Wednesday, May 24

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Beautiful weather again, though we are now at a point where we need rain. We've been having days that are more like the peak of summer than what should still be spring here.

I got a good night's sleep.

So nice to wake up with Roxy and the kitties.

I went into the nearby small town to vote. There is a community center there where they have advanced polling.

I really didn't feel like working hard in the garden again today, but I can't get around it. It needs doing.

I put down some of the old square bales on areas where I typically walk to hopefully keep it from packing too hard again, and to keep down weeds.

Then I fixed a section of trellis.

I pulled grass roots away from the trellis, since I can't get in that close with the tiller.

I planted some peas, potatoes, some bush beans, beets, and turnips. I still have lots of planting to do, but that's a good start.

I watered it for a while, and let the ponies/goats and Wonder out for a while.

I moved on the the other half of the garden, pulling dandelions. That half is a lot looser soil, and is going a lot easier.

My Sweetie was able to talk to the manager of the store that delivered the hay cubes and animal bedding, and they are giving us a store credit for the amount that we paid our neighbor to move everything into the barn. That's a bit of bullshit, because that means that because of the big markup on everything, the actual cost to the store won't be anywhere near what we spent. Sigh.

I finally got to sit down and watch a few episodes of "House". I am very nearly finished the series, and I will miss it.

I learned that Clint Eastwood is also a musician, and he has written several songs/scores for his films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Eastwood_discography#:~:text=American%20actor%20and%20filmmaker%20Clint,%2C%20director%2C%20and%20film%20producer

Comments

[sherlockishere]

Piles of pets in bed-- it's the best!

I'm glad you got some credit from that company. That's a lousy way to handle their deliveries!

[gottawonder]

I talked to my Sweetie again about it, and he says it is an actual full credit to our account, not a store credit. I feel a lot better about that. I was pretty upset that they left it sitting in our yard like that after how careful we were to be clear we needed it stored in the barn.

[ratunderpaper]

I look forward to the time when I can consistently tip Mungo onto the (dog blanket-lined) bed and sniff his wonderful pet smell through the night.

[gottawonder]

Won't that be nice!

[ratunderpaper]

I took him from his crate early this morning, and slept curled around him on a duvet until quite late in the morning. Warm puppy scent! Fuzzy puppy snout!

[gottawonder]

How lovely!

[ratunderpaper]

Some people hang on to receipts if they can use them for tax purposes. And others think things like phone bills from the last century are important - it took me a long time to realise I didn't need phone bills, defunct insurance policy reports, defunct credit card statements, et cetera.

Maybe the idea is to have a bonfire! But I'll hae a wee peek first.

[gottawonder]

We still get paper bills/statements for most things, and I keep them for only the past year (as in, bills from 2023 will be tossed at the end of 2024). Even then, I likely don't have to keep them that long.

Roughly every January I go through the piles and the file cabinet and toss outdated paper. It ends up being a good sized box every time.

[ratunderpaper]

I used to keep phone bills and receipts for corporate taxes. The ones I kept - and will probably keep forever - are organised in a few small box room boxes. Perhaps this is the year I go through box room stuff and winnow it down to make a usable space. It was never finished, ever. As far as I can tell, almost every house on this street has a box room that is unfinished. My next-door neighbour did finish his, and his artist son used it as a painting studio when he lived there. It is clean and tidy, though uninspiring.

[gottawonder]

It might be nice to have a room for something fun, like a place to set up a little dance area!

We have a room downstairs that is meant to be a cold room for root vegetables, but is currently a box room. It's the only way we could get rid of the sea can.

It might be a box room for quite some time, as the progress on the rest of the house has been s-l-o-w.

Upstairs I have KIND OF a box room, it has all my craft stuff in there, and several big rubbermaid tubs of movies.

There will be a space under the stairs in the basement where I want to put the movies, and hopefully then I can organize my craft stuff better. It was all thrown in there when we moved everything from the trailer into this house, but it got too full too fast for me to do a good job of organizing. The story of my adult life.

[ratunderpaper]

If it's for corporate tax, you're encouraged to keep your tax schtuff forever. Otherwise, I think it's seven years. I don't do corporate tax anymore; the golden age of illustration is over, as I like to say.

The box room has no electricity or heating, and is only partially framed by a handyman who did not finish the job. I haven't hired anyone to do work since the decline of the abovementioned golden age.

But - before the hot weather sets in and makes the space stifling, I would like to take out some of the boxes of things I once thought useful but, as is the story here, have not proved useful for over 20 years.

I think I'll slip up there today and take a box of something away - like "pieces of picture frames", or "old magazines that have one illustration in them".

[gottawonder]

If you haven't needed it in 20 years, you're probably safe chucking it. Good for you, for beginning.

[ratunderpaper]

In the box room, there are more things that, by default, belong to me: pieces of picture frames, old curtains, a million old magazines (with illustrations in there somewhere), and stuff from Lois.

I decided to keep Lois's 70s mirror, a box of raw silk curtains, and china for the sous chef if he wants it. It's a start.

[gottawonder]

Sigh. I love artsy magazines, and I used to have a few subscriptions of decor type ones that were really hard to part with.

I DREAM of one day having a nice home, though I lack the discipline to really bother with a "look". In the magazines though, I would just look at how nice a certain color on the walls looked, or individual items that were appealing.

Silk curtains do sound worth keeping, as does a mirror and china. It's so hard to part with things that are actually nice.

[ratunderpaper]

I've winnowed down the collection of interior design and decor magazines, thankfully. And Martha Stewart Living no longer exists; I have a nearly full collection of those and look at them from time to time. Too bad I don't have the first one!