A Big Day - November 20,2024

This day is notable for a couple of reasons.  

One, Son #2's family formally gains ownership of the house across the street from us.  The house is livable as is, if one could abide 1980s mauve carpeting in the main rooms.  #2's family of 6 (5 females and 1 male) (plus 3 dogs) has been living in a rental house with three bedrooms and one bath.  The house across the road from us has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  The house has been added-to over the years, and so the arrangement of the rooms is a little weird, but it's kind of cool, too. #2 wants to move some walls and lay flooring and build countertops and stuff like that.  The house comes with a workshop and a few tools.  #2 is over the moon about the workshop.  :)

Two, I got some sh*t done at work today.  My daily goal has been to get one year's worth of records in the file cabinets and get the next year ready to sort.  Every day I've thought, tomorrow's going to be worse, but today I thought that the worst of the work might be behind me.  There are only a couple more years to go, and their volume is lower.  Besides that, I have become a number-sorting MACHINE and can knock out a pile of files in nothing flat.  2019 is in the cabinets, and 2020 is on the table, ready to sort, so at noon I said, Screw this," and came home.

 

Tuesday - November 19, 2024

Son #2 and his wife are buying the house across the road from us.  This house first belonged to The Husband's grandparents, then his aunt and uncle.  Tomorrow is the closing date.  I'm excited that The Granddaughters will be living close enough to walk to my house when they get the notion.  They've already moved a few things into the garage.  My son wants to do a little bit of work to the house - e.g., take up the 1980s mauve carpet and replace it with other flooring - before they fully move in.  

My work project is progressing steadily.  This afternoon, the 2018 files went into the cabinets, and about half of the 2019 files have been sorted into months.  By Thanksgiving, I may have all the files done.

 

Houseplants - November 17, 2024

The Thanksgiving cactus on the living room windowsill is setting buds!  It's a miracle the poor thing survives. It was a grocery store impulse purchase a couple of years ago, blooming its head off when I got it.  To my mind, it would be a one-season deal, for I did not expect it to live much beyond the bloom.  And here it is, still kicking.  It must appreciate extended periods of neglect.  It gets a tiny shot of water every time its neighbors (African violets) droop over the sides of their pots.

Last year at Nanny's Christmas breakfast, Son #1's family gave me a cute planter with live succulents in it.  They gave Nanny one just like it.  Neither of us had much experience with succulents (except for my Thanksgiving cactus).  We were told that all the plants needed was a once-a-month misting.  In the hubbub of the morning, I came home without my planter, and it was spring before I thought to bring it home.  It contained a couple of "hen & chicks" and one tube-like thing that looked like it ought to be growing on the sea floor.  By the time I took custody, the "hen & chicks" looked kind of like palm trees - long "trunks" with a whorl of leaves at the top.  The other thing - whatever it is - was kind of . . . pleated . . . and the tops of the tubes were slightly recessed; I thought maybe that was its water-catching mechanism.  I set it on the back porch and faithfully misted it all summer.  A couple of weeks ago, when night temperatures got cool, I brought it inside and set it on the windowsill above the sink, where the Richard Simmons Chia Head usually lives, and where a florescent light burns 24/7.  

Every time I go to the sink, I see this planter and think that the tube-like thing must be the ugliest plant I've ever seen.  Two days ago, a succulent plant care video popped up in some feed, and I watched it.  It turns out that a once-a-month misting is NOT what succulents like; they need a once-a-month drenching/draining.  So I immediately drenched/drained it.  The next day, the tube-like thing (I keep meaning to look up its name) was fleshy, turgid, even.  Its looks improved considerably.

I don't know what to do about the palm trees.  

While I was writing this post, I noticed that the wrens were squawking like crazy, something I've come to recognize as their burglar alarm.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement, Cousin Roger's striped gray cat was trotting across the back yard, and the birds were following it in the trees, still squawking.  They stopped when the cat went home.  The next time they do this, I'm going to listen to see if there's an "all clear" signal.  ;)

Friday! - November 15, 2024

I actually kind of hated to leave work today.

I KNOW!

But it's true.  Kind of.

It took from 7 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. to put the 2016 files in order and get them in the cabinets.  The 2017 files are piled high on a table, in no certain order.  I'd set my phone to alarm at 2 to remind me to run by the courthouse on the way home.  I grabbed up an armload of 2017 files and started sorting them into months on another table.  In the 30 minutes left to work, I barely made a dent in the piles.  I considered working a while longer - the 2 o'clock deadline was my own - but I'd still be there if I'd stayed until the month sort was finished.  The 2017 files will probably take two days to finish.  

I hope to be through with this part of the job by the end of next week.  There are loose ends left to tie up, though.  There was a lot of loose paper crammed in between the files.  I have been tossing it all into a box - several boxes, actually; ain't no way I'm filing it.  Not gonna do it.  But there are several boxes of Phase I records that mysteriously appeared long after people were supposed to have double-checked the hide-y holes for stray boxes.  I feel obligated to deal with those.  

But I am not going to do it in my current unheated workspace.  I wore two sets of clothes to work today - leggings and a t-shirt under jeans and a flannel shirt - and wore all of it - plus a jacket - all day.  My hands and feet are numb. I am too old to suffer this treatment.  When I get this file cabinet situation in hand, they can find me somewhere warm to work or kiss my butt goodbye.

I'll be having a margarita in about two hours.  Cheers!

Morning edition - November 14, 2024

How I have missed mornings on the back porch.  It is sunny, and the birds are singing.  There are calls and whistles I don't recognize.  Migrants must have spent the night in our trees.  We've had new birds come through for several weeks now.  Over the past couple of weeks, I've heard unfamiliar evening and night chatter, just for a day, maybe two.  More than once, I've run in the house to tell The Husband, "Come listen to this bird!"  Without fail, whatever it was went silent by the time he made it to the back porch.  This past weekend, there was one who did a long whistle that fell in pitch at the end.  Sounded almost human.  I whistled back, but he/she ignored me.

My newest Civil War diary arrived yesterday.  I read a bit of it last night.  The writer, an Alabama girl, is 17 and attending school in Washington, DC, with her younger sister, in 1859.  She talks about her lessons and her visits and her clothes, stuff any teenage girl would write about.   There is mention of sewing, but, so far, zero mention of chores, like laundry or cooking or cleaning.  She goes to churches of several denominations to hear the various sermons.  (The Catholic services were something of a mystery to her.)

At this same time, not far from where she grew up, my sharecropper ancestors were embroiled in a lawsuit involving some land, some household goods, and a slave.  One of them was running a school on his property.  I expect that it was very different from the school the girl was attending.  I'd love to know who his students were, but I have not found any historical references to this school other than in the lawsuit documents.

I should be working on the files I brought home.  

Rain, rain, go away ... November 13, 2024

 It was raining when I left for work this morning, and it's still raining this afternoon. I've about had enough of this.  I wore my ugly Crocs to work because they're my most comfortable shoes for standing on my feet all day, and I wore socks with them because it's cold and my workroom is unheated. (So attractive and fashionable.)  Naturally, in all the rain, my feet got wet and those hole-y socks did little to keep the water out, so I sloshed around in wet socks all day, part of the reason for my exceedingly foul mood.

My job sucks.

The 2015 files - or, rather, most of them - went into the cabinets today, and the 2016 files, which were in alphabetical order, are ready to be put in numerical order.  In sorting them by months, I discovered a whole pile of files that had no numbers on them.  Makes me want to choke somebody.  I brought them home and intend to work on them tomorrow, where it'll be warm and dry.  

I need to retire.

I was not worth a plugged nickel yesterday.   In fact, I'm still wearing the pajamas that I went to bed in Saturday night.  I did manage to make a pot of chicken & dumplings for supper last night (had some for breakfast this morning).

Mostly, I read.  I typically do most of my reading on a Kindle in bed at night, but this Civil War diary is a paper book.  Before I got a Kindle, I had a couple of clamp-on book lights and could read a "real" book in bed at night, but the book lights have disappeared or quit working, so I am reading this diary in the recliner.

This is not the first Civil War diary I've read.  Thirty-something years ago, I forgot to send back the Book-of-the-Month Club card and subsequently received in the mail a copy of Mary Chestnut's Civil War Diary.  At the time, I was working for a law firm in Memphis and had two small children, so it took weeks to finish the book.  During that time, I went on a job interview with a law firm closer to home.  The lawyer who interviewed me was at that time working on a book about Civil War gun boats.  One of the first questions he asked me was, "Do you like to read?"  When I told him what I was then reading, he hired me on the spot.  However, when I turned in my notice to the old firm, they sweetened the deal, and I ended up not taking the job that was closer to home, something I've regretted over the years.  After all this time, I scarcely remember anything about Mary Chestnut.   

The woman in this current book is her early 20s and has about 4 different men wanting to marry her.  (Three of them are Confederate soldiers; I haven't yet discovered how many of them made it back alive.)  She spends her time sewing and cooking and such, but the family owns slaves (for now), so she is not working in the fields or doing other physically laborious jobs.  Her life is nothing like the life my poor sharecropper ancestors lived.  

The other two diaries I recently bought are written by women who, according to the introductions, were socially prominent.  Their lives won't mirror my ancestors' lives, either.  I've found another book (it's on its way!) written by a high-society woman who at least lived in the same vicinity as my ancestors.  Since I'm looking for speech patterns, maybe this one will be more helpful in finding "voice."