In brief: I'm getting pictures at a truck pull Friday night and a demo derby on Saturday afternoon. Not the most fascinating stuff in the world, but someone has to be there. On Sunday, I'll be working at my mom's house most of the day. Then, we're back at work Monday again.
But I get some time off next week. More on that later.
The main activity this week was spending two whole days (Tuesday and Wednesday) at my mom's house, going through all her possessions and deciding what to do with them. Considering that I'm currently paying for the taxes, insurance, utilities and fuel oil, it is clearly in my best interests to get the house off my hands ASAP.
I was disappointed with the progress we made last in two days last week, but we made up for it this week. We finished up the spare bedroom, then worked on the long connecting closet to the main bedroom. There was lots of stuff crammed in there. Plenty of clothes that we sorted out as keepers (to St. Vinnie's) or put a garbage bag. Lots of old bill receipts and bank statements (dating back to the 1970s) that got the heave ho. You wouldn't believe how many bags of pink plastic hair curlers we came up with. Would you believe seven?
Some stuff was tough to go through. Like the things my mom had kept about my brother. Discharge papers, letters, photos, death certificate and funeral-related items, including the cards of sympathy. His musical instruments. It wasn't easy work.
We packed about six bags of magazines (five of them old National Geographics dating back to the '60s; hate to let them go, but I have no room for them) into bags for recycling. Tons of yarn, too, and other knitting stuff. My wife went through those--the ladies knitting group at the local Presbyterian church will eventually wind up with that.
We went to Subway for lunch Wednesday, where my wife and I had a long talk. I had told her earlier that I probably will not go to that annual neopagan camp at the end of June this year (where I first met S two years ago) and the reasons why. It's because of all the extra work I/we are doing at my mom's house this year and all the time it is taking.
It's just that I finally realized it's in my best interests to move that along as quickly as I can. It's just something I have to take care of and deal with. After it's done, life will be very different. Thank goodness, my wife understands and is helping all she can. That is a major blessing.
We will go down there again on Sunday. Then, on Tuesday morning, I have to leave here about 6:45 a.m. to meet the company I called about the well. There is no water running water at the house, and it's a problem with the well. Maybe the pump, maybe the well itself.
On top of that, I've been told that we may need to get a new well anyway because the old one doesn't comply with the revised code. It's the well that came with the house when my folks bought it during the '70s. Time will tell about that. But what can I do but shrug? If we have to get a new well, it's something the new buyer doesn't have to worry about (and we'll make up the expense when the sale is made).
Fortunately, we have someone very interested in buying the house--the son and daughter-in-law of the next-door neighbor. Another reason to hurry along our clean-up work.
We wanted to do extra work this week because we're taking a short vacation next week. We'll be off to the Twin Cities, leaving Wednesday and returning Saturday. Mainly for David's sake--he's coming with us, and he is interested in an aquarium near the Mall of America, a zoo in that general area and the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul--we've been there at least two times already.
Also, we'll probably make a side trip to the cemetery on Birch Street in Lino Lakes where my aunt and uncle are buried. She is the aunt who died in January. In fact, we got a letter about her estate in today's mail.
(Hmmm. I know an efx2 blogger who lives in the next town!)
Later this summer, my wife and I (by ourselves, I hope) hope to take a trip to eastern Wisconsin (Green Bay, Oshkosh and Cedarburg, where she was raised). One of the museums in Oshkosh apparently has an exhibit about tusks that got her interest. I want to see the railroad museum in Green Bay; I love trains, and I haven't been there in years.
Frankly, I don't consider the Minnesota trip a real vacation because David is coming along. I love David, but he's 24 (autistic), and we have to repress out feelings and impulses and inclinations when he's around. I'm tired of doing that. When she and I go on a trip by ourselves, the mood is much more playful--very different.
That's another reason I want to get done with the work on the house ASAP--then my wife and I will be free to follow other, more entertaining pursuits more often. At least until the fall sports season starts and my schedule gets crazy again.
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On another note, there was a article about polyamory on Salon.com this week that you may be interested in seeing. For what it's worth.
Also, I saw an article in the Christian Science Monitor about the population decline of a number of bird species.
The one that caught my eye were the whippoorwills--it says the number of whippoorwills is down 57 percent due to the loss of their forest habitat and "changes in migration patterns due to global warming are emerging, too."
There are woods on two sides of my folks' rural home, and when we first came up for visits in summer about 30 years ago, you would hear the whippoorwills singing every night. A lovely song if a little eerie. They must have been close, because it was loud.
But as time went on, we heard them less and less. I asked my mom about them recently, and she agreed--you hardly hear a whippoorwill any more.
That's sad.
****
Nothing new inside the nest. We looked at lunchtime Friday. Nothing new with my FIL, either. He was supposed to see the doctor on Thursday.
The rodeo took place here last weekend. I got many great pictures with my new camera, and I'll try to post some of them here before we head off to Minnesota.
I like the rodeo much more than truck pulls or demo derbies. My office camera is good enough for that.
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