Almost Spring

Hello Women!

I saw a draft in here that said Winter Greetings but there was not a single word written.  Oops.  So, jump ahead to nearly Spring, I guess...

I have recently returned from points south as part of my ongoing 'friend helper' project.  This time I went to Southern California to clean out Lisa's garage.  Wow.  So much stuff!  It was different stuff this time, though.  My friend Lisa is a retired teacher.  She taught English as a Second Language (both here and in Spain), English Literature, and Drama.  And some other stuff, but mostly those three subjects.  She had so much saved paper!  Lessons and worksheets and study guides and handouts, etc, etc.  All recycled.  Nobody wants the hard copy anymore!  She started teaching before everything was available on line and teachers carefully stored their master copies of everything.  It was a LOT of paper.  And, you just can't give it away - there are no takers.  Fortunately, paper is easily recycled.

Another thing she had in vast quantities was costumes.  Her former high school was remodeling the theater and had no room to store the costumes.  Most of these had been made or sourced by Lisa, and at her own expense (of course).  She donated some to a local community theater and some to the thrift store.  (Aside: while they are remodeling the theater, they have also cut Drama out of the schedule and who knows when it will return. So frustrating!)  Also boxes of props and stage makeup and all sorts of drama-related things.  Boxes of hats.  Crates of art materials.  Stuff.

Her third big space consumer was linens.  Holy Bed Sheets, Batman!  I made her go through them with me and was able to decrease the number of sheet sets that she kept to ONLY 15!!!!  (I also emptied and organized the linen closet in order to get it all sorted out.)  Fifteen sheet sets is excessive, but it's half what it was.  Throw in the 6 - 8 duvet covers and spare blankets and, well, yes, it all takes up a lot of room.  It was a lot of work and a lot of laundry.  But, we got it done!

I was in SoCal for about 2 weeks.  While I was there, the temperature shot up to the upper 80's.  What the actual fork!  87 degrees Fahrenheit in February.  It's bullshirt!  The weather is broken.  We have broken it. 

I had a good time hanging out with my pal, despite the slog and the weather.  We didn't do much in the way of extracurricular excursions since the task at hand was so large, but we did go out to see a wonderful community theater production of Guys and Dolls.  Really well done!  It was at the Gem Theater in Garden Grove, if I remember correctly. 

Another fun highlight was our mutual friend Tania met us for lunch one day.  We all went to high school together.  She has had a rough time this past year.  One of her replacement hips became infected, broke, had to be replaced.  Then the replacement went septic.  She has a second replacement now and has just graduated to walking without a cane but she is definitely a little unsteady on her feet.  But, she got herself out of the house and across town, so big props to her.  It was good to see her!

On my way back north, I stopped at the Ranch to help out for a week.  I had a specific project that I wanted to accomplish but I will have to tackle it later.  Tam is having the house repiped and everything was torn up.  The project I wanted to do was to set up shelving in the back room and get all of her veterinary supplies out of the living room.  But, there was too much stuff piled up in the back room and I didn't have the stamina to tackle the whole thing.  Perhaps I'll go down in the late spring and get that done.

The baby lambs were adorable but I didn't take any pictures this time.  I should have because these ones are ridiculously cute.  Her neighbor has given her a pair of black and white rams (her other rams are white) and the huge variety of white, black, and black&white lambs is glorious.  One ewe had triplets and had one of each, lol.  They are cute little buggers but a lot of work.  I spent most of the week feeding, shoveling, raking and generally wearing myself out.  I'm trying to get her to see reason and decrease the number of market lambs she raises.  It's too much for a single, older, half-crippled woman to keep up with year after year.  I want her to diversify into wool-bearing sheep.  The product is the fiber rather than meat so all you have to do is keep them alive and shear the wool off.  Which is done by a professional, by the way.  It would be a lot less work for her.  She's stubborn, though. 

So, that was my late winter excursion.  Some people go to the beach or the desert, I go clean out garages.  Lol.  Basically, though, I went from Winter to Summer to Spring and home to Winter.  It's still chilly here in the PNW.  And, now my internal thermostat is all messed up!  As I'm writing this, I have on my silk longjohns under my jeans, socks and slippers, long sleeve t-shirt under a hoodie, the hood UP and a scarf around my neck.  In a little bit I'm going to put on my puffy and walk to the Library.  That'll warm me up!

I hope you are all healthy and reasonably happy and surviving the season.  I'll not say anything about the state of the world or nation because it's all just too forking much...

Cheers, m'dears!
E