Last night, it felt much later than it was and I shut off my computer for the day a little after 8. Muf was caught off guard - she escorts me out to the kitchen nightly and I surprised her by deciding to wrap up early. I told J. 'well, I'm going to go in to my room and start to work in there for a bit before I call it a night'.
I worked on a box that contained a lot of 'memory' items from my grade school and high school days. Taking a long walk down memory lane and finding things that maybe I've seen before but had forgotten about completely. Like letters to my mom from my teachers - all complimentary and special. I didn't remember that my high school history teacher had written her - he was always a favorite teacher of mine. I did presentations with him on history and sang songs from whatever period we were studying. I had never sung 'in public' before, was incredibly shy and quiet and it was WAY outside my comfort zone...but with his encouragement, I did it. Really a life changing thing for me.
Also letters between me and my family when I was on my six week Europe trip (1976) and two weeks at NAU (Flagstaff, AZ) band camp (1978). I had been awarded the band camp scholarship because I was the outstanding band student for my graduating class - it was a super fun two weeks made even more so because I had gotten over horrible homesickness during my trip to Europe - day 10 of my trip found me sitting on a bed in Amsterdam feeling incredibly sad - and something just sort of 'snapped'. I realized that if I continued to feel so homesick for the entire trip, I'd be missing out on so many experiences during the rest of the trip - and I was never homesick again. Ever.
The letters were fun to read and I kept them. I did (finally) let go of the box of slides and postcards I had from the Europe trip - I've never looked at any of the slides and 44 years is long enough to hold on to things from a trip. Maybe J. and I can take six weeks and retrace parts of that trip someday. It was a whirlwind of living out of a suitcase, moving every few days and also had classes every morning. A lot to handle but it was an amazing experience and I was so blessed to have that made that trip. Sixteen is a good age to realize that the world is massive and amazing and traveling is such an adventure.
I missed my Mom a lot as I read. Very glad to have those letters.
As usual (in retirement life), setting an alarm to be presentable at 8AM this morning for the electrician resulted in pretty crappy sleep. I feel like a nap would be lovely but the handy man is here installing the overhead shelving so it's a bit noisy. I feel super confident he's doing a superb job and they are really wide. J. already got some Christmas stuff up in the rafters.
I couldn't be in the office this morning because one of the electrical projects was adding four plug outlets in the floor between our desks. I've been navigating a zillion cords and two cats to get to my space and it's nice to have eliminated the trip hazard. Since I couldn't hang out on my computer and I wanted to stay out of the way of the electricians (who were also working on an HDMI connection for the Great Room TV (which will be here in a week), I headed back to my bedroom to tackle stuff.
I've had J. bring in boxes, bins and anything else he finds that belongs in the house - leaving it in the garage makes it too easy to think we're further along than we really are and that has been especially true for the room in the house that has been the most challenging for me.
While our house supposedly has two master suites, it really has one master suite and one ensuite - my bedroom is half the size J.'s is. And my bathroom is one third the size. Same for my walk in closet vs. his. Yes, we've had words about it. We technically had plenty of lot space to bump out the wall and make both master suites comparable size - and I think we thought about it for a bit. But adding square footage would have bumped back the timeline further and added quite a bit of expense - so we went forward. It's OK. It's a good size room and the walk in closet is nice. I've never had any bathroom 'all to myself' since before I moved in with J. - and I've never had my own walk in closet, either. So....it is an improvement.
But boy, I've struggled with figuring out how to get things put away. Box after box of stuff kept making it's way in the house, left outside my door in the hallway and piled inside the room.
Biting the bullet and digging in today was just what I needed. Having the reason to just ensconce myself and stay out of the way got me going and once I started, I just kept going. I've emptied boxes and bins, already started a donation box (and am quickly filling it up), done some laundry to get some new (smaller size!) pants in my armoire. Now I have to decide what to do with some clothes - I'm down a couple sizes (lovely!) so do I let the largest size go? I think I probably will but for now, I've got the largest size in bins and will hold them for a few months before I do another massive letting go.
The cats enjoyed being in the room with me for a bit - they aren't really 'allowed' in there and we keep the doors closed. Nala bolted for her hiding spot (which we haven't figured out the location of) as soon as visitors arrived but Muf hung out with me for most of the morning. She'd try to 'grab' things from me as I sorted jewelry and socks. She is truly such a sweet, loving cat but holy cow, her CLAWS are deadly. She knows 'no' and 'off' and 'down' and for the most part, she complies. Just stay back from her monster paws.
The handyman just packed up for the day. He will take a rest day tomorrow and finish the job on Thursday. Day 2 should go a little more quickly - doing the first one took quite awhile but he did multiple measurements, mounted all the brackets and then installed the shelf - having done one, the 2nd one went much faster. Only two more to go.
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