Can a woman have too many clothes? In my case, yes.
Kelli has a large closet in our bedroom that is never empty, she has one in the hallway, and part of mine outside the bathroom.
Now she has inched her way into the bathroom by hanging garments on the shower rail. I have to move them each time I have a shower, and put them back, in the same order, when I gave finished.
Even with all the trips to Plato’s to sell stuff, nothing ever looks emptier.
Often when new stuff comes in the mail, it stays for a day, gets resold, then gets shipped out again. It’s an ebb and flow of clothing.
I had my coffee session with Henry, originally I was supposed to drive to his house and see how the rooms I worked on turned out, but his wife needed to tidy the place after their family stayed for Christmas. I said I understood, the same happens with me when there is a chance that we get visitors. I think it’s just the women that notice these small details, I live in a constant state of oblivion, I notice very little.
It was a fun time, although he is eighty, he is still articulate and creative, he knows his limitations and sticks to them, whereas I don’t, that might be my downfall, but I don’t care, I’m having fun.
Talking of fun, Winnie is all over the place, she is desperately trying to be friends with Phoebe. There is a lot of jumping, yapping and snarling, no blood yet, it will take time.
I don’t think Phoebe understands that she is expected to be the Alpha, but sometimes they both show each other their tummies, a sure sign of subservience, so we have confused animals.
“ It’s a new day, new month, and a new year, and I’m feeling,……shite”
I think I finally got to sleep about 5.00am, not through being a party animal, but because Kelli couldn’t sleep.
It started when the ear buds that she listens to a podcast of bedtime stories didn’t work.
Each time she switched the program on, it wouldn’t play through the buds, instead the sound came through the phones internal speaker. Kelli relies on this to send her to sleep, so there was panic mode.
Was it something in the headphone socket? I gave it a clean, but it didn’t make any difference.
I have two phones both with Spotify installed, but she couldn’t remember what her password was, anyway this wasn’t working, and she was getting angry about it.
I was trying to keep the puppy calm, against all this disruption.
Eventually she found an old phone, but it was old, and very slow, and there wasn’t much power in it.
“This is a great start to a new year”, I thought.
Somehow, at some unearthly hour it finally resolved itself, it remains a mystery.
Now if only she would go to sleep, this is the time I usually tell her a story, tonight it was about my schooldays, I don’t remember how many times I’ve told the same bloody tale, but it did the trick.
I’m quite proud of myself, I have proof that I can bore someone to sleep.
After five hours of sleep I really did want to drive to Fennville to collect a wire frame that we were planning to fence part of the living space off to contain Winnie. We were going to create Stalag 13.
There was snow falling, the roads were icy and white, it was a harrowing journey.
I found the house, the truck made the first tracks in the freshly fallen snow. I collected the box with the parts inside, and slipped the money into a box on the porch, then I made the journey back.
Whilst I was away Kelli was preparing a chicken to roast that we were going to take to her mums for our new year feast.
That went surprisingly well, despite Matt making Spaghetti, which he and Brenda devoured, we were confused, but hey ho, each to their own.
It’s alway an odd day, tipping another page from the familiar calendar to a new one tomorrow.
Was it a good year? It was certainly interesting.
It did open my eyes, as my reader might have noticed through some of the posts I have made.
I’ve looked through a different window, and what I’ve seen I didn’t like very much. Questions that I didn’t think to ask have been answered and not in a way I expected.
I will start the different year with no fear, I’m not afraid of what’s ahead good will conquer evil, eventually.
We have lost some good people, but our culture will continue, new will replace the old, and hopefully bring about a change.
I’m sure more deceit will be revealed, but will anyone take any notice? climbing out of our bubble taking a new breath of clean unfiltered air, and read between the lines.
If only one person stops, looks , but doesn’t listen, and imagine that our entire existence has been planned out, we have no fear, this paradise we live in can look after itself, we have to trust it. No government expert can scare you, keep you down and frightened, that’s what they want, then you can be controlled.
Beware of the words “ For your safety” “ safe and effective “, “ saving the planet “ these are meaningless, and designed to lull you into a state of compliance.
Meet the next year with a state of personal freedom, turn off the interference, we live in a great place, and there are many more of us than there is of them, that’s what they’re afraid of, we have the power.
It was back to John the wood’s barn after missing a week. This is definitely the time I look forward to, and allow my creativity to burst forth.
John was his usual self, the journey from his home to the barn is when I try to find out what’s been happening, John tried to tell me, but stumbles and forget the key point, a bit like not remembering the punch line to a joke. I try to fill in the blanks, sometimes I’m on the nail, other times way off, and it remains a mystery.
I can feel his brain whirling around, and I feel bad for him, he’s a fun chap, when I say something amusing he chuckles.
He is using the notebook I gave him, to write things to remember, things to buy and names of people. I put things in that might be of interest, YouTube videos, then we can talk about them.
I saw what he was building for the church that has been in progress for weeks. Admittedly he has only done the wood parts, but suddenly all this steel had been added. This is half inch thick plate, with the timber panels bonded to it. There are two units that will stack on top of each other.
I still don’t understand what, and why they are building it. John said the steel was to stop a bullet, that’s the bit that’s weird to me, the pastor is safe but what about the congregation?
In reality it was an elevation device for the pastor, who is disabled, to get from the ground to his preaching height.
The final structure must weigh over half a ton, god knows how it will be moved.
We started on the sofa today, pulling out planks of white oak from his stock, it really is a treasure trove of timber.
He has ten, three inch thick live edge boards ten feet long that must be worth thousands to a table builder.
We started cutting up the planks, flattened them and planing them to the required thickness.
Although I didn’t get any boards glued up, it put me in a good position to do it next week.
Light snow continued throughout the day. The fine powdery kind that doesn’t appear to do much, after many hours builds up a significant amount.
We had a customer coming to collect the two dressers, so I had to make sure I had returned by then. Bank on time they turned up with a trailer. The chap admitted that he couldn’t reverse, so we unhitched it, moved it out of the way, and repositioned it, pulled their vehicle out and reversed back in. Once the trailer was hooked back up, we loaded the two pieces, and off they went.
Winnie had a good day, no accidents happened in the house, and everything was calm and relaxed, just what I needed.
The snow is back, and also the strong winds, making a blizzard condition, all day.
It was shopping day, on a foul day like today, but our cupboards are bare.
The store were empty of people, maybe they were more sensible, but there were no distractions, we got round in record time.
Letting the dogs out in snow is not the greatest event in my bucket list, in fact the bucket is very useful for this task.
Winnie is getting better, she knows where she has to go, and we have to be really quick to recognise the signs to avoid an accident.
The roads were icy in places, after rain in the early hours, followed by sleet and snow it was tremendous in places.
Of course Kelli had other stops to make, the first was to collect some puppy coats, and another was a wooden room gate. We need to block off some rooms to channel the puppy’s escape routes. She is quick, my attention cannot waver, or I’ll miss the important signs of a poo being delivered. I used to watch YouTube whilst I was preparing breakfast, not anymore, I’m on high alert all the time.
I did some work in the garage, getting the two dressers ready for collection tomorrow. These were not the greatest quality pieces we’ve had, but we did our best, and reflected that in the price.
I’ve come to the conclusion that anything made in Vietnam, should be avoided.
It rained most of the morning, not the most pleasant weather to take a puppy outside, and she know it. She had learned the layout of the garden and now she has to explore all of it.
All we want is for her to do her wees and poos so we can get out of the rain.
Now in the evening it’s our chill out time, we watch a bit of tv and hope that our animals do the same.
Nope! Winnie moves into hyper mode, toys everywhere, she tries to get Phoebe to play but that doesn’t happen.
I feel our routine has to change to suit the puppy and not the other way round, which is frustrating.
The only saving grace is the number of times she stops, lays on her bed and goes to sleep.
To us, we finally can relax, but it doesn’t last very long.
The furniture business has taken a bit of a hit, but we finally got the matching pair finished and posted.
Later in the evening they were sold, that was quick work. As far as finding product to work on things have been very lean, we have another long and heavy dresser to work on next.
I finally cut up the to bottom bed ends that have been getting in the way. It was a shame, but no one wants a bottom end. It is the same with mirrors, we have several in the storage room. These would have come with some dressers that be acquired in the past, it seems that our buyers don’t want to see themselves in the morning, actually, I can vouch for that.
Another thing that I have noticed to light quality. There are many “ green” light bulbs that have been pushed over the years, and basically they are crap. Some give a harsh light that is totally unflattering.
For example at the Curragh pup, the light in the gents is really bad, I look a hundred years old, I rush out of there as quickly as I can. The lighting we have is softer, making look like a normal human being. Now what do I really look like? I’ll go for the normal one please.
Winnie continues to go crazy in the evening, Kelli tries to settle her, and she stops for about ten seconds then wants to go off exploring.
Her toilet activities are quite good, for which she gets rewarded, but I don’t trust her.
Phoebe still keeps her distance, slightly aloof, she resists any attempts to play, she views this small demon as an out of control mad dog.
This is the second day of her treatment, Kelli did a bit of research and found others dog owners had noted the same high activity in the evenings, so the general advice was to give the medication early in the day.
I haven’t watched much news over Christmas, it hasn’t been the same since I learnt the Santa wasn’t real. Even the podcasts are spewing out the same stuff, there is nothing like the re-runs of Only fools and Horses to cheer myself up.
I did hear that Mike DuPree had passed away on the Twenty first of December, I had known Mike since the nineties, and again when he joined International, scouting out manufacturing opportunities in China, sad to hear that news.
I did a bit of clearing in the garden, the old fire pit was belching out smoke from the old wood bits I was burning.
I always enjoy a good burn up, the garden always looks bad at this time of year, and as Kelli doesn’t want anything cut back because they could be the winter habitat for bugs and crawlies.
There hasn’t been any drama in the road, since the noisy jeep man finally moved out. He is a bit of a loser, he cannot keep a job, he often misses work with “ Brown bottle flu”, not the most reliable person.
The weather today was bloody awful, it was misty, damp and grey, the kind of weather that didn’t give any incentive to do anything.
Later Kelli had a call from the vet to give her the results of the poop test that she organised a couple of day before.
The news was not good, the test found that Winnie has intestinal parasites that needed to be treated as soon as possible.
An appointment was made for the afternoon, the shelter was contacted to advise them that others in the litter might be affected.
So a trip to the vets resulted in a number of powders and tablets that should sort out, but we are face with cleaning, washing anything that Winnie might come into contact with.
As soon as we were back home the first of the treatments were started.
It was a difficult evening, Winnie was being a bit crazy, was it the result of the medicine or was she just being high spirited? Whatever it was we didn’t appreciate it.
The training of Winnie will test our own level of endurance.
There were two things to celebrate today, Christmas, and the one week anniversary of Winnie coming home.
I will say that Christmas is more predictable.
Winnie has her moments, it’s really difficult to keep track of her, she is like a ghost. she has her spot in the kitchen, a bed that is her favourite.
She settles on that. I turn around and she has disappeared. “Where the heck is she now?” I’m worried that she has left a wet spot somewhere.
I can look at my phone for a milliseconds, and its
done.
I get so paranoid that I take her outside every ten minutes. Phoebe has the look that says “ well I knew this would happen”.
The Christmas dinner itself was attended by all the family, an unusual event in itself. It was not the dinner that I’m used to in the UK this was a buffet style where everyone contributes by bringing something, however Greer and Cameron didn’t bring what they should of, which didn’t go down very well with me. That’s all they had to do, and they couldn’t do that.
However the food was ample, and I probably ate too much again.
And that was that, a quick game of passing presents that you don’t really want verses some that you want, and it was all over.
We rushed back to see if Winnie had filled her cage with smelly stuff, but we were pleased, and somewhat surprised that there was none, a result. For the rest of the evening were were on piss and poo patrol again, but we have survived a week, will we make it to two?
Another Lifetime to go 