Stripping Away The Old...Plus Some Odds And Ends
We finally stripped the carpet from our office Saturday night. It was a bound carpet remnant we put in about a year ago. It was cheap carpet to begin with, plus we'd never gotten around to putting the padding down beneath it, so it was matted and looked really ratty. Plus, due to recurrent bouts of a certain un-named beagle's
pissquiggles, it was pretty rank. Actually, it was embarrassingly stinky, truth be told.
It was a late-night team effort, as most of our projects tend to be. Howie crawled around on the floor and cut sections of carpet with his pocket knife and handed them to me to toss in a pile by the garage door. I vacuumed, he mopped with oil soap. About 3am (darned time change!), we dragged our sore and tired bodies to bed and slept a few hours until it was time to get up for church. It was worth it, though; now the office just smells like the cedar shavings in the dogs' bed. *sniff*
We brought up a bookshelf from the basement, too, so I'm working on getting the books off of horizontal surfaces, sorted into "keep" and "Goodwill", and up onto bookshelves where they belong. One thing the Sandra Felton said in her book,
The New Messies Manual, is so true: messies tend not to buy the organizational products they desparately need, thinking they're too expensive. She said the very things that will help us get organized and declutter things -- marvels such as bookshelves and plastic storage containers -- are absent from our homes. Boy, is she right about that!
I went to the chiropractor again today, my second visit. I awoke with a real headbanger of a headache, part sinus, part tension in my neck. The very last thing I felt like doing was going out of the house. The thing I most felt like doing was going back to bed. I went out of the house. I figure, if anything would probably
help me feel better, it's getting my adjustment. My neck does feel better, but my head's still aching. It's not as bad, though, so that's a relief. My muscles are rebelling to the bones being moved, but my spine and neck are much loose now and I can turn my head without that grinding sound. mmmmmmmm.
Let's see, what else is new...I sang at a "celebration of life" service for a friend. It was a memorial service for a lady who we knew from our previous church. It was really neat, a combination of photos (many of them displayed on bulletin boards and such up front), favorite songs, and people sharing stories about Betty. I sang a cappella since it was short notice and I didn't have time to really practice with an accompaniest. A lady named Marie sang another hymn, and what a sweet, clear voice she had! They played some of Ralph and Betty's favorite country songs over the PA, too. All in all, it was a really neat tribute to her.
I told Howie, when I die, I'd like something like that rather than calling hours and a funeral service. I'd like it to be at my church, and I want packets of flower seeds given to every visitor. If the people don't garden, they can just scatter those seeds in a field - either way, new life will spring forth and the world will be a better place for them. :)