This weekend we finished a big portion of our house cleaning and sorting, and can finally say that what’s here is ours, and not leftovers from someone else, and junk that nobody seems to want; leftovers from mt grandmother, and leftovers from when we first moved to the US, and lived on a very low income, and had to buy everythign from thrift stores because there was so little room for anything new.
I did a sort out of our storage, and put into use severl of those plastic tote boxes we decided to use to get organized, and that made a huge difference, and mouse proffed the things we keep in the outbuilding. Missus took a bold step in deciding to spend a lot of money on those totes!
Our living room, dining room, and my den are all cleaned up and the stuff from them is nearly all sorted out. We have a little to clean up in two bedrooms and the sitting room upstairs, still, but those are none too bad. I have a few projects to finish over the next week or two, which can be done before payday. Then I’ll probably be able to look at some things that need doing that require a bit of money to complete them. I’d like ot get the area around the woodstove refinished and looking a lot better than it is now. I won’t post photos of the area on the blog till it is done. That means that as far as instrucitonal blogging and the sort, I have been at a stand still based on a certain sense of pride and decency.
Right now a couple of the rooms just need flooring done to be complete, or done enough to call good. There are projects, like building the reading nook in the library in a spot that was previously made for a firewood bunk. That will only require a set of shelves and a light in it, then some cushions on the bottom, and it is done.
Well, anyway, the point is that I am excited about where we are at at the start of this week.
The next big steps will be to finish the shop moves, and get us into our outbuildings, selling shop for her, and a workshop with more space in it for me. I am also excited because the building I get for my workshop has a much older feel to it than the one I am in now with vinyl siding, and such. I get an all wood building that will suit well to the kind of woodworking I want to get more into.
I am thinking on how to install a model railroad into the den, so that it does not take up a huge amount of space or money, and can be easily set up with a cover to keep dust from it. I have that train I bought last year that models the one my mom and I rode in the summer of 1980 or so, when I was nine, and things like this were the best things in the whole world to me. Right now I am thinking two u-turns with a straight run between representing the stations at Salt Lake and Denver, with the mountains between long the wall. I want it high enough small kids and pets won’t be able to reach up, covered with plexiglass against the dust, and as out of the way as possible to allow the room to still function. That puts it about four and a half feet up the wall.
The time preiod of the train should probably be 1980 for the sake of when I got to ride it. It would look really cool in the 1950’s too. That was a real transition time in this country from agricultural and industrial to technological. It stands on the cusps of ag and tech, and right in the middle of industrial. The 1980 period would end up covered in more grafitti, as I remember it. I can’t scribble in N-scale!
Our eldest came by this weekend to help out with getting firewood, which was awesome. It was a good time to be able to hang out and talk, and to get thigns done. He also helped out with such things as moving stuff from the house to storage. So, with his help, it was a lot easier to get things cleaned up once and for all. Now to keep it that wiay till the run up to the Holidays!
The summer season is hot on us right now. Temperatures are topping out in the low 90’s, usually. That means the house is hot, and the kids are wanting to play in the pool or in the water sprinklers. I want to have a minute to take a break now, and reasses the way forward from here. I will be letting the girls out to the pool in an hour and a half or so. Meanwhile, writing is an excerise in thought, and a chance to catch my breath and see where I am at and where I am heading.
I feel fortunate that at this point I am in a house that I really know well, and I know how to do many of the things I want that have always been on my list of things I have always wanted in a house. One example is putting power outlets in place that will run on a switch, and allow me to plug in holiday lights easily, and where I can turn on the whole display in one go. There are other, more critical thhing to do, true, but we are also talking about reaching for pie in the sky here. Who does not want to live where they are reaching for that?
We have got all LED lights for this year’s holiday displays, so it will be cheaper to run, but also require less to install the electrical support system as I just suggested I want to do.
Coronavirus has stalled our ability to go to town to get some of the things we need. It has also kept us at home, giving us less reason to procrastinate the things we need to do. I have been thinking like we really travelled back in time to the early 1900’s, when it was more difficult to get far from home, and when things were harder to get ahold of. We have Amazon now days to support us, and we can get the shopping ordered and picked up withhout exposing ourselves to a lot of people; reducing our social exposure. I can’t imagine how that is anything but living like it is 1900. Sure, the part about the car and the shopping being loaded in for us is different. But I do like it, and like the extra time I get to spend with my kids without the whole trauma of taking them into a store and having them wanting things we cannot budget. It’s been a big change.
I feel fortunate to be in rural Idaho at this particular time in life, and during this event. It does nto make us safe, but we have greater control over our efforts to be safe. I ready almost daily about the thousands that have died, and the hundreds more that do each day. It breaks my heart. Other countries have been able to reduce deaths and the spread of this virus. There seems to be a sort of person here who refuses to take the responsibilities that are required of those who wish to have the rights granted them. There are those who forget that their rights are granted them to free them from government tyranny, not from social responsibility. Well, be it what it may. I have the right to stay home, and I take it as much as I can. We are getting on pretty well, at the moment, and aware that even though we do, we are still highly likely to get this virus and end up sick and dying like others are. All we can do is do our best to reduce risk, and take it a day at a time.
I don’t know what else I should address right now. There are other things I wish to discuss, yet there are things I don’t wish to discuss publicly. I think it best to keep from airing laundry I don’t want everyone to see. But for my sake, I will say there are some dirty clothes that fit a couple of people I know I hardly know. But between them I have the right to say what needs to be said.
So, that’s a bit of where I am at right now. I better go eat some lunch and be ready to get the girls out into their pool today. The farmer’s irrigation ought to hit us tonight, and dirty up the pool again after I clean it today. That ought to keep me free to do other tings tomorrow as I will not be cleaning it out for them again then.
I want to try to write more here. I always do. Who knows. Mabe I will be up to it more, now. Let’s see.