Friday, July 22, 2011

Five Christmas Trees, Four Turntables and an 8-Track Player

This week has been jam packed with lots of caring people swarming our home just to help make our lives easier. Einstein is shocked at the swinging door policy, and Bob and I both sit sprawled on the couch trying to shake the daze off. Our insurance agent sent the best restoration team ever who worked diligently throughout this hot, hot week. They always exhibited a caring yet professional demeanor. We were blessed.

The status now is that the entire basement is empty, and I mean empty. There is not even any carpeting or ceiling tiles. They have cleaned the ducts and had strong air vacuums on for 36 hours non-stop. All of the items in the crawl space are now either in the dumpster, garage to be donated, or packed away. Everything they took from here is boxed, labeled, bar coded and photographed. They will individually clean the items at their facility. We had lots of stuff crammed down there after living here for 22 years. How can a dumpster be overflowing after it took two trucks to haul things away? Plus don’t forget our overflowing garage waiting for Vietnam Veterans arrival on Tuesday. We had 4 turntables, one 8-track/cassette player, three old TV’s (I don’t think any of them work.) The old computer equipment multiplied like rabbits on a honeymoon. We had all of those goodies I brought home after pretending to be a teacher for 31 years. Every bottle of alcohol or other liquid (Editing this paragraph, I was amused at my placement of alcohol and teaching so close together.) anyway, each container was chemically wiped clean so it is now absolutely gleaming. I didn’t know they could look so nice. The metal shelves look far better than when we got them. They are hard to recognize without the spider webs. We actually threw out five Christmas trees!

Our next step is to pick and install the carpeting and ceiling tiles. We do the picking; they do the installing. Even though the room was paneled, we will keep that money and use it for other purposes. Paint is a better choice which fits better in this millennium. Shag carpeting and disco ball days have exited. Trouble starts flowing in when all those boxes get returned. A trip to IKEA will hopefully beat those boxes. I can picture another dumpster filling to the brim. We hadn’t sorted stuff to discard things stored in the open.

I keep thinking of how Stephanie would kill us if she would have to do this job following our demise. She would not be a happy camper. I guess that’s one problem of being an only child.

Our bodies are taking turns reminding us of their presence. It’s like there is some roulette wheel that is continuously in motion deciding the fate of our insides. We can wake up looking for the semi that rolled over us during the night, have 5 seconds when we are actually upright then crumble to the floor to examine our kitchen tile. It keeps life interesting.

I’m reading a neat book (I’ve read maybe 5 pages so far which doesn’t quite qualify me as a distinguished reviewer.) Anyway, this book is 31 Days of Encouragement. I read the first day to Bob. The emphasis today was that we pick our attitude – always a good reminder for anyone. So, contemplate on how you would like to spend your day. You could be grumbling about your view of the world or wonder what spectacular things God has waiting for you.

Spectacular Thing God Has in Store for People with Chronic Pain Showing Life is Good:
We get to experience all sorts of aches and pains then pick which ones deserve our focus. (The answer is none just in case you were momentarily stumped.)

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