It was a pleasant surprise when finding our weather being more tolerable than what was predicted, which enabled me to get all the more outdoor work done than I’d expected. Truth be told, I was wondering late last night, what in the world I’d be able to find to keep myself busy the entire day, and only because I truly hate having time heavy on my hands.
Before driving to office, I had to stop and get my vehicle’s gas tank filled again, and luckily the gas prices have dropped to a more tolerable level. I still can’t believe how much more gas is when seeing the prices posted in our surrounding small towns, which I’m sure is another form of price-gouging that’s become rampant since the pandemic arrived and then Putin’s self-declared war on Ukraine.
Since another Sunday arrived, my first duty was to get my contemplative prayer session completed, which took a little longer due to my levels of stress being higher than normal, and believe me, it wasn’t self-induced, but rather created by forces completely out of my control. As I mentioned to a confidant today, “I’ll get past it one way or another, and only because I won’t give that person involved, any more satisfaction when knowing I was blind-sighted, which is one of the worst forms of going on the attack of another innocent human being.”
After I finished up on my session, I took time to get as much news read as possible until the sun had risen high enough for me to get changed into my work clothes and head out to my first little project of getting some additional weatherization done. As much as we “think” we’ve got everything under control, there’s always just one more that surfaces.
My next more daunting project, was to get some landscaping done on a project I’ve been working on, and believe me, some of those landscapers who do much of their work by hand, are worth every dollar they’re paid. By the time the hour of one arrived, I had it all finished, and when standing back and looking at the end product, I figured I saved at least $750 by doing it myself, and actually, I think my job appeared even better than what’ve I’ve seen done by professionals. I’m sure the big difference, was my taking the time to prep and appropriately place. Once we get a good rain, it’s going to be quite noticeable in a very good way. I have one small little job to do that’ll take no longer than ten minutes, and then I’ll be able to finally say all of its outside work is complete.
After having a small lunch and a cup of tea, I headed back to get some serious arranging and de-cluttering of a storage area which managed to get filled with far too much useless stuff. When I turned the lights on and did a full walk-thru of that mess, I shook my head and said to myself, “After this gets cleared out and cleaned up, it’s ain’t gonna happen again.” I worked good three hours on it, and by the time I had to call it quits for the day, I looked around and figured there was at least a dent made. Yes, that’s how bad it is, but it’s going to get back to the way it looked in the beginning. I also know I’m going to be doing some gifting of items during that time, so hopefully I’ll have some takers waiting for it. I really don’t like throwing away stuff that others could use because we do have struggling families living in our midst.
On my way home, I thought I’d stop at a groceteria to see if they had any post-holiday specials, and wouldn’t you know, they had whole Butterball turkeys on sale for .99 cents a pound. Knowing they were normally $2.99 a pound in the beginning, I purchased the biggest one they had, so I’ll be doing some cutting up and freezer-bagging it for future use. Truth be told, I really don’t care for turkey breast, but the rest of it isn’t so dry, but once it sectioned, I’m sure I can cook all those parts without having such dry meat. Yes, that was a pretty good buy if I do say so myself. The rest of the shoppers before me must’ve noticed the big reduction because I managed to get the last one available.
When reading the obits today, I noticed another business person suddenly passed away, and that happened to be Denise Vikturek who was the owner/manager of the Diamond Store in our Downtown mall. That jewelry store has been there for many years, so we’ll see if her husband will be able to keep it running, or if that’ll also be closing in the near future.
I just recently heard that Matt Brick who owns Brick Furniture store in our Downtown, is also having some serious health issues which came about abruptly. I do hope he can get past it and get back to normal because that store is another “go to” for good furniture at reasonable prices. Let’s all keep him in our prayers.
Tonight’s photo is one I took of an old newspaper I found while working in my store room, and when looking at it and the caption below, I actually remember back when I was very young, the big hoopla there was when it was announced there’d be one last passenger train ride available from our Rock Island depot. Do any of you remember seeing that building? That was yet another historic building that fell to the changing times where train travel was out, and air was in.
Have you noticed how nearly everyone doesn’t want to spend any more time traveling than possible? I personally would rather take a more leisurely trip by train, but the way in which they’ve got Amtrak’s routes so screwed up in Iowa, it’s too much of a headache to take the bus to either Osceola or St. Paul to catch a train going out West. Back when I used to travel Europe on occasion, I would always go by train, and loved every minute of it because those coaches offered fabulous views of cities, towns and countrysides.
Tonight’s One-liner is: Always remember, it makes no difference from where you came, but what you make of yourself.
