The promise of Spring

We planted 80 daffodil bulbs last fall - and they are actually coming up! I know that shouldn't really be a surprise, but somehow it is. If you look inside the column of leaves you can even see the bud forming - as in 'there should actually be flowers besides!'

I'm so excited.

The window business yesterday had mixed results. They are beautiful and very effective against the cold (and actually clean! I don't know when I've ever had clean windows before, since every time I wash them I just get streaks.) But one of them was the wrong thing - our ugly sliding door was supposed to have been replaced with a 'french door' look-alike sliding door, but they made a regular slider instead. And then it was hit and miss for a while about whether they would actually do the right thing and replace it. It all boiled down to the notion that we should have recognized, when signing the contract, that the salesman's Order Form abbreviation, SGD, should have read FSGD. And even though he was telling us that he was ordering a french-look sliding glass door, he did not, in fact, do that. Hopefully, they will come back in 2 weeks with the right thing. Windows are SO expensive, that I am going to have to hold my breath for 2 weeks until I know for sure they will make it right!

And so it is on to roof replacement. Of course we have two wildly differing bids for our roof, and both of them are for WAY more than the insurance payment. I suspect that there comes a time when you just give up in dismay and pay for it yourself. That time is probably going to come soon!

We have one more trip (maybe two?) to the dump to make before we can call our yard "cleaned up" from the storm. And then fence repair is next on the agenda.

Good thing those daffodils are coming up!

Further explanation

If you were wondering about Ryan's comment on the last posting regarding a phone cord, here is further explanation:

Waiting for Windows

I am waiting for 'workers' to come to install our new windows. They should be here any minute...

Or not.

I both love and hate the anticipation involved in our 'projects.' Planning is good; second-guessing the decisions when it is too late to do so, not good at all. Looking forward to having the job done - great! In the middle of having it done - just plain ugly. I love my new wood floors, but the long, and very cold, two days of Russians in the house with the doors open and compressors and saws running - not to mention the dust to clean up all over the house afterwards - really put a damper on my enthusiasm for a bit. And this time - moving furniture away from the windows, taking down blinds and curtain rods, locking up the cats in the spare bedroom (while Maddie is once again hissing at Frik because he just had his teeth cleaned at the vet's and doesn't smell right to her again) and having no window coverings for a while is making me wish we hadn't done this! Hopefully by next week I'll be glad again; but now? Not so much.

It's an analogy for life.

Change is difficult - whether big or small, lengthy or not, physical or mental, environmental or attitudinal. (Is 'attitudinal' a word?) Triggered by feelings, events, or just the passage of time, change is unavoidable but almost always scary. I learned, many years ago, that sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, close your eyes, and jump. And having had to do that, over and over, I know that whatever I'm jumping into is usually worth the trouble.

I've made more changes in my life than almost anyone I know. I've moved, as an adult, from Arizona to Alaska to Oregon, California, Kentucky and Washington. I've been (ahem) married 3 times. (Oh well - hard to get that one right the first time but I did finally, and it was worth it all!) I've owned 6 different houses, and 6 different cats. Two college degrees have gotten me 6 different professional jobs. (Gee. All those sixes are a little weird. There were 6 'places' too.) Possessions still come and go. My son was born, and then grew up too fast and left. So did friends, sometimes.

Here's what I know about change:

• You can always make it work.
• There is always a 'tipping' point - when you are done wallowing in the misery of having to make a change and can finally start to see new possibilities, plans and purposes. Knowing that in the 'wallowing' stage can really help.
• Taking the positives with you and dumping the negatives as you 'jump' will make you a better person.
• Changing your attitude or the tone of the things you tell yourself inside your head can often work better than making bigger, 'outer' changes.
• Change will always involve ups and downs, eager anticipation and dread, bumps along the way, and something being 'different' when you are done. Accept all of this.
• Change is yours to create and enjoy.
• Very little in life needs to be permanent, if you don't want it to be.

Well.

Sorry - I really was just waiting for new windows. Got a little carried away.

Why so difficult?

This is one of the phrases Mark and I use to indicate frustration and incomprehension over the day to day hassles of managing the interface between our lives and the 'business' world we have to deal with all too often. I think it comes from an obscure movie made from an even more obscure graphic novel called "Tank Girl" and was said by the mutants who were trying to do battle with the sophisticates.

"Why so difficult?"

And I wonder that every day. Why do things have to be so complicated? So inconvenient? So frustrating? Why do policies change, often and arbitrarily? Why is there so much inconsistency, or incompetence, or indifference? Why can't things just be as they should be - or as they ought to be? (OK - I admit it: as I want them to be?)

Why do we get letters from insurance companies that require verbal translations? Why does the garbage company tell you one thing when you want to add yard debris service and another thing entirely when you want to discontinue it? Why do credit card companies put so many 'security' road blocks up when you are inquiring about your own account while at the same time they are selling ALL your confidential information to anyone with a dime to pay for it? Why do 'installation schedulers' go home at 3:00 when the rest of the business is open until 5 and why should I have to call back when they are there? For that matter, why do we have to listen to 5 levels of 'choices' over a period of 10 minutes in automated call systems before we get to actually talk to a real person on the phone in the first place? Why is the checkout line that I am in always the slowest? Why are all the wonderful things on sale at Macy's NEVER in my size? Why don't roofers return phone calls? Why am I always out of one ingredient for each of the 15 things I can think of to make for dinner without having to run to the grocery store? (OK - that one is my fault entirely.)

Why do I have insomnia?

Chores

They do add up, those chores do.

They are a constant in our lives. They never seem to get done and even when they are close to being done there isn't really much of a feeling of satisfaction about them because while we are doing them, more are piling up behind them. Washing, drying, cleaning. Paperwork of all sorts. Shopping, clearing, sorting, straightening, tossing, fluffing, pressing, putting things away... we sure do spend a lot of time on 'chores.'

We spent our weekend on storm clean-up again. We've taken 15 truck loads of tree debris to the dump site so far and still have more to go. It took us two loads in the truck to the county dump to get rid of our little shed which was crushed when one of the trees feel on it, and that we were, only a few months ago, so proud of putting up in the first place. It seemed like we spent the whole weekend doing chores.

And today I am sorting through a year's worth of papers to try to gather relevant tax documentation. Which got me thinking about chores in the first place.

My 'system' for keeping paperwork has been evolving over the years, and now boils down to simply tossing everything from paid bills to paystubs to insurance policies to bank statements to receipts, week after week, all year long, into a nice basket (which is, of course, the critical part - it has to be a NICE basket) in my closet. The system absolutely minimizes the 'chore' of the weekly paperwork grind but seems to come under some scrutiny at the end of the year when the basket is full and tax preparation looms. Oh well. It was good for me at the time.

I was inspired to adopt this system by Mark's cleaning system. Which starts with Mark's general 'work' system - which is to say that things are wherever they were when they last left his hand - wrenches, flashlights, computer disks, coffee cups, highlighter pens, the change from his pocket.. you get the drift. From there, he simply lets things pile up in his office until he can't get into the room any more, and then he spends several hours sorting it all out and making more orderly piles or throwing things away; whatever is needed.

The question is this: is there more or less time, hassle or effort involved to do it all at once than it is to do it a little at a time, as the need arises.

And the answer, as with most questions, is clearly: It depends. For me it mostly depends on my tolerance for messes, which is actually quite low. This is where the basket part comes in. Without it, I couldn't stand the paper mess for the year. But WITH it, I can leave the chore to a few hours once a year instead of dealing with it over and over and over.

I am not sorry for it at all.

It really is a very nice basket.

Still Freezing

We've had snow. We've had temperatures in the 20's. We've had bad road conditions and major traffic jams and we've just about had it. Up to here. Fed up! Tired of the chaos and inconvenience. After so many days in December without power and with major property damage, we are shell shocked. We're feeling like we are in a war zone.

But. We were able to get down to Portland for 2 days and to spend one of those days sightseeing in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, which is, of course, not really the stuff of 'war zones.'.

The rest of the time we went shopping and eating and driving. This is how we usually spend our time off.

So maybe it's not so bad after all.


P.S. Happy Birthday Carl!

A little different now

Yes, it does look a bit different in our back yard.

Our neighbors sawed up the trees and are splitting the rounds for firewood. With the heavy top gone, the tree base and roots simply fell back into place in a dramatic thump of splattering mud and air pressure. The guy next door quickly filled in the damaged fence, but not before all the boughs were stacked into huge piles in our yard. We've gotten a start on eliminating them - thanks to a community brush pile station - but obviously have a lot to do yet! Surprisingly, the Adirondack chairs never moved through the whole ordeal, although they no longer have the most scenic of places to reside.

It's all very sad.

And now it is snowing. It is likely to be really cold for the rest of the week - but Saturday is THE day and we need to get our brush removal done.

And then we'll reward ourselves with a couple of days in Portland to visit with Todd, who will be there for a business meeting next week.

The Northwest Flower and Garden Show is coming up next month - and we'll be looking for a landscape designer there, so we can start over. And believe me, this will be needed because all the neighbors think we just need to hire a 'chain saw artist' to carve our tree trunk stumps into bears. We have a slightly different vision for our 'different' back yard.

I was like...

I was watching a TV news broadcast last night. A reporter was interviewing a witness as part of a convoluted story about a crime. The witness was a teenage girl and the 'sound bite' that was chosen to be included in the final version of the news report was this:

"I was, like, whoa!"

Now I can't really be sure of the correct placement of the commas in that quote, but I'm pretty sure that the statement itself was content free. And I have to wonder at the reporter who thought that it was significant enough to be included in the story. I suspect that 'air time' is valuable and limited. (I know MY time is valuable and limited, but evidently not so much that I can't spend it watching drivel on television news.) I certainly hope the reporter knew, at least, that there wasn't really a statement there.

Do you suppose this was the daughter of the Producer who just wanted to be on TV? Or was the reporter simply required to have an interview with somebody so it boiled down to either the blithering idiot or the passing dog?

Anyway, I'm hoping this isn't another case of standards slipping... "Content" would seem to be a basic requirement of communication. But maybe not.

Dude!

Storm Damage

We are back home, trying to fix the mess that the December storm left. I thought a couple of pictures would be fun:


When big trees go down... Well, I don't even know what to say about it!