Years ago my sister Carol, who is one year older than me, and I decided to describe each other using only one word. My word for Carol was, “sincere.” Carol was a very sincere person. She was never artificial about who she was. I say, “was” because this beautiful lady is now home in her final resting place and is greatly missed by us all. Her word for me was, “goals,” which took me by surprise. When asked to explain she went on to say since she could remember I have been setting goals for myself and working on them. I had never thought about that, but when I did, I suspect she was right. When I was about eight I decided to learn how to do forward hand flips that landed me on my feet. I practiced by flipping over bales of hay and was soon hand flipping around the farm. During my childhood when attending a movie there was always a news reel before the main feature. One of these news reels showed paratroopers jumping from planes. I found that thrilling and scary and set a new goal for myself. I was about twelve years old. When I turned 50 I remembered that goal, so took up skydiving. Having done five parachutes jumps from around 4000 ft I considered that goal accomplished and moved on to white water kayaking.
Recently, for various reasons, I have gotten behind on upkeep around my home so I set a goal for this summer to be my summer of projects. I am pleased to say I am making progress. Last January a frozen water pipe over the garage burst punching a hole in the sheetrock. Waiting for things to dry out I decided in late July to repair the damage and set that goal for myself. Having never worked with sheetrock before this was daunting. ” Tadaaa !” Goal accomplished this week.
First I had to stabilize the surrounding sheetrock and then cut away the damaged areas creating a workable space.
I own very few tools so have to ‘make do’ with whatever will work. I used odd pieces of lumber Taylor had laying around from his tree house project to build scaffolding to hold up the piece of replacement sheetrock so I could stabilize it. I am pleased with the end product. It is far from perfect but I learned a lot and very much enjoyed the work. It is satisfying that I did not have to spend one penny to do this project. I had everything I needed left over from when the house was built 26 years ago. Although I used the original paint it is lighter than the rest which has darkened with age. That’s okay: good enough for me !
I once had a lovely yellow flannel nightgown. Somehow it became Teagan’s favorite sleepwear and then Latah was claiming it. How did that happen? Be that as it may that poor nightgown eventually simply disintegrated with wounds opening up everywhere. I recently found a another lovely flannel gown at the thrift store and altered it for Latah. I had already found a replacement nightgown for Teagan that she loves.
In an earlier entry I mentioned that Sam had, from scratch, made a salt lick for me. He was strictly on his own and did a wonderful job. However, being only 13, he did not reinforce it enough and it needed to be stabilized. Here was another project for me which I also enjoyed working on.
An Aside: I am sitting here working on this entry looking out my window and there marching past my window and into the woods, are two huge raccoons. Drats, now I must deal with those guys.
About eight years ago I laid rocks just north of the house. That area became covered with materials Taylor had brought with him. Last winter I also stacked firewood on top of them. Another summer project was to clean up that area and reset those rocks. That job was not so enjoyable but was satisfying. It also reminded me that hidden in the ferns and brush are small tress that need to be cleared around, so I have been working on that. Below is an example of what I am writing about. There are many areas around the yard that needs to have small trees exposed to the light. This too is not an enjoyable job, but a worth while thing to do.
Last week I purchased a used car that will work well for Teagan with her drivers training. That car is now parked in the garage so I needed to find a place for the truck. I found a place just north of the house were I cleared a space of trees and vegetation. I watered, due to fire danger, and mowed the area making a place where the truck will be in the shade most of the day. It will be in the sun about two and a half hours a day parked there. This was another satisfying project completed and fun to work on.
….so goes my summer projects. These are just a few examples.
Many of my goals for the summer have been met. Some are on going and some are disasters, such as this dreaded goal to clean and organize the two storage rooms located off the loft.
What a mess. For one thing it is very hot in the loft this time of the year. I have not given up on this goal but I am moving the date of attack to sometime in September.
