain meds and Ativan, and now she is finally beginning to seem like herself... Sometimes it seems like forever ago that I was in that classroom/in the hall/in the principal's office arranging for subs and ds's travel plans with us and finding us a hotel, and sometimes it seems like it was yesterday.
ANYWAY -- saying all that to say, through it all -- I don't know what I would have done without you ladies.

Today, I have not truly focused on my 5x5, but I haven't been lazy.
On my list,
[x] 1. Call the allergy doctor.
[x] 2. Call about tickets at Silver Dollar City, Branson * Finally settled on the best deal, but will wait till tomorrow to order, just to make sure dh is improving.
[ ] 3. Clean bathrooms
[ ] 4. Dust
[ ] 5. Iron dh's pants for trip
[x] 6. Forgot to tell y'all -- took the messy, dying plant outside (it sheds sticky residue all over dining floor) AND cleaned up floor and surrounding wall -- this has been a LONG overdue task. DGD was very happy to "help" me with this!
[x] 7. Put poison on some ant mounds
[x] 8. Cooked supper, s/s kitchen

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dh and I went out for a walk that turned out to be 2 miles. I did it in my walking sandals. I have on my hiking pants (POCKETS!!!!) and a t-shirt. Just had to put a hat and the keys away when I came in since the wallet, sunglasses, phone and pedometer can stay in my pockets. I still have 3 pockets without anything in them. That's how you know these are men's hiking pants, not women's!

Dh warned me snow is in the forecast so that's why he was open to a longer walk.

I had him put on the screen doors today as well. Another sign of spring.

[blessedw2]

hi d lucy and d kathryn!!!

[blessedw2]

I refuse to give up
kitchen home blessing done
Now for family room

home blessing is done. it took a lot longer than normal.

[Twins' Mom]

VENT: Dh came through. We're frustrated with each other. He bought a new-to-him convertible today which will live in the garage except when he's having fun driving it, and his Subaru, which he will drive most the time, will live in the driveway. If he wants it, I'm fine with it. He works very hard and his income has risen the past few years so it's not hardship. But he wants to switch sides of the garage so his smaller car can go where my car usually goes. Normally I'd be fine with that, but there's so much stuff on his side of garage that I think something there will scrape my car so I think all that stuff would have to be reorganized. He has a bike there he hasn't ridden since we've been here, and probably for five years before that. We have at least six folding beach chairs PLUS at least half a dozen chairs that collapse into a bag so we can take them somewhere. We use two beach chairs most years, sometimes four, but that's it. If we were having a crowd outside (which I don't foresee) I"d tell them to bring their own lawn or beach chairs. If we are going somewhere in his car, he has to back it out of the garage so I can get in anyway. And my car is 7 inches wider than his. (Just looked it up.) OY. VENT OVER, I hope.

And now I can't focus! And he wants me to take him to pick it up on Wednesday when I was planning to run errands. I told him to give me a time and I'll make myself available to take him, and I also have DAR meeting that day.

bw2, You are doing so well staying focussed and staying at it.

[Harriet]

(Twins'), it does sound like some changes in the garage would help, in advance!

Maybe there's something inevitable about Monday as a recuperation day. Have spent an hour and a half admiring the 1945 movie, And Then There Were None, from Agatha Christie's book. Well done. Highly recommended. It actually got a start out of me at the end. Some of the character actors were familiar, but only Richard Haydn was known to me as soon as I saw the name. He's a delight as the comedic butler. youtube broadens my horizons, lol.

Oh, yes, have led that song many times, though I believe mostly when I was in the SB, when it was a favorite number to be called out at "singings". If I were distracted enough, I could probably turn to it somewhere in the middle of the old Baptist Hymnal, but now that I've thought about it, I can't remember the number. Have heard the other version in a movie sometime, I think! Definitely has the tempo of a drinking song.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I've heard back from the musician and they sing that song and she assured me all the hymns I picked were also in my register. So we're good to go!

I need to clean up dinner and I think I'll then put the hour into finishing the bulletin. Then tomorrow I can focus on the corporate year-end. I have three tasks on my to-do for today. I might get one of those done too.

[DeeClutter]

Not sure how I did it, but I'm over 14K steps for the day. I missed my 10K on Saturday. Had figured I'd pace some when we got home from the concert -only to realize that we weren't home till 12:30am & my F bit resets to zero at midnight -hmmm....didn't see a pumpkin! I did get in over 8k Saturday, however. We ended up having to park in a church lot a bit away from the arena since the parking garage was full. This area is very close to where the Pulse nightclub shooting took place so not a really great place to walk. But it was pretty busy with patrons at that point. Actually it felt nice when we came out -low 70's and a balmy breeze. Nice.

Dsonil just got home from work about 20 minutes ago -he normally gets home about 2:30. He hates overtime. But dd loves it!

[lucylee]

CI:
[x] 1. Call the allergy doctor.
[x] 2. Call about tickets at Silver Dollar City, Branson
[ ] 3. Clean bathrooms
[ ] 4. Dust
[x] 5. Iron dh's pants for trip
[x] 6. took the messy, dying plant outside AND cleaned up floor and surrounding wall
[x] 7. Put poison on some ant mounds
[x] 8. Cooked supper, s/s kitchen
[x] 9. Decluttered one more shelf in the bedroom cabinet/chest of drawers (one more to go and I can mark off the "west" wall of the bedroom)

* Decluttering *

I have a new system. (How many times have I said THAT?)

Like LadyM, I believe, did some time ago, I made a list of ALL the spaces in the house, closets/rooms/etc. Then I decided to keep up with each room by walls, NSEW. For example, the east wall of my bedroom, I only had to declutter a small chest where we keep old cassette tapes and CDs, and a few misc things. I did not touch dh's stuff. The north wall has the bed and nightstands, so I ignored his nightstand and decluttered mine, top & two drawers. West wall has two closets, a chair, and this cabinet I'm working on right now. Everything in the cabinet is mine. The closets are separate spaces, so I will mark off the west wall when I complete the cabinet, and move on to either the closet or the south wall. South wall has the dresser, which has only dh's clothes, but some books of mine on the shelves surrounding the mirror. Also on the south wall is the tv cabinet with a lot of video tapes and dvd's.
I am trying to do a bit each day, one shelf/one drawer/whatever.

HOWEVER, it is somewhat inaccurate to call this "decluttering." I am, if the truth be told, doing more "organizing clutter" than decluttering.
It's just that most of this stuff IS deeply sentimental, and although I don't want to be embarrassed after death when ds & ddil & dgrands go through all this * stuff * ... I just can't bring myself to part with it, at this point. All my short stories in junior high... poetry from high school years... compositions in college... journals... letters... I just can't throw all this stuff out. Maybe like someone I've read about, whose name I can't recall, I'll be published after death and become hugely famous. Maybe I'm thinking of Emily Dickinson?

Editing to say, I'm still even transposing/editing journals per Harriet's suggestion of long ago, to cull stuff that might NOT make others smile after my death, and save those things that MIGHT be happy memories for ds. I have typed and printed 2019-13 at this point, titled: Gratitude Journal, Answered Prayers, and Memories/for (DS)

And editing again to say, it seems somewhat narcissistic to even be DOING this... re-typing stuff I have mixed feelings about to begin with...
I’m a little bit insane.

At any rate, there IS a slight bit more open space in this cabinet now, and some things have been put in more "logical" spaces.
I am not concerned with how long this takes, I'm just hoping to make some bit of progress each day, or at least a few days of each week.

~~~
In other news, we are playing a very stupid game here tonight. It is called, "Let the Baby Sleep."
DGD came back in, after spending a few hours at home, with corndogs for supper. However, she had fallen asleep enroute to get the corndogs and her mommy pronounced her very cranky. She just wanted me to hold her, so I lay her down for a nap just a little before 6:00 pm, and she is still asleep. She will probably wake up in a little while and be totally wild till daylight.
I should probably go wake her up, but our thinking is, we're going to be up late, maybe if she sleeps now, she'll be up later and SLEEP later in the morning.
OTOH, she may wake up with the sun and be full speed all day no matter when she sleeps.
* sigh *

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Lucylee: Marie Kondo would say that if they spark joy with you, then you should keep them. Then she would say that these things you keep should be honoured so put them in a beautiful box, or have your writings bound nicely.

Finally, a tip from me: A lot of the things I'm keeping, for exactly the same reasons you are keeping, are in a box marked "shred when dead". I can't guarantee the children will not go through the boxes but I'm giving them permission to just junk the box without opening it up. They'll know it meant something to me but I am not burdening them to hang onto it solely because it meant something to me.

For instance, while I'm currently keeping all the printouts of my services, this whole filing cabinet drawer is marked to be tossed when I die. On the other hand, it gave me joy today when I discovered I had preached on these passages before so I have almost the whole service completed and it is only Monday!

I've just finished the bulletin for the secretary and am awaiting for confirmation of the sung blessing and doxology and then I can send it to her. And I've done all my bits as well, into my 'service script' but I'll edit the prayers in order to add Mother's Day to them, and I'll lengthen the sermon somewhat, using some of the notes I made before I realized I'd already preached on this. Again, it will be highlighting more about Tabitha, and how her inclusion in Acts is significant.

Ken's aunt in Toronto is dying and so there's a chance she won't live until after my year-end accounting meeting so I'm working to get as much done as quickly as possible so I can take off to Toronto for a couple of days if necessary. He leaves on Sunday so I might be our family's representative. I don't want my usual pattern putting things off instead of doing my work long before a deadline to be the reason I can't attend.