Good morning every one! Or, I should say that more softly for those yet sleeping. Somehow I found myself awake again at this hour and I am hungry. After Justin left last evening I reheated some rice from the fridge for my dinner. It was not much but I did not really feel like more at the time. For lunch I'd made a sandwich as it turned out our water aerobics luncheon was postponed to next week due to Marlena's schedule. That was fine with me since I was not really in the mood. Kerry will be glad to know that Dot asked for her Cream Cheese Torte recipe, which I had included in The Palace Press this month.
After the class was over, Mary Lew drove down here and I loaded a box of books into her car, my donation to the Book Mine. Two gardening books were pulled out and given to Connie but the rest, to Mary Lew. Later she called me to report how she'd pulled out a couple already for reading and asked if it would be okay to share them with the others from the class. Absolutely! I told Mary Lew that once they were in her car, they were hers to do with as she pleases. Eventually she can get store credit at the Book Mine to reinvest in more books!
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I had gone through church papers and such before loading up the books into the box. Since Mike C. was coming after lunch for the yard sale stuff, I went into the bedroom and started messing around with boxes and bins in there. The bin marked fall decor was still sitting there ready for Mike to pick up and I decided to grab another bin to sort through. I ended up going through the spring/Easter bin and consolidating that with the fall. With abandon, not getting rid of anything significantly 'personal' to the kids. It's getting there! When Mike arrived it was just pouring rain and thankfully his truck bed has a cover. Connie directed him to back into the garage and then had me pull my car in next to his so we could transfer the stuff from my car to his truck without being soaked. Nice!
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After Mike was gone, the rain had made me weary and my back was aching, so I decided to take a rest with my heating pad. I believe that I did fall asleep for a while and my back did feel better after I got up. After my restorative rest, I decided to get busy in the bedroom again and since the TV with VCR is in that room, watched a couple episodes of "House" while sorting through papers. The other day Justin had put a flat, wheeled bin into the family room for me to work on during the football game but I never got to it. When he came over last evening, I asked him what I was supposed to do with it so he went to get it. He told me it was empty and that he had meant to put another box out there for me to sort into the flat plastic bin. Ooops! The ones I had just gone through that afternoon, re-packed into a regular bin, were then transferred into the underbed bin, fitting nicely, and put away. That was a trip down memory lane for sure!
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In those cardboard boxes I had sorted through were the cards from Justin's baby showers, his birth cards, baptism cards and even his baptismal napkin. Plus cards made by him for his parents when he was little, my 25th anniversary stuff and photos, but not my original album (I am still wondering where that is....), high school stuff, and so on. All these various treasures were still packed in cardboard and what a terrible disaster it would have been had they gotten wet. Also, I found some poems that Lisa had typed and sent to us after we moved to Florida, and I wept as I read them. She wrote the most lovely poem to Justin, how much she missed him and such. Justin suggested I scan them and send to Lisa, which I did last night. And put the originals in to the bin, now under my bed! And talk about coughing and sneezing from the dust 'n dirt from the boxes...ew! This job needed doing.
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Justin worked on the toys, and made some sort of decision regarding their future, but I cannot remember what. He has set aside a couple bins of toys and has told me what he considers them but I am not sure. Some he means, I believe, for safe keeping while some are for kids to play with when they come over. We hardly have little boys here except when Gabe and Manny come every couple years, nor do I have little girls come for whom I would get this bin out. I think he is not quite ready to part with them either, which is fine, just so they are in plastic. He also repacked some more Christmas decorations before he carried stuff down to the car for me and left.
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At 5:45 pm I was supposed to meet Penny at the lobby with my clothing donations for Quigley House but right before that set time, the insurance adjuster finally called me and I missed her. He is coming today to look things over, as is Mike Kelley, who will measure for the laminate floors with which I plan to replace the carpeting. My prayer and hope is that the insurance man will be very gracious to me and that my neighbor's will all be fine, and Butch. Oh, I would feel so badly if something came back on Butch after all this.
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Penny and I will try to reconnect this a.m. on her way to work so I will make sure I am up and dressed early enough. I am planning to go to Bible study today but am scared out of my wits to be so far from home, as I am now quite gun-shy that something might happen. Another person I was talking to mentioned after having a similar event in her unit in The Capri that she was constantly hearing things and going, "What was that???" Like after a car wreck, your hands grip extra tightly to the wheel for a long time afterward. Hopefully I will get over it and I might once all of us are made right again. I look around my rooms and wonder what is exposed that could be ruined by water running down the walls and through the ceilings, that would be damaged. Fortunately I collect glass for the most part, but I also wonder about my kids' art in the hallway which is fortunately shrink wrapped, which would offer some protection. Timmy's portrait would be the worst loss. I wonder if I have a photo of the painting somewhere in my papers, because I did have it professionally photographed to give to his father. Someday I will look for it, or I might even come up a copy, smaller of course, when going through bins.
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Before going to bed last night, I put out an e-mail letting my neighbors know that I have a desk and the tea cart to let go to a good home. Two of them have replied, both of whom own shops. The one table/desk was given to me by one of the "scrapbooking Kelly's" years ago and weighs a ton. The other piece is the tea cart mentioned yesterday. I love it that they will go to people who will take good care of the pieces and possibly restore them to beauty!
