| Jul. 1st, 2009 @ 10:23 am One bite of the apple |
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I am staying home until Saturday so I can go to my grandson's 4th birthday party. That keeps me here a week longer than usual, as my regular departure is around the 29th of June. I have enjoyed the beautiful weather but not taken much advantage of it. Instead I have tackled tackleable tasks around the house.
My wife and I have a different approach to the concept. She likes to imagine big jobs. "Clean out the garage." Do a thorough re-do of the den." They are goals that are sure to leave you depressed at your inability actually to do those things. My approach is to try to carve out a single doable task, one that can be done and cleaned up in pretty much a single effort. So I will go through a single pile of old bills, discard the envelopes and stuffers, keep the statements if needed, then toss the trash and put the reserved material away. When I am done, that little piece of the universe is better, and I feel as though I did something.
So yesterday my son and I took two old televisions over to the Ballard Goodwill and recycled them for free. I have two more that will go that way on another day (tossing tv's that go back to our Magnavox from the '70's.) I also went up to the den and pulled out of my huge library (not a joke) a bag of paperbacks. I put in it books that I knew I would never re-read, like Hanson's mysteries, and books that at one time I expected to read, like Dreiser's The Financier. (I don't like Dreiser's prose enough to spend time reading him when my life span is shortening. I will keep An American Tragedy, though, and Sister Carrie.) Then I took the bag up to the University Branch and gave them to the Friends of the Library Book Sale.
The day was a series of spits in the ocean, but they were my spits. Know what I mean? |