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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Filing

I know my ABCs, which is good because I am filing. I am walking, single file, through my house which is easy to do in a singlewide trailer, gathering papers that have no home and creating army-green recycled folders to be kept in a metal cabinet. Actually, there are three metal cabinets; one in the River Wranglers shed for RW files, one in my sewing room filled with quilt, craft, crochet and embroidery projects in one drawer and personal files in the other and the last cabinet is in the office I share with Bill. He's on top, I'm on the bottom.

Debbie came over last week to help me organize the RW files. This is a four drawer legal sized cabinet and we worked from 8 am to 5 pm. Fortunately the donuts she brought along gave us enough energy to see it almost to the end. Then the drawers, with all the files intact, sat on and under my kitchen table, waiting for me to put them in the shed. I had to take all the files out to move the drawers but on Saturday morning, that job was finished. Thanks to Debbie!

On Thursday night, after Debbie left, I began the job of organizing the files in my sewing room. Well I was really too tired after shuffling papers all day but I was relentless and ended up working until 10 pm. I was exhausted and grumpy by the time Bill walked in from his Spanish class and I admit I wasn't the best company. I worked on files through the weekend and finished up the second cabinet, pretty much. I think I have to buy another box of files to complete that job.

Now I have the office file to take care of, but really no interest in doing it, at least not right now. I want to cross "organize files" off the Blood Pressure List but I guess it's just not time to do that, yet. Perhaps this weekend, we'll see.

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Wishing Well

I didn't know that "drill a new well" was on my blood pressure list. But, had I known, I would be crossing it off today. Yes, we drilled a well right next to our existing well. Typically you can tap into a well and use a smaller casing to save the cost of the depth already drilled. From there, you drill deeper. In our case, the windmill tower kept the drill rig from getting close enough to tap into the existing well so we had to drill another well.

I learned about this last weekend when Bill told me he signed a contract and the well driller would be starting on Wednesday."What???!!!" I exclaimed. Bill talked about the well and the fact that the diminished flow concerned him. What I missed was the conversation. I "heard" what he said but never offered comments and the next thing I knew we were in a contract to drill a well at least 160 feet deep. The current well is 90 feet and we've had it "blasted" a couple of times to build up the water flow. This ancient lake bed we reside upon has it's challenges to be sure.

So the well drillers came and drilled down to 160 feet but were pulling up grayish water with lots of sand particles. They suggested going deeper and we agreed to go another 40 feet. Fortunately they encountered a small gravel strata at 180 feet and capped it at 200 feet.

So now we have a new well and have to go about the business of capping the existing well. Lots of work. According to the well drillers it will cost $1500 to close down a well. Sounds a little too much to me so I'm going investigating by calling the EPA Wellhead Protection program to check on the legal requirements.

With the ending of the old well, I figure I should use it as my "wishing well." Would you like to join me and add your wishes to my well? And, even though it may be considered cheating, I think I will add "drill a new well" to my Blood Pressure List and check it off!

Windmill photo by Kyna Conlin Moser

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Blood Pressure List

Boy, I think I have a theme going on here. First there is "Buried Alive" and now the "Blood Pressure List." Can you see waves of stress here? I went to the doctor and she raised her eyebrows over my blood pressure and gave me a slip of paper to track it for a month. The first time I checked it was on New Year's Eve in Tucker's Pharmacy with one of those machines; a chair attached to a BP cuff and a digital read out of my pulse and blood pressure. I pushed the green button and the pressure built up. 143/85. Not good enough. I cleared the numbers and pushed the green button again - 139/80. Could be better. By the fourth time I was 129/81 so I decided to take that reading.

I began a list of things that cause me to feel overwhelmed, stressed out, short of breath, panicky. I'm up to 65 "things" that are bugging me and am beginning the process of elimination. Some of the items are tips of iceburgs such as "Mom's house". That entry actually means "sell Mom's house" something I've been trying to do in vain for nearly three years. I've gone through four realtors with no luck. The only thing that constantly changes, besides the realtor, is the price. I've gone from $280,000 to $140,000. Since I no longer have a realtor the idea now is to rent it and compete with three other houses in the culdesac for rent. Not an easy one to cross off the list.

Some of the posts were easy to scratch a line through; make an appointment with the allergist, my fourth quarter report for 2008, and Christmas thank you letters. Others, like the house, aren't quite so simple; set up a living trust, organize River Wranglers files, remove the heater in the hallway (I think the house was built around it!). I've already drawn thick, red lines through 20 entries and you know what? I think my blood pressure really is going down!

Buried Alive!!

I'm afraid the paper is getting the very best of me. What to keep...what to toss??? The piles of paper tower over me and I am constantly moving them from one location to another. "I need to get organized!" I cry out. But day-by-day I learn to adjust and accept the papers as part of my home decorating scheme.

If the paper towers weren't enough, we needed to add a little remodeling project into the mix. Beginning the day after Thanksgiving, we brought cabinets into our home to replace the dilapidated, poor excuse for a cabinet, that we struggled with every day. The new cabinets had a superior attitude about them as they watched the old cabinets being yanked from the wall, their contents spilling like guts into boxes and piles on the living room floor. Then the fun began.

The drainpipe, winding its way under our home to the septic tank developed a leak. Bill repaired it. Somehow air got trapped in the pipe and as I washed clothes the water in the toilet acted like Old Faithful, shooting up a geyser of water above the lid! We really don't know who fixed that problem, but after several days of securing the toilet lid down, the problem went away.

Then we had problems with the cupboards. The vent pipe, in the corner of the kitchen, prevented us from placing the upper corner cabinet flush against the wall. We had to flare out the cupboard using thin pieces of shim. This meant that every cupboard required that treatment. When Bill opened the box for the pantry, wrong pantry! Back to Reno to exchange it for the right one.

To list all of the challenges would make me feel exhausted but they involved electricity, going to the hardware store, replacing plumbing, drilling holes in cabinets, going back to the hardware store, chiseling the floor, going to the hardware store and returning materials and purchase more "stuff" and so on. For some reason the towers of paper look more appealing.

Since November, I've been buried alive in my own home, wondering if I'll ever be missed.