I'm just doing a P&R (post and run). Have to be ready to take gd to school in 25 minutes. At least I've done meds, made the bed and had breakfast. Rest is yet to be done so have to hurry.
GD is going on an overnight retreat with her church group tonight. DD is very glad for this small reprieve. GD spent about an hour looking for (non-existent) shorts last night. Actually dd sent them to Goodwill as they were too tight and too short.
Just wanted to say hi -keep hoping I'll have time to more than peek in. Not sure that will be today however. After taking gd to school we're going to church -me to work in the office and dh to help with their rummage sale.
I'm in for Fantastic Friday also. Working as usual - came to the realization last night that I'm running out of work to do so need to round some up....
News from yesterday is that Temple's (part-time) maint guy fell from ladder and shattered his ankle and will be off for at least three months. Bad break for him and us. I'm going to see if someone will organize some meals for him and family a couple of times a week for awhile. Returned phone call yesterday and lady never called me back - I left message that she could reach me at work from 8:30 until 7 or 8 p.m. most days. I've been feeling guilty about letting temple stuff go undone, but OTOH, I am telling myself that working like this is what gives me the flexibility to spend a lot of time the rest of the year.
Right now I'm stalling on getting ready for my Fantastic Friday!
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [wo]man. Ben Franklin
Good morning! I'm hoping for a fantastic Friday -- and it IS sorta fantastic already, b/c we get a 3-day weekend. We're out Monday for a "weather day." (Built-in day we would have used to make up days missed for snow, if we'd had any, but now it's just a free holiday! And especially since it falls on Daylight Savings Time weekend, I really, REALLY appreciate it.)
Hope everything goes okay for dgd's weekend away, Dee.
Ooohhh... that's too bad about the maintenance guy, Twins. You should NOT feel guilty at all! You're doing an amazing job w/your Temple duties + payroll. I am always VERY impressed when I read your posts.
* sigh * I, on the other hand, do virtually NOTHING besides payroll - collapse - payroll - collapse.
Thanks, Lucy, but you must remember that you spend a lot of time on eldercare, and spend far more time with your dh and dfamily than I do, especially right now! I'd fall out most afternoons from the errands that you run after school.
Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better [wo]man. Ben Franklin
I've been trying to spend a significant amount of time decluttering lately. Gradually seeing empty space, which makes me happy.
Last night I was struck by how difficult it is for DH to throw anything away. There was something from the garage that he had said was trash and I assumed would go in the can this week. I saw it last night and asked about it, and he said that it was wet so he was going to wait for it to dry out and then put it in a bag. As far as I know, the guys are just going to tip the can upside down into the truck anyway, they don't care what shape something is in. Why waste a bag? And part of why it's trash is because it got wet in the garage. So ...
Analyzing this, I am reminded that we are both children of parents born in the late 20s who grew up during the Great Depression and the rationing in WWII. Our parents taught those lessons well. It is extremely difficult for both of us to discard anything that might be useful.
I have come to the point, though, that I can see our property showing up on an episode of Hoarders if we don't change. For example, it is really easy now for me to say, "I am no longer interested in this type of craft project, so it's for the donation box." In the last year I have pared our dishes & kitchen equipment and sent half to Goodwill. I'm even letting go of books, and y'all know how hard that is! I still have a lot of work to do, but the decisions are much, much easier. Plus I finally have created large blocks of time to do the work.
The county has decided that since they have a new computer program in the assessor's office, they need to measure each and every house in the county, both the outside dimensions and inside inspection. I think it's a huge invasion of privacy, but I understand the logic behind the need to verify the property owners statements about how many bathrooms, etc. Property taxes are based on the assessment. So I don't like it, but I'm using the knowledge that a stranger will be inspecting to keep me on track for decluttering and deep cleaning.
There is one significantly bad room that I'm planning to deal with this weekend. After that, I'll keep working for my own satisfaction, but I won't panic if the inspector shows up.
After days of being on the go, I am looking forward to a day of being home. This morning I have finished up the dishes for the church funeral meal. I'm glad to have that done so I can focus on routine cards.
Thinking outloud.......
I'm starting the development of mental boundary fences to corral routine tasks in their time limit and to also keep out activities that don't bring me joy. Of course I will have plenty of gates in my mental boundary fences to welcome unplanned opportunities (such as cooking for church family funeral) however I want to be the one who consciously decide when to open those gates and to know what routine cards are being shoo'd out of the corral to make room for these unplanned opportunities to support & love on friends. One of the things I have chosen to not spend time on is watching GreyA episodes. I found myself consumed to the point of addiction with watching it. I was spending a couple hours daily watching TV and I started noticing how my thoughts were changing as their ways became familiar to me....so i have choose to not watch it and redeeming those hours doing what I have consciously chosen to do. Retirement has brought me freedom to choose how I spend my time and I want to honor those choices by actually doing them!
Good morning. Today will be fantastic if I can get moving around here. I am still tired from yesterday's hard work. Man! I used to work non-stop for hours and not feel like this. Last eve. I couldn't keep awake and just kept sleeping. Today I am still not fully recovered.
My friend from church mentioned to me that things she used to do in 1 day now takes her 2 like cleaning her house. And she is younger than us. People don't usually talk about this stuff, though, and it's a real surprise to me, the changes I'm feeling.
(Twins) I'm sorry about your maint. guy. So nice to support him with meals like that.
Hmmm, daylight savings weekend, Lucylee, are we losing an hours' sleep? Rats! Booksaver, I'm sure glad noone comes inside to inspect. Our prop. appraiser office sends someone around either yearly or every 2 years, but they only look on the outside. They do make another trip after permits have been pulled for improvements. OKay, that is so smart about your TV viewing. I also noticed the same thing about too much novel reading (affecting my thoughts).
I must get the rest of this house done today. I'm starting with the sweeper. My desk chores are done so far. DH wants to rake up all the leaves and cut the grass, I will have to help with the raking. I don't want to tell him he can't have people here, but this thing with the youth group made so much work for me and I knew it'd be tough. He promised to help, but I knew, also, that the bulk of stuff would be my job (read the label!).
Twins Mom, I can tell you from bitter experience that the maintenance fellow is in for a true ordeal. No matter his age, the pain will be excruciating and the surgery(ies) extensive with long recuperation. If he is not particularly young it will be worse. I'm so sorry to hear this happened, and I hope he will get a lot of support.
BookSaver, as a 7-year veteran of municipal reporting, I was at what your county is planning. Frankly, I'm not sure it's legal. Here, just a few incidences of even suggesting a governmental entity had a right to measure or examine house interiors has been met with more lawyers than you could count. As I recall, they had to prove some kind of genuine danger to the public health, like asbestos, on an individual basis, and even then the limitations were very restrictive on what a representative could do, once inside. They were forbidden to record information on home interiors for taxation purposes, I know that for a fact, and I believe it was federal law that was quoted. Everyone in our county would raise their eyebrows so high now, if it were brought up again, that the Supreme Court might as well clear space on the docket. LOL!
Big kitchen declutter here this a.m. Refrigerator cleaned out, lots of counter and cabinet un-necessaries tossed. Later today I'd like to wipe down the fridge interior. Towels are spinning in the laundry.
Good morning gals it's fantastic reading how you all are doing Dee funny about the shorts; hugs for the bad news about the maint. guy.
Today I've started coffee and am up earlier but that's good news I've been going to bed more
on time lately with the time change this weekend here in the states I have to adjust meds.
meal times slide half hr. so it does not mess me up but by now I"m used to it.
I'm hoping to get some more yard work done this afternoon if the weather holds up we have leaves to rake and bag up. A showing this morning but it's part of the routine now. Dgd was here until nine last night so I'm glad that they chose today instead that is working out better all the way around.
Journaling is under way.
Kitchen is looking good.
I have the table cloth on the deck table and cups out there in a tray for the staging,
kiddie table and chairs have been moved out there as well.
Next up a bit of spiff in the living room.
Time for my breakfast.
It is a sea day and I'm getting caught up on writing:
You must remember this... we are on a very full itinerary and finding time to write each day is hard. So updates come when I can make the time to write. *
Tuesday was Casablanca.
Glad I went. Won't be going back.
This is a very large city, 5.25 million people, and it took me by surprise since we haven't been in a large city since Cape Town and Casablanca is half again as large as Cape Town.
So we had traffic.
It is a study in contrasts.
West bumping up against African. We saw a McDonalds sign lined up with a minaret.
Old being overrun by new. Slums with satellite receivers lined along the top.
It is a constantly changing city but even as time goes by the European colonial history and the Second World War significance of Casablanca is still preserved. We were shown where the WWII conference took place.
King Hassan (the current king's father) decided to build the Grand Mosque as a way of drawing tourists to Casablanca. Built over 7 years, starting in 1986, the building is absolutely stunning. It will hold 35,000 worshippers inside and about 85,000 outside. During the last day of Ramadan, the streets leading up to the mosque are filled as well and an estimated 1,000,000 worshippers will be part of the prayers.
This is a commercial mosque, people must pay to come in to pray and it is a destination mosque that people make a pilgrimage to. It has succeeded in its goal.
Structurally, it was breathtaking. Go online to look for pictures because our camera couldn't capture the beauty of the workmanship inside.
The roof is on tracks so, in good weather, it can open up. When we arrived, the roof was closed, but it was in the process of opening just as we were leaving. To open takes 3 minutes, to close takes 4.
The minaret, at 210 feet, is the tallest in the world. The mosque is the second largest (Mecca is larger.) There is a laser at the top that indicates the direction of Mecca. And the minaret also serves as a light house (in Arabic, minaret means light house.)
The rest of the tour was not as interesting. We drove around the richer neighbourhoods and were stuck in traffic for a while. Actually, it felt like a long while! Reading back over the tour description, there were a lot of things we didn't see so I'm thinking we were stuck in traffic longer than intended.
When we weren't stuck in traffic, we saw some beautiful things. After what seemed like ages, we came to a modern Catholic church which had amazing stained glass. Another short ride away took us to the courtyards of a municipal town hall which had stunning tile and stucco work and then we walked to the gates to the palace.
We had a stop at the Hyatt for a delightful snack and then went to a store that had things of 'good quality' and fixed prices. The prices were good, about exactly what I had negotiated the previous day so I didn't feel ripped off for my purchases. I tried on an amazing one-piece of material outfit but it looked dumpy on me so I didn't buy it. I might regret that.
We headed back to the ship after that, had lunch, did our afternoon walk on the deck instead of on-shore because the city was so busy that it didn't look worthwhile to try and walk there.
You might ask “What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?” to which I would have to reply it was on the ship's itinerary but to be honest I was looking forward to seeing it. It certainly wasn't what I expected to see but am not sure how much of that is the fault of the tour as opposed to the city. I am sad to say it was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship since I did enjoy our other stop in Morocco.
But now we have taken our leave of Africa. And I'm ready to go.
* All awkwardly contrived sentences in this travelogue are either due to tiredness or fitting in dialogue references from Casablanca. Take time to watch the movie again, it is full of great dialogue.
Captain Renault:What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: The waters? What waters? We're in the desert.
Rick: I was misinformed.
I, on the other hand, do virtually NOTHING besides payroll - collapse - payroll - collapse. 
