Margaret Fieland: Poetry and Prose

So I bit the bullet and last night I brought down a good many of my cotton pants and shirts from the attic. I packed up my cords and brought them upstairs. I took the rest of my wool sweaters to the cleaner. I put a bunch of the stuff I never wear into a bag to go to Goodwill. Since I am not the only one in my house who has done some closet cleaning my trunck is now about half full of bags of clothing to donate.

I am now mulling over just where to take the stuff — hopefully, today. I need the trunk space back.

Of course, if I were really good I’d go over all the things in my dresser drawers to see what I should get rid of …

The editor of an ezine I write for has asked us all to use google documents in the future when we submit articles so I went to check it out.

I absolutely love it! I had been using my Yahoo briefcase to store copies of my poetry but google documents is much better. For one thing, it’s possible to edit in place. I can also email the document or save it in any of a variety of formats. There’s more, but those are the things I’ve tried so far.

I can see it’s going to make my life much easier.

We also finally have nice weather - it’s in the 80’s today. I guess it’s finally time to put away the rest of my winter things and get down my lighter weight stuff. Groan.

I love the warmer weather but switching my closet is a big pain…

I was driving home at around 8:30 last night when I drove over a branch in the road.

This morning some of it was still stuck in my grill. I’ll try to pull it out later.

The good news is that I managed to find my way home using backroads.  There are nice signs that say “Route 126″.  The problem is that there don’t seem to be enough of them.

I still didn’t make it back to route 126 but I did get close to my house, which is what counts.

I’m just hoping I can do it again next week.

This morning while alone in the house and before putting in my contact lenses I put down my glasses so I could read my book. Then I moved somewhere else and sat down to read.

I am very nearsighted. I had no trouble reading my book, so long as I held it about six inches from my face, but when I was done I couldn’t see my glasses.

Fortunately my kitchen is small.

Oh, yes, and in a pinch, I do have a spare pair.

I mailed my taxes off today. That is, I mailed the extension forms along with the checks (mostly big!).

I hate taxes — and it’s not just about paying all that money to Uncle Sam. It’s that the whole thing makes me very edgy. I think it’s something to do with it pushing the limits of my ability to keep things organized.

I do use an accountant, and I’ve evolved a workable system for keeping track of the information I need to give said accountant ( a file folder into which I put anything that arrives in an envelope  marked “IMPORTANT TAX INFO”, plus some other things — auto excise tax, real estate tax — that I’ve learned I’ll need ) and my taxes are legitimately complicated. It’s still gives me, well, the willies.
Anyway, they’re on their way. Phew.

I have been laid low with a stomach bug for the past few days but am feeling better today. As I was belatedly taking in my trash barrels this morning I was thinking about garage door openers.  The ones we have on this garage have that sensor that won’t let it go down if something is in the way.  The ones on the old house didn’t.

We had just moved into the house, as had our neighbors — new construction, both. My oldest son was four and my next son two. A year later we had a baby, a three and a five year old and my son was best friends with the boy next door, Matt (not his real name).

Matt was coming over to play one day when he discovered the garage door coming down and my three year old, who had tried to scoot under to retrieve a toy, stuck. Matt quickly punched in the door opener code and stopped the door descending.

It was quick thinking on Matt’s part. However, he knew the code because my oldest son had told him. If my oldest had asked me, I might well have, in the mistaken interests of security, told him not to.

My miiddle son is about to graduate college in a few weeks. Garage door openers have come a long way since then. Still, when I think of that incident I am grateful for the happy combination of circumstances involved.

Or, rather, to the Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) who delivered the younger two of my three boys. Said boys are now 22 and 20. My oldest, whom she didn’t deliver, is now 25 and married. Wow, time marches on and all that.

On the plus side, I am evidently healthy, which is good news.

We had a very peaceful Easter dinner, which since our kitchen is about to be redone and we planned to move the furniture Sunday we had on Saturday night. We now have lots of leftover ham. It’s just my partner and me at home right now and I’m the only one who eats ham.

We have lots more than I’m going to get through but as I’m a charter member of Packrats Anonymous, I can’t quite bring myself to through it out. I suppose I’ll wait until the end of the week, when I will doubtless have gone through several more slices, to get rid of the rest.

For some reason in the last week or so I’ve become very sensitive to caffeine. I just finished my second cup a little while ago. Bad idea. My heart is pounding and I’m very jittery. Unfortunately, caffeine takes hours to wear off.

Ack! Tomorrow I hope I have the good sense to stick to tea.

I inherited a couple of very nice cotton shirts that, having unfortunately been washed and dried in the drier, had shrunk. They fit me very well, except, that is, for being too long. However, since I’ve started watching “What Not To Wear” on TLC, I know that it’s possible to shorten them. So this morning I trotted down to the cleaners and left them to have the bottoms hemmed.

It’s a sad but true comment on something or other that before I started watching the show it wouldn’t have occurred to me that the shirts could be shortened. Oy!