Category Archives: home improvements

family, home improvements

Routine Interrupted

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Dateline Sunday, 21 August 2022

If there is anyone who reads this blog regularly, including on days when I don’t make mention of a post on Facebook, they will note that I missed posting last Friday. I can’t think of the last time I totally missed a post. A few times I’ve made a minimal post late in the day. A few other times I did my post a day late. But it’s been a long time since I totally missed one.

Why did I? One reason was our son was here for a week’s visit. A few weeks back, when Lynda’s sciatica came on very strong and debilitating, he was ready to hop on a plan in Chicago and come right down to help out. We advised him not to at that time, and he complied, but he scheduled to come see us at his first opportunity after this. He came last Sunday and left Saturday.

He had to work remotely much of the week—it wasn’t vacation for him. After his workday ended, he helped us in our decluttering process. The main target was the garage. This has become a catchall place for things we wanted to get rid of, but we never seemed to get around to deciding what was trash, what was for donation, and what, if anything, actually needed to go back into the house.

We already had a donation pile. Tuesday we worked around 3 hours, sorting trash from donation vs keepers. We had a full trash barrel and a large donation pile. Wednesday evening early, Charles and I loaded that in the van and took the stuff to Goodwill. Then we worked another three hours. Thursday, I had writing critique group meeting. I worked a little that afternoon on organization, and that evening drove the car into the garage. That hasn’t happened for 15 years.

Friday evening, we drove into Bentonville, took a walk on the Chrystal Bridges Trail, then walked to the square and ate at a somewhat fancy restaurant. At least it was a good restaurant. Then it was walk around a little to find a certain store, then get some ice cream. Saturday, we took Charles to the airport, dropped a few electronic items off at the Benton County recycling facility (for a cost), came home, and relaxed for the rest of the day. I could have written a post then, but I just wanted to read. I also worked on an inside the house project: converting paper files to electronic files. I did that to 10 old letters. This is a long-term project that I do a little on each day, and hope to get done in around a year.

The other reason is that our air conditioner went out. That was last Saturday. We suffered through it until Monday our HVAC guy got here and gave us the bad news: complete replacement, costing in 5 figures. But supply chain issues means we won’t get the replacement for 2 to 4 weeks. Yuck. A man at church loaned us two portable vent-through-the-window unit. On Tuesday our HVAC man loaned us a third, It’s not quite 90 in the house as it was early on Monday, but it’s hotter than normal, and that leads to not feeling like doing much, including things like blog posts.

Now it’s Sunday. I taught Life Group this morning and will head back to the church shortly for a Teams meeting.

Tomorrow, I hope to get back to writing, something I did almost none of last week. Maybe I’ll even take time to write the next couple of posts in my climate change series.

Stay tuned.

home improvements, miscellaneous

The Summer of Major Events

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I’m going to just say a few words here, a day late from my usual posting day.

This has been a summer of major events. My cardio rehab 3x per week. Our church Centennial. Lynda’s severe sciatica. My 50 yr high school reunion—as it turned out missed due to the sciatica. And now, our air conditioner goes out.

It happened on Saturday. I noticed around 1 or 2 pm that it wasn’t cooling. By early evening it was up to 84° in the house (92° outside). Naturally, at 6 pm Saturday evening, no one is coming for two days. Our HVAC guy got here at noon Monday. He determined the unit would possibly be fixable, but our best bet was to replace it. But, lead times on new units are 2-4 weeks. By mid-afternoon Monday it was 91° in the house (95° outside).

I posted something on Facebook about it, and a friend from church, who lives fairly close to us, said he had two portable units he had bought when their AC went out a few weeks ago, and he would loan them to us and help get them set up. That happened last night. By morning the temp was down to 80° in the common space and cooler in the master bedroom and kitchen, where the two units are.  We will survive the 2 to 4 weeks and, who knows, maybe the supply chain will do better than projected.

With this going on, I felt terrible yesterday and didn’t even think about this blog. I was in no condition on any of those days to pull my next climate post together, so the series is yet again delayed. Maybe I can get it done by Friday.

home improvements, miscellaneous

Worn Out

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Nothing seems to wear me out more than talking on the telephone. Long calls, such as a couple of hours or more, require twice that amount of time to recover.

That’s what happened yesterday. I got to the late afternoon completely exhausted. It wasn’t all the call’s fault. And, actually, it was a Zoom conference, but that’s the same thing as a phone call. I spent the morning working on the publication files for There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. I managed to get about 2/3 of the way through it on this latest pass, looking for formatting inconsistencies, typos, missing quote marks, etc.

I pulled off the formatting to work in the yard. That was about 10:30 a.m. or so. Fortunately, I didn’t have any stock trading tasks to do yesterday. I worked pretty hard, mainly weed-eating at the front of our unbuilt lot, going around known blackberry plants and looking for new ones coming up. I worked on that until I figured the battery needed charging. I moved a few downed limbs, then raked some of the cuttings and put them on the compost pile. I didn’t even come close to finishing that. I also spent a little time working on a sitting-in-the-woods location to make it a spot where I could go out with a book, in the shade, drink coffee, and rest my body while working my mind.

I was almost done with outside work. I decided to tackle—that is, begin to tackle—a small woodworking project I’ve wanted to do for a couple of years. I figured out what I wanted to do, found the odd pieces of wood in the garage, and did some measuring and cutting. Possibly tomorrow I’ll work on it again. When that was done, I came into the house and checked the time. Almost 12:00 noon, so close to an hour and a half of this work.

I went to the hot sunroom for reading, a window fan making it tolerable. It was just a little over 90° there. I managed to get a few pages read in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson, but not near enough to justify the time spent.

After a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich lunch, I headed back to The Dungeon for the Zoom conference. I won’t go into the work we were doing, just that it was a one-on-one conference related to our church’s Centennial celebration coming up in July. It was tedious, finding the correct places on Google Drive to put some files, creating new folders. I grew weary of it and, after 2 1/2 hours, told our committee chair I needed to leave. I had hit a wall and was unable to accomplish anything more. We had at least another hour of work, and by this time I was scrolling through folders and just seeing words or pictures racing by. I couldn’t find anything.

I went upstairs and, for an hour and a half, did nothing except sit in my reading chair, check a little on e-mail and Facebook, and nap. It was after 6:00 p.m. before I got up and started putting supper together. Fortunately, it was leftovers and pre-prepared salad.

By the time 8 p.m. rolled around, I was able to go back to the Google Drives and pick up where we had left off. Over the next hour I got a lot more done. It’s not finished, but it’s in better shape. I should be able to finish it today.

Well, for now it’s back to the book and try to finish that formatting today. Publication is getting closer.

Bible study, Christianity, Documenting America, Health, History, home improvements, reading, Sharon Williams short stories, Writing

Post Not Ready

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Six ads running for this, getting impressions, clicks, and a few sales. Other promotion is bearing fruit.

This morning I went outside to work shortly after I got up at 6:45 a.m. The temperature was 60°, and it felt good. I planned to work a half hour, mainly cleaning up a few things and pulling a few weeds from the backyard. When I did what I wanted and went inside, I was surprised to find I’d worked more than 45 minutes. I was way past scheduled time for my blog post, but I wasn’t worried about it since I had a post partially started—two posts actually—and thus could post it quickly once I got to it.

Alas, I finally came to my dashboard here, found there was only one post, and realized it is no where ready to be posted. Bad memory I have.

So here I am with nothing prepared to say. I could talk about any number of things off the cuff: what I’m writing, what I’m reading, how book sales are, what I’m doing for book sales promotion, life in general. I guess I could tackle all of those.

I’m still working on little changes to the church centennial book. I got some new information yesterday that will require a minor change. I also have decided to double-check a couple of places in the book. One I’m fairly sure will require a change, the other one maybe or maybe not. Still, I come closer to done on this every day.  Also, my short story inches along. Every couple of days I open the file, re-read it to remember where I was, and add a few hundred words. I need an uninterrupted , undistracted couple of hours to finish it.

For reading, my time is taken up with Way Truth Life, the book for our Life Group lessons. I’m also reading a book on the Genesis flood. Sorry, I don’t remember the exact title, except that it might be The Genesis Flood. It is a scholarly work from the late 50s-early 60s. I’m not enjoying it a whole lot, but will stay with it a while longer. As to recently finished books, I have four sitting here on my work table waiting for me to write my book reviews.

Book sales are good in September. So far I have 14 sales outright, and I think two accesses from Kindle Unlimited with both people finishing the book. This is my first time to have KU reads (not many of my books are in KU), and I need to figure how to account for them in my stats. I suppose as 2 sales, bringing the total to 16. That’s a good start to the month.

Sometime soon I’ll make a presentation to the local Civil War Roundtable. That will be my first author event since June 2019.

I have been a little more active in book promotion the last week. I still have my Amazon ads running for three books, and they seem to be generating sales. I contacted two influencers in our denomination, both men I’ve interacted with in the past, about giving a shout out to Acts Of Faith. I heard back from one on Friday and he is going to put a promo in his next newsletter.  Another promotional item concerns my Civil War book, Documenting America: The Civil War Edition. Back in July I gave a copy of it to the president of the local Civil War Roundtable. I heard back from him yesterday. He liked the book and wants me to make a presentation to the Roundtable. I don’t yet know when that will be, but should know today or tomorrow. So book promotion is in progress and, at least a little, seems to be working.

Life in general is good. I’m still having trouble losing weight, but in general my weight is dropping very slowly. My blood sugars have been under control, though just a little higher than I’d like. This morning’s was good. My right knee has been hurting more of late. Perhaps replacement surgery will have to be moved up. Although, the last three or four days I’ve done a few different things to try and ease the pain and it seems to be working. Four nights of good sleep in a row. Yardwork is in much better shape than in past years. Household projects are slowly being done. My devotional life remains consistent, with room for improvement.

Life goes on. I’ll have a better post on Friday, and will start getting some of these book reviews done.

home improvements, miscellaneous, Writing

Morning Work

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Some of the area already cut. I started at our mailbox (just out of the photo to the left) and am working my way uphill along the street and downhill toward the woods.

It’s hot out. Yesterday’s high was 97°. That’s actually around average for this time of year in Northwest Arkansas. I think our summer, overall, has been slightly cooler than normal—not by much, just a few degrees. Certainly within a standard deviation of normal.

In these temperatures, if I have yardwork to do, I go out immediately upon getting up and do it. This year I have yardwork every day. That’s anywhere from 6:30 to 7:00 a.m., depending on when I wake up and how fast I’m moving. Today it was 06:45, and I was out the door in just five minutes. I worked until 07:45, so just under and hour.

Some of the isolated blackberries. Still some weeds to cut away if I want to, but I’ll probably leave them. So long as I know where the blackberries are that’s good enough.

The front yard (a rock yard, not grass), is picked free of weeds; nothing to do there. Our unplanted flower bed needs to be picked of weeds again, but the lack of rain has resulted them being impossible to pull out; nothing to do there. The backyard (also a rock yard) needs much weed pulling. I think I’ve weeded twice this year. But I never blew the leaves off of it last year, which has prevented many weeds from growing. Still, that was a possibility.

However, I also had work to do on our wood lot. This is the lot south of our house. It’s our lot.  Over a year ago, the power company did a lot of cutting on their easement on this lot, clearing growth away from their lines. The shredded the smaller saplings and hauled off the bigger stuff. This left about 30 feet of a combination of grass and wood-covered bare earth. I raked down a bunch of the shreddings and put them on a brush pile on the lot. Naturally, plants have come up in that area. The favorable rains and temperatures have resulted in a lot of plants growing in this area, some as tall as 6 feet.

I’ll start working in this direction either tomorrow or, more likely, next week.

Most of those plants are weeds and grass. Some are wildflowers. A few are blackberry plants. Everyone knows I want more blackberries, and to have them growing on my own lot instead of across the street in the right-of-way would be great. So, to remove the unsightliness of the tall weeds and to isolate the emergent blackberry plants, I’ve been manually cutting weeds on this lot using hedge sheers. That’s my only option since my weed eater quit and I haven’t replaced it yet.

It’s not really hard work. I work from the downhill side so that I have to bend less. Still, it includes a lot of bending. Once I find a blackberry plant the bending increases, as I go slowly, cutting weeds and grass around it to isolate it. I have around six or seven viable blackberry plants isolated so far. I’m not sure if I’ll find any others, but I still have a long way to go, so I may.

The hickory is down. The clean-up remains. That will be tomorrow, along with raking down some of the cuttings of the weeds.

Another thing I’ve been doing in my morning outdoor work is cutting down a 4-inch diameter hickory sapling. This is growing right against an oak, and the two of them don’t need to be so close together. Until the power company did its clearing, I never noticed this tree encroaching on the oak’s territory. Again, I’m using manual tools: my ancient bow saw and my little folding pruning saw. Sawing is hard work, especially when bending or kneeling. No, 4 inches isn’t a lot to cut through. Hickory is a hard wood, however, so the combination of conditions meant I decided to do this over a few days—four days to be precise. Today, down it came after the last little bit of sawing. Now I get to do the clean-up.

If I had to guess, I’d say I have about five more mornings of work on the woodlot, a morning of work on the flower bed (once it rains), and at least five mornings of weed pulling in the backyard. By then a few weeds will have come up in the front yard and I’ll pull them.

All of this should be of no real interest to my regular readers. So in my retirement I get up early in the summer months and do yardwork. Big deal, right? It’s of interest to me, however. I figure I have another month of doing this, having a little less daylight each day.

This work, while it helps keep me limber and “young”—young being a relative term—it does cut into my writing time. My short story is sitting there, waiting for me to add the final conflict and last 2,000 words. The Forest Throne is sitting there, waiting for me to get beyond the first chapter and make a book out of it. Documenting America: Run-Up to Revolution is sitting there, waiting for me to move from completed research to writing.  And sorely needed updates to this website are begging me to get to them.

This too shall pass, and soon I’ll be back to starting my day off with writing, the yardwork either being completed or the days cool enough to do the yardwork later in the day. I’ll be glad for that time to come.

Health, home improvements, miscellaneous

Still Tired

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One friend I exchange letters with, via e-mail, said, “You really don’t understand retirement”, or something close to that. As I said in Monday’s post, I stay busy. So I guess my friend is right.

This week, every morning, I’ve been out in the yard around 6:30 a.m. to do my work before the heat of the day comes. I’m pulling weeds from a couple of places. Also, Mon-Tues-Wed I cut the deadwood from our crepe myrtle bush. The branches all died in last winter’s extreme cold, but new shoots are coming up. The dead branches took a lot of sawing, so I spread that hard work out over three days. But it’s done. Tomorrow, I have just a little more weed pulling left, then bush trimming (evergreen and boxwoods), which I should be able to do in an hour or so. Then I’ll haul the cuttings and the deadwood off to the brush piles I’ve made in the woods nearby. Then, next week, I can tackle the backyard.

All this has left me pretty tired. You would think that an hour of yardwork a day wouldn’t tucker me out, but it seems to. That’s a lot of bending and stooping. A rock yard should be easier to keep up than a grass yard, right? Maybe if you spray for weeds regularly to keep them from growing, but pulling them out by hand is real work. Hopefully it’s keeping me young.

Wait, if I can’t work an hour in the yard without wanting to rest the rest of the day, I am no longer young. I keep telling myself that there’s nothing wrong with me that losing another 40 pounds (on top of the 80 already lost) won’t cure, but maybe that’s not true. I haven’t felt much like walking lately, though maybe that’s the heat more than energy. Walking seems to give me energy. Maybe I am old.

The fatigue I’ve felt has slopped over to non-physical pursuits. My work on the history book for the church anniversary is close to done. I’ve started the process of looking into printing options. I should now be spending time on my next two writing projects. But, after a brief rest after yardwork, I haven’t felt like new writing. I do a little hole-plugging on the church book, bringing it from 98% done to 99.5% done, but my mind hasn’t wanted to wrap around my work.

I did manage one mental task this morning. I finally called an appliance repair man to come and see about our oven. The lower heating element went out a couple of months ago. The porkchop and rice casserole I made last night took three hours to cook, so I’d had enough. The man is to come out late today or sometime tomorrow.

So that’s something. Next, maybe I’ll get our barely functioning vacuum cleaner replaced. After that, maybe I’ll return to decluttering activities. Or maybe I’ll get two listings made today, if I can multi-task these house and home items.

Then, and only then, will I have mental energy to work on my writing.

Oh, yes, one more thing. I have decided that next year I will hire a “lawn” service to spray for weeds in the front yard. If that works well and there’s no weed pulling to do, maybe the year after next I’ll do the same for the back yard. That will be my nod to retirement and the accumulating years.

Health, home improvements, miscellaneous, The Teachings

Getting Things Done – Latest Edition

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Thursday’s work was stump grinding from our front yard. Looks like they did a good job.

More than once I’ve posted about getting things done. I usually keep a to-do list, which I try to work through. From time to time I slack off from the list, but somehow that doesn’t reduce the amount of things needing to get done. I’m a little late with my post this morning because of getting things done. In fact, it’s likely to take me over an hour to write and post this because I still have other things to get done that are on a time schedule.

Today’s work is pressure washing the north wall and some other minor repairs. It’s going well. Just wish they had brought their long ladder.

How far back do I go? For over a year my wife has asked me to have her sewing machine looked at, but pandemic related closings and restrictions caused me to keep putting this off. Plus, the repair shop is 18 miles away, and I don’t generally drive 18 miles for a single purpose trip. But Wednesday of last week I was in Rogers for something else and could divert to the store with very little distance added. I did so and dropped the machine off. When there, they said they needed a bobbin for the machine and there was none in it. Once home I got the bobbin ready to mail. But when I took it to the P.O. I learned it was too thick to be considered a letter and would cost $4 to mail as a small parcel. I knew I would be in Rogers again this week, so I just made the slight diversion again and dropped that at the sewing shop. Now we wait for the repairs. Check off the item on the to-do list.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the area to the right is weeded; to the left is not. I think this work is keeping me young and agile. At least a little more so.

Last Saturday I received a message about someone wanting to buy some of my wife’s paperback romance novels I had listed on Facebook Market place. The problem was she lived too far away to come by and get them, would I ship them and how much would it cost? I replied immediately and transitioned into salesman mode. I told her yes, I would ship them, but had many more available that weren’t mentioned in the Marketplace listing. I’ll shorten this story. We had 203 romances to sell and she wanted them all. I took them to the P.O. on Monday to weight for a shipping estimate, received payment via PayPal on Tuesday, and took the books to the P.O. in the mini-snowstorm the same day. They are now in USPS hands, “winging” their way to her. Check one item off the to-do list.

Also P.O. related, on Monday I mailed a nice group of greeting cards to the daughter of a first cousin. These are cards found in my dad’s house at his death in 1997. He kept all incoming greeting cards, and even had some that went to his father. I’ve slowly gone through them and sent them back to the families from whence they came. I contacted this cousin and she would like the cards from her grandfather, mother, and aunt. Mailed them on Monday; check one item off the to-do list.

On Tuesday, while waiting at the doctor’s office, I finally called our electrical cooperative to ask why they had never come back to grind the stumps left from when they took trees out of my front yard in December 2019 and January 2020. A different crew was supposed to come a few days after the last tree was down, but they never did. I kept finding the card for the vegetation management guy, then losing it, then finding it. The last time I found it I put it where I could pick it up easily, did so as I went out to the doc. The co-op was very apologetic, the man came out that day, and the crew arrived Thursday late-morning to do the work. They were done by 1:30 p.m., and the yard looks good. Check another item off the to-do list.

Everything above in this post I wrote over two hours ago, almost three.  I interrupted first for doing my stock market work, which is busy on Friday. Then the work crew came that is doing some siding maintenance and repair on our metal siding. Spending our stimulus money. Since I was outside lining them out, I did my yardwork, a little more than usual. Now, I’m back in The Dungeon, typing away.

I have two books to work on, but haven’t done much this week other than research, as these other tasks distracted me too much. But, really, there was one big task that was the most distracting: publishing The Teachings. Sunday (or maybe it was Monday; the days are running together) I published the e-book. I haven’t made an announcement as I wanted to get the print book published then start promoting it. But, the cover designer, who did a super job on the e-book cover, is busy with her college work and is a little delayed. That’s no fault on her; sometimes the timing of a project isn’t good.

Not bad as a placeholder. Just waiting on Amazon’s human review. It already passed the automatic review.

I decided I would try to pull it together, using the e-book cover and using G.I.M.P. Readers of this blog know that I hate G.I.M.P. Yesterday morning I decided I would just knuckle down and get it done, and I did. Today I uploaded the interior file and the cover. Amazon accepted them for human review without any problems—meaning I must have figured out the mechanics of using G.I.M.P. for creating print covers—and now I wait. My cover is a placeholder. When the cover designer’s schedule frees-up, I’ll have her do the real one. Meanwhile, the book will be available both as an e-book and print book.

So here it is, 12:17 p.m., and I’m finally coming to the end of this post. Maybe next week will have fewer things on the to-do-list. You think?

home improvements, Writing

Here it is Monday Morning

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Yes, it’s Monday morning, and I have no topic to write on. I’m supposed to make my post by 7:30 a.m.; it’s now 6:51 a.m. I have a sheet of paper with blog post ideas. It’s up in the sunroom and I’m in The Dungeon. But I looked at that list yesterday and nothing stood out at me as something I want to write right now.

The fact is I’m weary. I have a to-do list around here that is growing, nothing seeming to be getting done. Four items I hope I will complete today.

  • Mail some old, old family cards to a cousin’s daughter in Florida. These are cards sent by her grandparents, her parents, and her aunt to my parents or grandparents. They date from the 1950s, 60s, and a few from 70s. Dad kept all these. I got them from his house after his death in 1997. I stored them, then sorted them, began looking to see what I wanted to do with them. I decided to send them back to families of original senders. So far I’ve sent back those of the Hills and the Reeds and the Fashjians and the Vicks. No one in the Brannon family wanted them so I trashed them. This cousin I contacted her via Facebook and she said yes, she’d take them. Since her grandfather, my uncle, moved the family cross-country in the 1950s and she grew up far away from any close family, she doesn’t feel a strong connection to her family and is looking forward to getting these and learning more.
  • Call the vegetation management man for the electric cooperative and try to talk them into finishing their work on my lot. They took three trees out that were in their easement. That was in January 2020. I agreed, and they said a different crew would be by to grind out the stumps. No one ever came. I kept putting off calling him, lost his business card, found it, lost it again, etc. Yesterday I found the card again, and today I will call him.
  • Interview two people for the church 100th anniversary book. This is an older couple in the church whose families have been involved with it since the 1930s. The told me more than a month ago that they were happy to talk with me, but I’ve not been ready. Now I am. I spoke with them at church yesterday and we set this afternoon for the interview. That will make it five people I’ve interviewed to put their family histories into the book. Only about eight more to go after that.
  • Mail used books to a buyer in Springfield MO. She responded to a Facebook Marketplace listing I had for 40 paperback romances. Through messaging with her I told her about all the others I had and she wanted them. When Lynda and I gathered them together on Saturday, and Lynda pulled a few more she was willing to part with from the shelf, it came to 203 books. The buyer wants them all. This morning I will box them for shipping, take them to the PO for a shipping estimate, communicate that to the buyer, receive her payment via PayPal, and take the books back for mailing. It’s possible this may not be finished until tomorrow.

That latter item is huge. I had begun to despair of ever selling these romances. People who dropped by to look at books in general seemed uninterested in the romances. My Marketplace listings received few views and no inquiries. Then this came out of the blue. I’m happy about it, but for the moment the books have been brought back into the house for packaging and weighing. Until they are paid for and mailed they are making life more difficult.

What else is on the to-do list? Our bathroom scale is going crazy and probably needs to be replaced. The remote control for the kitchen TV is dying and needs to be replaced. The lower burner of the oven no longer works. I replaced that about 10 years ago and don’t really feel like replacing it. I should just replace the 34-year-old oven, but it’s a built in. Will anything made now fit the opening in the woodwork? But then, Lynda said she would be willing to replace the separate range top as well. I agree with her that I don’t like that, so maybe we will do that replacement. But that’s a big task and I’m not looking forward to it. For now we are getting by with the top heating element only. As the one that does the cooking, I’m going to wait a little while before tackling this.

What else? A small item is: I took Lynda’s sewing machine in for repairs last week, but they said they needed a dobbin from the machine and there was none in it. They might have mentioned that fact on their website. I left the machine with them. So now I either need to make the 18 mile drive to get them the dobbin or mail them one, hoping the plastic gadget doesn’t get crushed in mailing. I’ll try to decide that today.

What else? Doctor appointments for me tomorrow and the next day, one for Lynda next week. Groceries to get today. Possibly replacing the lancet device for taking my blood sugars. A full round of stock and options trades to watch. Two other books in the works, trying to decide which to do next.

That’s enough. I’m starting to get depressed just thinking about it. The clock shows it is now just after 7:30, as I’ve been reading various morning newsletters and messing with a spreadsheet while writing this. Time to post. Maybe by Friday my to-do list will look better. Oh, wait, I haven’t even put any of my own yardwork on it. Rats. Or the cover for the print version of my latest book. Rats again.

home improvements, miscellaneous

The View From The Sunroom

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Dateline March 31, 2021

Or you read in sunroom and watch the Christmas cacti  still bloom rather late in the season.

I went out to pull weeds this morning, but I came inside because it was too cold, so I decided to come inside and spend more time in the sunroom, reading. I’m working my way through the essays of E.B. White, an old paperback that I will dispose of when I finish with it. The essays are interesting, but I’ve been making slow progress on them, mainly due to other events.

The downy woodpecker seems to be here in all seasons.

After reading an essay, I grabbed the book of poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay and read a few pages. I’m making slow progress on it too. I then picked up an old edition of a diabetes magazine, intending to zip through it and then dispose of it. Before reading in it I looked up and saw a downy woodpecker come to our empty bird feeders on the deck. I saw that three or four days ago but didn’t fill them right away. So I laid the magazine aside, took five minutes (maybe less) to fill them, then came back to the sunroom to read.

Now, from my reading chair in the sunroom when positioned in its winter orientation, I look right out a window at the bird feeders. As soon as I sat, I saw a tufted titmouse at the railing, where I scattered some old thistle seed. That didn’t please him, apparently, for he went right up to the feeder with the sunflower chips. But he didn’t take any, instead going to the feeder with the black oil sunflower seeds. There he ate. He took one and flew away. In less than a minute he was back, took another, and left again. This repeated for more than five minutes with no other birds coming.

I’m not sure what type of plants these were. They were big, and my wife said they took a lot of care. I balked at first when she wanted to sell them, as they’ve been companions in the sunroom. But then I thought, I don’t want to dampen her notion of getting rid of stuff. So off they went, hopefully to a good home.

Obviously, I don’t know that it was the same bird. Five or six tufted titmouses could have come to the feeder. It took almost ten minutes before a chickadee showed up, then a second. I tried to get back to my magazine, but first had to look around the room. In the spirit of decluttering/disaccumulation, the room is less crowded than it used to be. Last September, when we started de/dis, my wife said she wanted to sell three large plants in the room. I balked at this at first, as the plants in the sunroom are my friends, giving me oxygen as I sit and read there. Then I thought, there are about fifteen other plans in the room, I guess we could do without those three. They sold right away when I listed them on FB Marketplace.

Last month I decided to list the four antique chairs that came from my grandmother’s house. They were in rough shape, the sort of thing you keep with the idea of refurbishing it at some point. I thought, will I or the wife ever get around to refurbishing these? Two are cane-bottom chairs with the cane needing work, something you would have to pay for. So I listed them and they sold right away.

The bluebirds have been around, but I haven’t seen another bunting like this one.

The sad thing is, with these things gone, you can’t tell that the room is in any sense empty. Two older easy chairs, a table, a patio furniture set, two old microwave tables, a tall plant stand, a couple of small tables, an old three-tier table, a magazine rack, some folding chairs, and plants sitting on every flat surface made the room seem nicely furnished, almost crowded even. It doesn’t look like a room that is being cleaned out by someone who is thinking of downsizing. I guess that tells you how much work we still have.

I got back to the magazine and went through about 25 pages. Half of those were ads for medicines or medical devices or food companies. But I read four good articles, one that included information I didn’t know before.

My quiet reading time ended all too soon as my lunch time arrived. I got up and went into the house. I didn’t say goodbye to the plants as I left. I shot a glance at the bird feeder and saw a chickadee and a titmouse fly away. The downy woodpecker must not have received the memo about the feeders being restocked. I’m sure I’ll see him again before too many days pass. E.B. White will still speak to me for another five or seven sitting to finish the 71 pages left, and Edna will see me again before long. For now, it’s on to other responsibilities and passions in other venues.

home improvements, self-publishing, The Teachings, Writing

Staying Busy

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Here it is Monday morning, about 8:45 a.m. I have set myself a schedule to have my blogs posts up by 7:30 a.m., so I missed it. Sometimes I write my posts ahead and schedule them to post at that time on Monday or Friday. Last night, however, I got busy doing other things and, well, here it is late Monday morning and no blog post.

I’m not quite ready with a couple of different posts, one a book review, another part 2 of a prior post. So I’ll just say I’m staying busy. Writing and marketing of my books are taking a lot of time. I’ve been trying to write 1,500 words a day on The Teachings, and, except for weekend, I’ve been successful at that. I’ve also been involved with an on-line “school” for doing Amazon ads. I blew off a lot of the classes since this is the third time I’ve taken the school, but I’m looking at some of them, including this morning. I won’t do a lot with it this time, but I’ll do some new ads on a different book.

Well, while I was typing my rheumatologist’s office called. My appointment last week was cancelled for the doc’s convenience and couldn’t schedule me until April, which was okay with me. They called now to say they had two different times today, one this morning, one this afternoon. I was about to take the afternoon one when I checked my calendar and saw I have out pest control service scheduled for today. I totally forgot about that. So, I’ll have to spend time getting ready for that.

My listings at FB Marketplace are continuing to generate interest. I had people come by to look at books several times this week, including yesterday. That doesn’t mean our clutter is greatly reduced, but it is some. In the storeroom I have cleared off one full shelf unit and almost a second. These we will give to our daughter next time we go there (possibly in February) to replace some sagging plastic ones. The small amount of de-cluttering feels really, really good. The work ahead is massive, but progress feels good.

So here I am with a post for today. It’s breakfast time. I made two stock trades, which is all I’ll do today. Small trades: low risk, not much money involved, which are the type I like. It’s time for breakfast, then to finish that class I interrupted, then get on with my writing for the day, then get ready for the bug man. All in a day’s work.