Category Archives: miscellaneous

miscellaneous, rant

Racism Must Be Wiped Out By Many Means

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Dateline 2 June 2020, for posting Friday 5 June 2020

I may write this post over several days, as I’m starting it on Tuesday and it’s scheduled to go live on Friday. Events are moving quickly.

My post on Monday addressed how the U.S.A. has been a lawful country because of voluntary compliance with the law. We have been, for the most part, a moral people. The average person has voluntarily complied with the law. No police force was necessary to make this happen. That seems to be changing around us.

The rage being expressed is due to racism in America. Are we a racist nation? Do whites hate blacks? Are whites trying to “keep the blacks down”? Is the socio-economic-political-judicial system we live in skewed to favor whites over other races? By the way, I use the term black rather than African-American because a person’s black skin can come from ancestries other than from Africa.

That many white people in our nation are racists is true. I can think of instances in my life where I have encountered racists. Two of those times I remained silent in the face of what others were saying. Two other times—the last two—I spoke out against what they were saying. One of those times was one-on-one with the person. The other time was with another family member present. Looking back, my failure to speak out at the one incident in 1984 and the other around 2010 were just that: failures on my part. I should have spoken out.

I say all this because I believe many methods are needed to combat racism. Back in the 1960s, laws were needed to curb racist acts. These were passed once the protests led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others moved the nation to see the wrongs that were being done. From time to time those laws have had to be renewed and strengthened. Pressure was kept on government for that purpose, though I don’t think a lot of pressure was needed. Once the nation woke up to how local and state laws were used to suppress people because of the color of their skin, few people in government saw a reason to go backwards.

Are the laws protecting people against racism perfect? Probably not, but I think they are close to exactly what is necessary. We should keep them, extend them, and strengthen them where needed.

So if the laws are right, or close to right, where is there racism in America? Where does it show up in our society?

It is in the sinful hearts of our people. It shows up in anything and everything people do. For a police officer it’s when he’s enforcing the law. For an engineer it’s as he deals with coworkers and clients. For a shopper it’s as you’re dealing with other shoppers, stockers, and check-out clerks in the store. For pastors it’s as they counsel and admonish parishioners and cooperate with community leaders. For nurses it’s how they provide health care. For patients it’s as they respond to the very people who are providing that care.

How do we combat that? Because no law will change a person’s heart.

How do we change the hearts of people so that they are no longer racists? Or, perhaps I should ask can you change the heart of a person so he/she is no longer a racist? I believe you can. I’m not saying it will be easy, but it is possible. A meme you frequently see posted on social media is “No one is born a racist.” That is true.

Racism is learned. How is it learned? From example, education, and persuasion. Children learn from the example of their parents, grandparents, and others in their lives. If those adults are racists, the child will learn to be a racist. The child may not even realize it. They may become latent racists (my phrase for unrealized racism; perhaps there’s a better term others use, but that’s my term for it). I’ve met some of those.

How does a person un-learn being a racist? I believe it happens the same way: through education, example, and persuasion.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from throwing stones off overpasses onto oncoming cars below near Fall River Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from a handful of agitators stirring up a peaceful protest in Bentonville Arkansas by yelling “f*** cops”. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from looting jewelry stores in the Buena Park neighborhood of Chicago.

So, if racism won’t be stamped out by these means—because they don’t address the sinful, evil heart—what’s to be done? Unfortunately, I’ve run this post on a bit long. I’ll have to cover my proposal in my next post.

miscellaneous

A Few More Small Steps

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I won’t go into a lot of detail, but over the last four days I have seen much progress in tackling my to-do list. One huge task is done—huge, not because of the amount of work involves (though there was some work), but huge because of the load off my mind. And, the way is paved for part 2 of that particular task, for which the hard work is done, to be finished early next week.

A second item, small in work but big in sense of accomplishment was sending letters back to the family from which they came to my wife’s grandmother back in the early 1960s. They are mailed, and will possibly arrive today. Hopefully they will enjoy seeing them.

Today I will begin to break down empty boxes for taking to recycling. I’ve been bringing them from the basement to the garage, which is somewhat overflowing with them at present. Next Friday we’ll get rid of the accumulated Styrofoam at a certain re-use center. At that point we’ll have our garage back again.

In the spirit of de-cluttering, I placed a box of my old engineering books on my work table in The Dungeon, and will go through them later today. I anticipate putting most of them in a pile for donation. I have several other boxes of work things to go through, and can now see my way clear to be doing that next week, maybe even a little on the weekend.

Oh, yes, the other big thing off my mind was getting our taxes turned in. I finished them on Sunday, printed them on Monday, made copies on Tuesday, and mailed them on Wednesday. That’s always a huge load to be done with every year, this year more than in others.

So, now it’s on to other special tasks: getting the tree service to come and give an estimate to see how far our stimulus money will go; getting the roofer to give an estimate on some minor roof and siding repairs; get the recyclables taken care of; repair a book shelf that prior repairs weren’t sufficient; re-shelve books on two other shelves that are fixed and can’t be repairs without complete disassembly of the entire bookcase. I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Oh, yes, find out why our health insurance refused a certain dental claim. That’s a next week task for sure.

Okay, enough for now. Time to go outside and get some yardwork done.

miscellaneous

Staying Busy in the Covid Pandemic

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Today I feel like a logjam broke. A logjam of busyness. This morning I put the final touches on our 2019 income taxes, printed and signed them. Tomorrow (or the next day, perhaps), I’ll take care of mailing them. I had them done about two weeks ago but let them sit. I did some searching/organizing in papers and found an interest statement I hadn’t put into my spreadsheet. I entered that this morning, updated the forms, reprinted two pages of the Federal and two pages of the State, and now it’s done. Again.

Then, my wife and I can finally take care of the final distribution of her mom’s estate. It was waiting on the taxes to be figured, since some of our taxes this year were really estate taxes. That’s done. Today we’ll write the next to last checks from the estate account, and next week we’ll write the last. Then we can close those accounts, bundle up the statements, and tuck them away in an archive-type file.

Having done a fair amount on de-cluttering, I’m putting some of that on hold for a time. Oh, I’ll get the now-empty boxes from the basement to the garage, consolidate the electronics for recycling, and get the boxes to the AARP recycling center. That alone will clear a lot out. But I’m going to leaf off from sorting my mother-in-law’s papers for now. Maybe I’ll get back to that in a month or two.

So, the checkbook is up-to-date, the budget is up-to-date. I caught up on filing on Saturday—though immediately generated more items for filing. I paid the bills on Saturday and will mail them today.

My outlook is much, much better than it was when I posted this. Perhaps I’ll see my way clear to resume writing this week, something I haven’t been able to do lately. Reading is also on the Memorial Day menu.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned the pandemic, have I? For us, being retired, with Lynda much better but still convalescing, the pandemic isn’t having a huge effect. I go to the grocery store a little less frequently, planning my trips better to keep from having to go back for that item missed. We can’t go to the bank lobby, but the drive-through windows work for our purposes. Doctor appointments are mostly on-screen, though Lynda did go to the eye doc week before last, and will have her cataract surgery in July. I’m schedule for lab work in late June, but have no appointments until September.

But I still walk for exercise. I still go to construction sites and do my observations, keeping my distance from the workers on site as I do. I still went to the office last week for a meeting (though all training meetings and the recent annual stockholders meeting was virtual). Our church and Life Group meetings have been virtual, or course. That’s allowed me to learn some new skills.

I think we will still mostly isolate at least until July. Except for going to Texas and getting the grandkids in just under two weeks, keeping them for nine or ten days, then taking them back. Their county has only 6 confirmed cases of the virus. We will practice isolation for the few days we are there, and once we get back here.

This too shall pass. What will life be like on the other side? I have no prediction.

miscellaneous

Busy

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Hello friends.

Almost let Friday go by without posting. Except I’m only posting to say I’m extremely busy. Yesterday and today, as well as a little on Thursday, I have been tied up with engineering work for my former company. 9.5 hours yesterday, 3 so far today and not done.

I have several special projects around the house that are not getting done. Well, I did one today. I fixed a small computer cabinet of which the front fascia/support member broke off. I figured out how to fix it, though I couldn’t find the hardware that had broken off. Fifteen minutes of searching in my mix-up hardware repository in the garage and I found what I needed. The cabinet is fixed, the area it occupied vacuumed, the cabinet back in place and re-loaded. Only a little clean-up remains.

I also went by the post office and the bank to get a couple of things done. The P.O. stop especially took a great load off my mind. I might now be able to think clearly enough about the remaining tasks. I would love to get through this weekend having many things checked off my to-do list, and Monday be able to say I see both the trees and the forest. Right now the trees are overwhelming the forest.

family, miscellaneous

De-Cluttering Can Be A Win-Win

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This is the 1940s—or more likely 1930s—recording technology.

I’ve written before about my efforts on de-cluttering. We have a large house, with a lot of storage space. When we moved here from our less-large house (I won’t say smaller; it was, but it wasn’t exactly small), we made no effort to sort through stuff. We had no space to lay things out. So everything went in truck, car, and trailer. There it remained for the last 18 years.

From time to time I organized things or made decisions on what to throw out. When my mother-in-law moved in with us in 2015, we suddenly had a room of extra furniture. I moved that into her room, moved the furniture that had been in there to the basement, and found a place for it. But the storeroom was an absolute mess. I bought one more utility shelf unit and filled it. That let me see what we had. Clogging up the room was an old computer desk, both lower and upper units. It had been water damaged in transit back in 1996. We used it while our children lived with us, but with them gone, why were we keeping it? It wasn’t even worth giving away. I managed to haul it out the back and up to the street and arranged for the trash company to get it. And, thus, my first de-cluttering happened.

Somewhere around that same year, 2015, I re-found some old audio recordings on vinyl records. They had come from my dad’s house, and turned out to be songs recorded by Uncle Frank Reed, who married my father’s sister. He sang semi-professionally in his youth. These came to us from cleaning out Dad’s house in 1998, went into the crammed garage, got moved to the new house in 2002, and sat somewhere in the storeroom. In the 2015 clean-up I found them and put them on a shelf, lying horizontally and properly supported on the bottom, as recommended for vinyl. They were in a place where I knew I would remember where they were.

I played this game many times in my youth and childhood. I hope it is equally well-played at its new home.

Over the next couple of years I began going through photographs and sent some to Frank Reed’s grandson, Frank Reed 3rd, in New Jersey. Frank was close to his grandfather. It occurred to me that he might want those recordings of his grandfather. He said yes, absolutely. So I went to the storeroom to get them and…they weren’t where I expected them to be. I looked and looked for them and they just weren’t there.

Where did they go? Over the last three years, just about every time I did any work in the storeroom, I looked for them. I decided I must have put them elsewhere. I couldn’t find them. Last Saturday, during a time of some major sorting and discarding, I looked in places where they weren’t supposed to be. Sure enough, they weren’t there. I decided I needed to just quit. Someday they would show up. Meanwhile, in every message to or phone call with Frank I assured him I hadn’t forgotten my promise to find them and send them to him.

Then, Tuesday night, I went to the basement to find a certain book that I wanted to read. It wasn’t in any of the family room bookshelves. It wasn’t on my “literary” bookshelf in the storeroom. It wasn’t in three boxes of books awaiting sorting and shelving. I knew it wasn’t in one of the 20 or 30 boxes on the utility shelves, for I bought it after those boxes were filled and placed. But, on a couple of shelves were some loose books sitting on the boxes. I didn’t think the book would be there, and it wasn’t.

But, as I picked up a couple of those loose books, to my surprise, underneath them were Uncle Frank’s recordings! Exactly where I had put them five or so years ago. Apparently, after putting the records there, I put the loose books on top of them to help keep them from buckling, or to keep them from being jostled.

I immediately snapped a picture and sent it to Frank. He was elated and wondered when they might be winging his way. I was not very specific on when I would send them. Then I remembered I would be at a UPS store the next day to have a document notarized (the bank lobbies being close for that service right now). I already had the shipping box, sent to me years ago by Frank, so I could send them the next day.

Then, I remembered the peg game that Frank’s grandfather made in his commercial machine shop in New Jersey. It was, if I remembered correctly, sitting in a file cabinet drawer. It wasn’t doing anyone any good there. I went to the file cabinet and, to my surprise, the game was exactly where I remembered. The pegs seem to have been separated. Once I find them they will go to the UPS store and wing their way to Pennsylvania.

Neither of these items are big; they don’t take up much space. I won’t be able to get rid of even one box, or off-load one shelf. But these are items my children won’t have to mess with when they clean out our house some years from now. They won’t have to wonder, “Who’s on these recordings?” or “What the heck is this metal thing?” They won’t get thrown out in the confusion of going through many things.

Instead, they will have been in my cousin’s family, giving them pleasure, remembering the grandfather and great-grandfather who was talented with a guitar and song, who made unique things in his shop, and was a mentor and friend to his progeny.

It was truly a win-win situation. Hopefully, I haven’t simply added to Frank’s clutter.

Church History Novels, goals, miscellaneous, The Teachings, Writing

Feeling Lackluster

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Dateline: Sunday, 3 May 2020

Waiting on someone to come get this rocking horse, but she never comes, is unsettling. Why don’t people come when they say they will? Do obligations mean nothing any more?

Well, after saying in my last post that I was about to re-start life, I find that more difficult to do than I expected. Why? Because of a heavy to-do list coupled with uncertainty, leading to unsettledness, leading to being overwhelmed by the forest and not being able to see the trees.

Where do I start, and how much do I say? I can get a lot done so long as I have a good to-do list

and a schedule. Even a long to-do list doesn’t put me off. What does put me off is lack of a schedule. Got 20 things to do? No problem; I’ll just schedule them. But when I can’t schedule them I have no idea what to do next. I get perplexed and flustered. The forest overwhelms me.

Part of the problem may be simple tiredness. On Saturday I did my usual tackling of to-do items. Trading accounting, checkbook, budgeting, and filing all went quickly. I got to work on decluttering, moving two large cabinets in the storage room, organizing things to remain for better placement on shelves, identifying more things to be discarded. I also spent 20 or 30 minutes shredding old work papers. Oh, yes, I also worked in the yard for an hour and a half, hauling an old wood pile back into the woods and pulling weeds from the rock yard. All this was sandwiched between three loads of laundry. With Lynda still convalescing I didn’t want to leave that to her.

So, by the end of the day I was beat. I sat out on the deck, trying to read but unable to concentrate. The day was hot (85 degrees) and that took its toll. I came inside with a few things to do but couldn’t do them. I wanted to take a walk but couldn’t do it because…

…I was waiting on a woman to come to buy the rocking horse I had put up for sale on Facebook marketplace. She contacted me Thursday saying she wanted it. Friday we made arrangements for her to come Saturday afternoon. I didn’t want Lynda to have to handle it, so I put off my walk. She didn’t come, didn’t message me. I did mindless things for two hours before messaging her asking where she was. She couldn’t come, she said, having been called in to work; could she come on Sunday? Sure, I replied, but I need to know when. She would message me 30 minutes before she would arrive. That was okay by me. My walks never take me more than 20 minutes from the house if I had to get back quickly.

So I fixed supper, worked on a jigsaw puzzle. I was out of energy. So much I could have accomplished in the time I was waiting on her. If she had just messaged me to say she needed to put it off a day I could have restructured my day, gotten my walk in, been able to rest comfortably, and not felt so unsettled for the sake of a $30 used rocking horse.

Ah, well, such is life. I did manage to spend a little time preparing to teach Life Group on Sunday. I also had just enough presence of mind to type edits on my novel-in-progress. Tomorrow I hope to get back to it. Except there’s an eye doctor appointment for Lynda, picking up an old computer of mine that’s been refurbished that I’m going to give to a retired missionary, stock trading, contacting a man about a roof, etc. At least I’m not going to worry about the horse. If she comes for it, fine. If not I’ll renew the ad and hope someone else sees it.

Meanwhile, time to fix supper and back to the jigsaw puzzle.

miscellaneous, Politics

So Much Anger

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Is it the shut down of normal life due to the corona virus that is causing people to be so angry of late, including me?

We all know that fights can break out on social media. The only social media I do is Facebook (well, I just joined Next Door but haven’t gotten into it). It’s easy to witness fights there. Yesterday a friend shared something about injection of medicine into someone’s lungs. The original poster (not my friend, but a person unnamed) said she was a respiratory therapist, and that, while President Trump’s recent disinfectant comments were poorly worded he was actually spot-on for what the treatment is and does. She wasn’t saying that an effective treatment of corona virus has been found, but that the president’s question was actually of something worth considering. To show that she has no political agenda, she said she has never voted and isn’t even registered to vote.

Enter an acquaintance—I won’t call him a friend—who used to attend church with me and the one who shared that post. He said this: “This person needs to shut the hell up!!!! Not registered to vote, won’t vote, your [sic] not neutral your [sic] a moron sheep that has no right to share their opinion. No vote, no whining about anything!!!” That struck me the wrong way. First off, the respiratory therapist wasn’t whining, just sharing some of her experience. Second, I wasn’t aware the First Amendment had been rewritten to allow free speech only to those who voted. That’s the sort of thing I would expect in China. I replied to his comment with those sentiments. He then responded:

Dave is your head up your ass?

Sue is a friend, dear friend we can disagree or discuss a topic with out your two cents for sure!!!

He and I aren’t Facebook friends (not sure why, just never connected after life took us in different directions) and it looks like we won’t be. If he doesn’t think the First Amendment applies to all, we have little in common politically.

The other item of anger that helped define my week was in real life, not on social media. I lost my cool with someone who pushed my buttons (not my wife!). I let my anger loose in a phone call when the person once again pushed my buttons, for perhaps the fifth straight pone call. This person has always pushed my buttons and I’ve always controlled my anger much better. This week I let it go. I’ve since sent an e-mail of apology, but haven’t heard back yet. The person doesn’t regularly check e-mail.

So what caused my outburst? Yes, my buttons were pushed. Not one button but three by this person, three issues raised where he/she criticized me and my wife. It’s been happening for years, and I had finally had enough. But has the shutdown/lock-down/stay-at-home movement had a negative effect on my ability to deal with negative people?

I just read a post where someone was critical of some teenage girls who were out on a trail by a river and lake yesterday dressed in skimpy bikinis, more thongs. I agree with the poster that I’d rather not see such sights. I started to post in agreement, then stopped. I decided it’s just not worth it and moved on.

Life is good. God is good. There’s no reason to dive into these negatives. Controlling my own behavior is what I’m called to do, not to fix stupidity or wrong-headedness in others.

miscellaneous

A Day Late, Keeping Busy

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While my wife is in the hospital, following two surgeries, I’m keeping very busy. Yesterday I was so busy I forgot to do my regular blog post. Now, on Saturday morning, I’m still keeping busy. So busy in fact that I’ve not planned anything to say today. I need to sit down and make up a blog post schedule. Maybe if I write that on the to-do list I’ll get it done.

Meanwhile, back to the checkbook, budgeting, filing, yardwork, vacuuming the car, income taxes, paying bills, reading, writing, etc.

family, Health, miscellaneous

I Never Expected This

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Dateline: 5 April 2020

Well, the title of this blog post is sure a true statement. I never expected something like this corona virus that would send the world reeling. I never would have expected a stock market meltdown such as we’ve had. And I never would have expected…

…my wife to be in the hospital. On Thursday she woke up to a painful abdomen. It wasn’t long before she realized it wasn’t just gas, that something was wrong. We monitored it, but the pain was tolerable so we went about our normal routine. That is, normal for being socially distant and close to sheltering in place.

Friday morning the pain remained. It had also hit her hard during the night. After a couple of hours we called her primary care physician and arranged a video appointment. That happened but with much trial and error. The doc decided she needed to come in for an office visit. They aren’t doing many of those due to the pandemic, but she said come in before 4. This was around 11:00 a.m. The lab called us back and said we should come in before 3 because they would leave early on a Friday with not a lot to do.

The doc decided she needed a cat scan, so they scheduled it for the Mercy urgent care facility closest to our house, at our request, because we figured we’d be going home afterward. The thing took almost four hours, at which time they said we needed to head straight to the hospital operating room. The problem was most likely a ruptured appendix. We did so, getting there at 6:00 p.m.

Of course, I couldn’t go into any of these places with her. I read in the car. We left so quickly in the morning that neither of us brought chargers and Lynda didn’t remember her new cell phone. Thinking there would be surgery that night (as we were told), I waited in the parking lot, thinking if something went wrong they would call me and let me see her. But Lynda called around 8:00 p.m. and said the surgery would be at 10 Saturday morning.

The surgeon then called me around 10 a.m. on Saturday. They took her early to surgery, got out the appendix laparoscopically, She would be in the hospital a few days due to antibiotics due to the rupture, all of which time I wouldn’t be able to see her because of the corona virus.

In video calls since then, I’ve learned that her heart went into a-fib, she’s quite nauseous, she has an air bubble in her stomach, and water on her lungs. During which time I can’t see her due to the pandemic.

So, today, Sunday, I kept myself busy. I studied for Life Group in case I had to teach (which I didn’t), I had quite a few phone calls and many messages about Lynda. I did some more genealogy research, and I accelerated a de-cluttering effort in the storeroom that I began about five days ago. I actually saw some progress on both research and decluttering today.

And, of course I prayed—much, even almost without ceasing. God has this under control, all of it. He has Lynda’s health, he had the world’s health, and he has my peace of mind.

The nurses told me today that Lynda isn’t in any danger. What she’s going through (except the a-fib) is normal after an operation. Her body just needs time to work through it.

So I will rest easy knowing the Great Physician has this. Amen.

home improvements, miscellaneous

Some Significant Decluttering

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The storage area for Christmas decorations, opposite The Graveyard, is in slight disarray this time of year.

I’ve written about decluttering before. It’s an on-going process here at Blackberry Oaks (the name I’ve given to our property, a name no one else in the family seems to like or is willing to adopt). Most of what we’ve done is relatively minor stuff: getting rid of a few empty boxes; taking garage sale stuff that didn’t sell to the thrift store; etc.

Last week and into the weekend, however, I did something a little more major. In our basement storeroom is a dark nook, set off from the rest of the storeroom by a 6-foot long job in the concrete wall and two book cases at right angles to it, is an area I have never had a name for, but which I think I’ll dub The Graveyard.

At the front of The Graveyard were two boxes with Christmas wreaths and another box of some candle holders. Behind it was a stack of computer boxes. The Apple boxes I knew had our old C-II from the Kuwait years. The other boxes I wasn’t sure what was in them. Then, there were a couple of large cardboard boxes. One I knew was for our first digital TV, the 32-incher we bought in 2008 and were still using. I guess we kept that thinking that if we ever moved, it might be best to pack the box back up in the original container. Yeah, that’s a good reason to keep the box. It’s out of the way.

Well, as we had our family Christmas over Thanksgiving, our son bought us a new digital TV. It’s a smart TV, 49-inches, yet it takes only a little more footprint and square footage than the old one. The box for this one went to the garage. We’re still trying to learn how to use the smart TV, but that’s a story for another post.

Last week, around Monday, I took a look at The Graveyard and decided we could do without that old TV box. We would be going by the recycling center the next day, so I decided it was time to let go of it. As I pulled it out, I saw that we also had the box from the TV stand for that old TV, a stand that it once again sits on in The Dungeon, waiting to be hooked up. Well, obviously I didn’t need to keep that. Both of those boxes went up to the garage, into the minivan, and, the next day, to the recycling center along with the new TV box and some other stuff.

How freeing that was! Much of our clutter is empty boxes, saved for whatever reason we need them.  But these particular boxes clearly had no future use.

Much better organized. Smaller, all items showing. Now need to get rid of the Apple 2C. Any takers?

But there, in The Graveyard, I also found, not just our old Apple computer, but an equally ancient desktop, perhaps also from Kuwait. I’ve been slowly giving up the old computers for recycling, after having someone get the data off of them. I thought I knew where they all were, so finding this one buried behind unneeded boxes was a surprise. It’s now moved to a place where I stage getting rid of computers. Also back there was a dead printer—dead because whatever computer it was used with is no longer in service. It’s also moved to the electronic recyclables staging area.

Once these things were removed, I was able to organize the few things left to be where I can see them. I gathered all the loose wreaths and hung them.  Also, I was able to move the free-standing bookcases back a little further into The Graveyard to make that space smaller and make the main part of the storeroom bigger. You can see what the result was.

Decluttering is far from over, In fact, in some ways it’s seems we’ve just begun the task. But this feels good. Real good. Next will be the remaining old computers and other electronics. Then, what’s next? Maybe some real stuff will depart this household.