The State of the Blog

I have done stuff, but it has been neither visual nor exciting. Does anyone really want to see a picture of the seven bags of shred I have created over the past few days? Okay.....

See? Not so exciting.... definitely not very visually appealing. And I am definitely going to spare both you and me the sight of the papers still waiting to be shredded. On the plus side, I managed to finish Season 4 of Angel and Season 7 (the last one!) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while sorting out what needed to be shredded, shredding, and waiting for the shredder to cool off so that I could shred some more.

I've also had a lot of time to think during all this destructive activity. So I've decided that I need to compartmentalize posts to this blog. That way, perhaps the progress will be more evident -- to me, if not to you.

So here's the plan for blog posts:

Sunday -- Decrapification Update (current decrapification status)
Monday -- Yard and Garden (what is going on outside)
Tuesday -- Projects Update (progress -- or lack of it -- on other household projects)
Wednesday -- What is it? Wednesday (oddities I have run across in or out of the house)
Thursday -- Knitting Update (gotta get that in somehow)
Friday -- Frecycle Friday (what we got rid of during the week)

And on Saturday, we all get a break.

Always More to Do

While I did work on the garage project over the past week, there really wasn't much to show until today. Today, there is a visible improvement in the navigation of the garage:

In the process of reaching this stage, however, I realized that I had made the project too big. All the boxes that used to be in front of those shelves blocked the view of the work that I actually accomplished. So the next stage of the garage project is just those shelves, now that I can finally get to them.

The very top of these shelves holds some candles and light bulbs. The next shelf down is batteries, extension cords, and things like duct tape, super glue, and picture hangers. The middle shelf is dog treats -- that shelf could definitely use some help. The two bottom shelves are supposed to be food; they've just suffered a little during Pesach.

To get to those shelves, however, I had to remove a bunch of boxes of what appear to be receipts and bank and credit card statements.

I made a dent in these papers, but have a ways to go. I think both of the paper grocery bags are full of things waiting to be shredded. Works for me; that's less I have to sort through.

What cleared out even more room, however, was recycling the cardboard boxes that keep piling up in the garage. I keep recycling them, but more keep appearing.

You would think it would be easier to keep up with this as we go along, and after every trip to the recycling drop-off, I swear to stay on top of the recycling. But then I get busy and just toss a box out to take up later. Eventually, later always seems to catch up with me.

And now, since I am falling asleep at the keyboard, I'm going to roll up my tent and go to bed.

To be continued....

Getting Back on Track

It must be April -- we are looking at the yard and thinking about planting things. We bought a pear sapling the other day and then read the instructions (which is, as we all know, something that you do when all else fails....). Anyway, turns out that our pear tree is a cross-pollinator so we had to go and buy a second pear sapling. (See how well I am resisting calling these pear plant-things "twigs"? That's probably what killed last year's pear plant-thing. It didn't like being called a twig.)

Since the plastic edging we tried putting around the fruit trees last year suffered from a plague of dogs and small children, this year we decided to go with a brick edging that (we hope) will be harder to dislodge.

Not the greatest picture, I know, but the light was all wrong. I will try to get a better picture in a few days.

We also have brick edging for the two apple trees, which are in full bloom!

I can't tell you how excited I am about all the apple blossoms. And the peach blossoms!

The weather seems to be staying clear. We may actually get fruit from these trees this year. Last year, as you probably don't recall, an unfortunate hail storm took out our entire peach crop. And from the two apple trees, we got a total of 3 apples. Nevertheless, I patiently watered all three fruit trees (as well as the unfortunate pear twig) last year and it seems to have paid off.

Okay, enough about the fruit trees. I am sure you are dying to know what's going on in the garage. Well, progress has been made but it's mostly invisible.

Some of the detritus on the floor has been picked up, but it doesn't look much different, does it? Thing is, I emptied some plastic bins (like those with the blue lids you can see here) that had been packed up before Pesach. And I brought a bunch of our regular meat dishes back into the house.

And I grabbed two bags of things to sort through. One turned out to be magnets, coupons, and other various things that we generally keep on the refrigerator door and take off every year for Pesach so that we can clean the door. So I put them back.

As you can see, the Bruins are still playing and baseball season has started. The Patriots have been relegated to the lower door until football starts again in the fall.

Beyond that, one bag had a bunch of used cell phones and chargers. Those will go to one of the many worthy recycling programs in and around Dodge. The other bag had a box full of receipts. In my new spirit of not putting things aside to deal with later, I consulted with the Wizard and we decided on a system to handle receipts. That left me to sort out the receipts into various categories like "shred now" and "check against credit card statements before shredding". There's probably another category there, but it's been a long day.

Speaking of days, it's Wednesday, so here's this week's "what is it?", pulled out of one of the bags I brought in from the garage today.

As usual, I know exactly what this is. It's a trophy I received in a piano competition run by the Louisiana Federation of Music Clubs in either 1969 or 1970. Not one of the top trophies, obviously, since I didn't rate a name or a year. Yet another strange little thing I have been carrying around for 40 years for no particular reason. And today, I decided to carry it around no longer. By the time we leave Dodge, this little memento will be trash -- or someone else's problem.

Catching Up

When last I posted, nearly a month ago, I had (temporarily) abandoned the goal of getting out of Dodge in favor of preparing for Pesach (Passover). Pesach has now been over for a week, Media Guy and Future Vet have returned to LaLa Land and I guess it's time to get back on the ball. Yes, folks, it's time to get serious about leaving Dodge.

First, though, a few highlights of the past couple of weeks. Drama Queen had to, yet again, give up one of the two rooms she uses so that there would be a place for her brother, Media Guy, to sleep while he was home. The day before he arrived, she had cleared the room.

Sort of. As should surprise no one who pays attention to this blog, there was a lot of trash and empty bottles and other things that you can't really see well in this picture (like under the couch). By the time Media Guy actually appeared, things had been picked up a bit:

However, in Future Vet's bedroom, which I had scrupulously cleaned already, a cat had apparently exploded:

Oh, well.

The problem with cleaning up and decluttering is that, no matter how much gets done, undoing things can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. For example, the walk-in closet that is the bane of my existence and that I had managed to clear out and even managed a path through was assaulted by a young man in search of a duffel bag. He left it looking like this:

Please be aware that I removed two enormous suitcases and a big container of wrapping paper before being able to take that picture. Just one more thing to re-do as soon as I have a moment.

A more important re-doing project is the garage. I can barely get through the detritis left behind by moving our regular dishes and food out to the garage for Pesach and then back into the house after Pesach.

See that desk with the cans of food? I need to get to that to feed the dogs. Twice a day. And around the back and to the right are our freezer and second refrigerator. Getting to them has become an adventure.

So this is my new project. I will post daily pictures until it is completed. And then, I'll start on the boxes piled up in the garage.

The past couple of weeks have not been without their pleasures. I will be writing about our Pesach sedarim soon. We also had a guest for Shabbat dinner who had an interesting approach to her food. Wine with a spoon. Challah with a fork. Whatever.

It strikes me that, since I mentioned exploding cats earlier, perhaps I should assure you that the number of animals in the house has not really gone down again. Everyone is more or less well, and here's photographic proof.

The three cats who are generally out and about are all doing well and have established a pecking order. From top to bottom -- Canti, Malka, and the LSB.

The dogs, Yuki and Hershey, are doing well, though -- like cats -- they want in when they are outside and want out when they are inside. Particulary the Corgi.

Future Vet's cats, Toshie and Ashey, who often give the impression of having exploded, are still whole and well.

Junior, however, has been exiled to the bathroom. We figure this way, if she continues her habits of pooping and peeing outside of the litter box, at least it's easier to clean up.

 And our sweet little Shadow, when she's not up on the bed at night demanding to be petted, mostly hides out behind the Wizard's desk.

She kind of looks like a Wizard's familiar, doesn't she?