Here it is Saturday afternoon. Yesterday was my regular blogging day. I like to post by 7:30 a.m. Obviously I’m not even close. It seems that life is conspiring against me, with task after task that must be done pushing out the tasks that I’d like to do.
The biggest thing coming up, aside from important medical appointments, is the distribution of the physical effects of my mother-in-law’s estate. Just two weeks ago we finished distribution of her remaining financial assets. There weren’t many left, but we had waited to make sure another bill didn’t come in.
The physical estate consists of odds and ends of furniture, linens, books, photos, letters and cards, knickknacks, and decorations. Some of these were hers from her first marriage, some where her second husband’s, and some they acquired together. Her second husband has two daughters by his prior marriage, my wife’s step-sisters who we used to see regularly and had good relationships with. We told them we were finally ready for the physical distribution. So they are going to drive here next Saturday, spend the afternoon going through things, and drive home again—thus minimizing coronavirus exposure.
Getting ready for it has started. Last weekend I did some organizing and took an approximate inventory of the more major items. We also got a letter out about it by e-mail and Messenger to the step-sisters and Lynda’s brother. He lives farther away and won’t be making a trip here. He gave us his desires on the phone.
Meanwhile, Thursday I had a full day of work for my former company, consisting of a final inspection, site visits, luncheon, and former meeting. Some reports were due, and some edits to City drainage standards. That work spilled over to Friday morning. As I worked on that the fact that I had a blog to write escaped me. I was going to do a book review. I’ve finished three books I haven’t yet reviewed but want to. I wasn’t sure which one to do next, so I had some thinking to do before I could write the review. I suppose that will be Monday’s post.
Meanwhile, I continue transcribing letters from our Kuwait years into a Word file. With six to go, I’m up to 77,700 words and 138 pages. When formatted for a book that will be well over 250 pages, especially if illustrated with photos as I would like to do. I will finish those around Tuesday. I say “finish” because I don’t know for certain that I’ve gathered all letters from those years. We have a large gap in correspondence with Lynda’s dad, and a three month period in 1989 with no letters at all. Her dad may not have kept all our letters (accounting for that gap; or they could be in another notebook or box), and the time gap includes some travels during which we wouldn’t have sent letters. Still, I will hunt some to see if I missed any before I declare the transcribing “done”. Lynda said, “This didn’t have to be done now, you know.” Yes, I know. But if not now, when? Will live be any less crazy, less hectic, less busy once the pandemic ends and rioting in our urban areas subsides? I think not.
This week, as of this morning in fact, I’m caught up on yardwork. That’s not to say I don’t have more to do, but both front and back yards are back to a maintainable point with normal effort. Next week I’ll clear away some logs left from other clearing, and begin carrying posts across the street to the fort. But I feel good about the yardwork.
Friday I go to the hospital for an echo-cardiogram (my third), a stress test (my first), and something else cardio related. The will be a whole day gone. Meanwhile, my weight is down (5 lbs. this month), my blood sugar readings are in a good range even after the doc reduced my insulin dose from 25 to 10 units. I’ve been reducing it gradually and will finally hit 10 units tonight. So health is good.
Get the estate distribution behind us, get this transcribing behind us, get these tests behind me, see a reduction in workload for my former company, and then and only then will I be able to concentrate on my novel-in-progress. I read a little for research in it now and then, but not much new writing, and I won’t have any this week. Get these major items behind us, and hope no more come up.
Oh, yeah, our new roof is in and looks good. But the gutter covers they shipped were the wrong size and the worker installed them anyway while I was gone Thursday. They look like you know what. Some of our gutter is damaged. I got on a ladder, took photos, texted them to the superintendent, and said, “Are you proud of this work?” He said he sent them to corporate and will take care of it. My evaluation of the company depends on them making good on that promise.