Yet Another Journal

Nostalgia, DVDs, old movies, television, OTR, fandom, good news and bad, picks, pans,
cute budgie stories, cute terrier stories, and anything else I can think of.

Contact me at theyoungfamily (at) earthlink (dot) net
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» Wednesday, April 17, 2019

A Typical Day (Thank God)

Things are in a comfortable groove right now, although we are still keeping a hawk's eye on James' health. His creatitine was very low on a previous blood test, but went up .3 on the last test. It doesn't sound like much, but when the bad score is 5, there's not much give there. We are hoping it was the poor health he was suffering due to the pain in his legs, which has lessened a bit. He is going to see his GP tomorrow about it, as the rheumatologist is concerned it might be a circulation problem. I assume this means another leg sonogram will be in order. However, the rheumatologist also believes his knee pain that started at his doctor's appointment on March 29 was a Baker's cyst that burst. It's possible the knee pain before that was also due to the cyst. Cross fingers.

We are also waiting on two biopsies James had on skin moles. If they are positive, he will have to go back for more MOHS surgery. ::sigh::

I've been trying to get back into decluttering mode, but these little things are still bothering me. It's hard to work when James is teleworking, not because he's in my way, but because I'd rather spend time with him, even if it's just going in and out of the room.

However, he was able to go in yesterday and today, and I've gone back to trying to get rid of, as Marie Kondo says, "things that do not spark joy." And, boy, oh, boy, there are more and more of them every day.

One thing that hasn't been sparking joy has been my craft room. I did a cleaning job on it last year, including sorting all the Christmas cards I've bought on discount, then Christmas came and all sorts of things that are in the way of decorating ended up in my craft room (except for the hassock of the rocking chair, which got stowed in the spare room for the duration). It doesn't help that miscellaneous items have wandered in to live as well: videotapes I was sent, my videotape masters for Remember WENN, miscellaneous magazines, CD and DVD cases, and that loveseat sleeper that has become a thorn in my side because no charity seems to want it. Not to mention the ironing board, the iron, and things to keep clothing in repair (which to me is certainly not a craft, but mending is immensely necessary). Plus I used to love to use my stereo system to play records and cassettes while I was in there, and out of nowhere the dual cassette players just died. I have only one cassette player left: my 1974 graduation gift! And I need to keep it safe or I'll have to buy a cassette player from the Vermont Country Store, because the stuff I have on cassette is irreplaceable.

So yesterday I made a decision: if no one wants the loveseat, I'm going to have to repurpose it. (Otherwise it will cost $50 to have a junkman take it away, and I hate to have that happen, because it is still it good shape—it is not junk.) I had containers of things in front of the stereo and the bookcase next to it. I cleared those out as much as I could. This makes more room. The folding table I have in there now is just a little smaller than the desk I want to put in there. So I will get rid of the folding table and butt the desk up against the loveseat and use the seat for a storage spot, which will leave more room on the floor. It will be a little crowded, but I can make it work. I guess. Today I cleaned off the desk, which I used to use for teleworking, and put a couple of the things that used to be on top of it (like the portable chargers and backup drives) into the chifforobe. The office supplies can go on the shelf on the bottom. I will leave some in a container in the bedroom for notes, and they can go on top of the chest that I can finally assemble after a couple of years of it sitting in the downstairs hall in its box. We still need blanket storage; the blanket chest at the foot of the bed is chock full.

Alas, the small armchair I also hoped to put into the bedroom is no longer made by Ikea. They've gone back to that gut-ugly Swedish modern furniture that was so trendy in the 1960s. Ugh. I'm glad they were making decent furniture when we first moved into this house!

This morning I made a trip to Walmart. Picked up some corn on the cob for Easter dinner (we're having shrimp), bought more sugarless candy for James, picked up more vinegar since I cleaned out the drains, other things we needed. On the way home I stopped at Lidl (for bread, of course) and found two women about my age cleaning out the bakery bins! I waited my turn for the dinner rolls ("buns"), which were almost gone, and said, "Wow, these are popular today!" The lady responded in a German accent that she had driven a long way to get them! They must have had a dozen rolls, other kinds of bread and pastry, and several loaves of rye bread which they had sliced! I'm not the only one who loves the bakery!

Also found some thick pork chops on discount, so did another pork chop bake for supper like I did a few weeks ago. This time I browned the chops in onion and garlic powder and Lighthouse salad blend herbs, then baked them in cream of onion (instead of mushroom) soup with cut-up potatoes. Last time the potatoes came out very soft, so I cut them a little bigger. Well, the pork and the soup gravy was magnifique, but the potatoes were still crunchy. Ah, well.

Speaking of magnifique, it is hard to believe that beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire the other day. I was working so hard I didn't know until James got home from work, and then we watched in horror for half the night. It's not just a Catholic icon, it's a beautiful relic of the medieval era with workmanship that cannot be duplicated. (They were talking about this today on NPR, about restoring the burned areas—remarkably, pews, altars, and most of the beautiful stained-glass windows survived the inferno! and volunteers rushed in during the fire to save the holy relics—because craftsmen like those who built the cathedral almost no longer exist today. The Dean of the cathedral in Washington, DC, said there are only two stonemasons left who actually do hand-carving for the cathedral; no one learns this any longer. What a shame.) But wealthy French have already pledged money and the mayor of Paris vows to have the building restored in five years. I hope they can. It's like other irreplaceable structures: the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, Tikal, the Sphinx.