At My Age...

Going to bed discouraged tonight.  We worked all day, Walt much harder than I, and we got some stuff done, but not nearly what I'd hoped to accomplish.  Rob Rummel-Hudson wrote on Facebook today, "my car broke down within walking distance from home. I have to say, though. "Walking distance" feels a lot different at my age than it used to."  And Rob is considerably younger than I am.  But that's how I'm feeling.....discouraged that I wake up with all these plans for how much I will accomplish, and ending the day discouraged at how little I accomplished.

That's not to say I didn't get anything accomplished.  All of my laundry is folded and put away.  (You have no idea what a huge deal this is!)

I also went up to Caroline' room and got rid of a ton (i.e., 3 boxes and a bag) of clothes I will never wear again...or ever.  Some came from a big lot of "interim clothes" I bought on E-bay to wear when I was losing weight.  The idea was that these would hold me until I reached my goal weight, but in reality I never reached the "interim clothes" weight so they have optimistically filled the drawers all these years.  But Caroline's impending arrival made me be realistic and they are now all packed up for the thrift store.

I also went through the closet and separated things into things I forgot I had but can probably still wear and things I forgot I had but will never fit into again.  More clothes for the thrift store and a big pile for me to bring downstairs to the closet where I keep my clothes these days, though this will mean I will also have to clean out clothes from that closet as well.

I also threw away all the wire hangers, in my very best Joan Crawford fury, and now have only plastic hangers....and enough hangers and room for Caroline.  I have cleared away so many drawers and closet space you'd think she was coming for six months instead of only two weeks.  But it was all stuff that had to be done eventually, and stuff I have been putting off for many years.

 I had hoped that we could move the kitchen table back to where it belongs by dinner tonight, and I got all of the desks cleared out in preparation for moving them.  I moved one very heavy bookcase outside and my back did not like that at all, but the desk we are going to move upstairs into the guest bedroom is so light I could do it myself.  

It was the desk Gilbert gave me for mother's day one year.  It was the only gift he ever gave me, and I definitely have made the most of it.  but because of that, the desk top (unpainted wood) looks horrible so I went out to Office Max and got a desk calendar to cover up the years of abuse the desk has taken.

But tonight was the night Walt does his "visitation" with our friend Malcolm.  Malcolm's wife doesn't feel good about leaving him alone, so Walt and two other people go over and visit with him for a couple of hours so Natalie can go to her quilting group.  

I didn't have all the desks cleaned off before he left and by the time he got home, it was too late to finish the restoration of the kitchen.

So that must be done before we leave for San Francisco airport.

I hope that picking her up works out.  I have not seen a clear photo of her since she was about 5 and I don't have a clue what she looks like.  She (or her mother) called today, but I was not by my phone and didn't get the call, and they did not call back.  I tried sending a text to that number (on Gibraltar!) but I don't know if I can send international texts, and there was no reply, so I don't know if it was received.

I did send her an e-mail that said, "When we pick you up, you should have no trouble spotting our car. It is a silver-ish Honda Accord...like about 85% of all the cars on the freeway today!

She did answer but I don't know what she meant when she said "Ok! My number is +4455501221 just to check I don't need an international dialing code on the mobile number you have given me?"  Now did she mean for that question mark to be there and was I supposed to know if her phone works, or did she put the question mark in there when she meant to put a period, which would make more sense.  (That phone # , by the way, is not hers.  They were giving out a phone number on NCIS-LA as I was typing and I used that one instead!)

In the middle of all this "work" I was doing today, I went off to Atria to take my mother's clean laundry to her.  It was 3 p.m.  She was not in her apartment, not in the chair where she often sits, not in the dining room.  I didn't know where she was, but figured she was OK.  I waited for her for 30 minutes but she didn't come and I wanted to get home to get back to the cleanup, so I left a note for her.

I will be interested to see if the note is still there when I see her next.  The last time I left a note, I left it on her hair and two days later it was still there and she had not moved it, which means she had not sat in that chair.  I have the feeling she thought she wasn't supposed to move the note.  

Today I put her little stuffed dog on top of the note and maybe she will read it this time, though all it said was that I couldn't stay and would see her later.

Oh, and by the way, we had the left over chicken pot pie for dinner tonight.  That crust may have been a visual disaster, but it was, I have to admit, the most flaky crust I have ever made.  Someone suggested that a change of brand of flour might be the cause of my crust fail lately.  And I DID change flour to King Arthur Flour about five years ago which, as I think back on it, may have been when my problems started.  Next time I buy flour, I'll go back to Gold Medal and see if that makes a difference.

And now off to sleep.  Whatever happens tomorrow, it will work out  She is, after all, getting free room and board for two weeks...surely she can put up with our eclectic chaos.