Three Glorious Weeks

Summer is in full bloom.  In Monterey, that means temps in the 60's and generally wonderful walking and working weather!   I spent four weeks at the beginning of summer providing summer school speech therapy.  Two of my colleagues and I job-shared two positions and ended up working half days on four day work weeks.  One of the best parts was sharing therapy ideas, materials and organizational tips, making us almost (note I said almost) look forward to starting the new school year. 

In July I flew down to Southern California for a weekend to join DAR friends at the State headquarters in order to plan for the new year.  We had a great time and they gave me the same room I had last year.  See the window under the chimney in the dormer room on the right?  That's the one!  It's a small bedroom with twin beds and a dresser, decorated with antique dolls, toys, and quilts. I can crank open the window at night and feel a cool breeze, so refreshing!  All 15 of us stay right in the headquarters -- an old Craftsman style house with many bedrooms and bathrooms and a large dining room where we can sit around the table, discuss and take notes.  At night we ate supper al fresco on the shady back patio.  For lunch we walked the two blocks to a cafe in the historic downtown.  My favorite "take five" place was that covered front porch where there is wicker furniture and soft cushions -- no one else seemed to go there so it was a nice quiet spot to be alone and think.  It was really a lovely weekend.

Now I have three glorious weeks left of summer vacation before heading back to the therapy room.  As always I have lots of projects to complete, including a top to bottom re-organizing of my house.  I tackled the kitchen earlier this week, taking every thing out of the cupboards, washing things, purging, reconfiguring spaces. Now three boxes of old mugs, vases, platters, and other such items are waiting for the Goodwill (making that trip today), one box is for my daughters' apartment, and the rest is so junky no one would want it so it's going in the trash.  Out with the old expired food, in with reorganizing the spices, meds/vitamins and food cupboards.  Even the junk drawer got an overhaul.  (Can you tell I like to organize?)

Then I decided I better venture into the garage.  Crikey!  My rule of thumb was that I needed to be able to park two cars in the garage, but when the girls moved out three years ago their car space began collecting an item here and an item there until -- yikes -- half of that space is a hodge-podge of clutter.  So much "stuff" has accumulated throughout the garage again that it's almost overwhelming to figure out where to begin.  So I decided to tackle it one section at a time, starting with the two large work benches.  Under one work bench was old paint -- some from 10 years ago!  I filled my entire trunk with old paint and pesticides and made the trek to the city hazardous waste center.  That opened up a tremendous amount of space!  Studying the work benches I realized that two shelves were filled with power tools that I will never use.  They were my husband's and if I haven't used them in ten years, I doubt I ever will -- plus some are starting to rust.  So I called my gardener and asked him if he wanted to stop by and he could have any of these tools he wanted.  He took them all, to my delight -- I love to see things go to a good home!  I stored the drill and bits in a plastic storage box, and of course kept the saws, hammers, screwdrivers, pliers, nails, etc., etc. that I do use regularly.  Work benches are done.  I reorganized the garden tools and other items in the open storage shelf section on that wall and called it a day.

I planned to dive back into the garage the next day, but the tendonitis in my left ankle has been bothering me all week and yesterday I could hardly walk on it.  Using the RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) method, I stayed off of it and did computer work for a day.  By the way, never underestimate the power of compression.  It wasn't until I wrapped my ankle with an elastic bandage that I really experienced a significant difference.  Today it is much better and I am going to gingerly move back into organizing the garage after I drop off at Goodwill and visit Target for some more good storage boxes.  I've got loads of old papers to shred, so if I need a break I can always sit down, rest my ankle, and shred away. 

This has not been a particularly fascinating post, but I do have something much more fun to report!  Toward the end of July I flew to New England for a vacation with my two sisters!  We had so much fun!  Watch for my posts about that!  

That's all for now!  Have a wonderful day!

Bringing History to Life

I'm a descendant of American Patriots, men who fought in the American Revolution and their loved ones who stood by them. They really went out on a limb for freedom, and it is humbling to imagine them taking up arms and standing firm for independence. There is a wonderful television miniseries/documentary on the American Revolution I've recorded, and I'm always amazed at how cool, calm, and collected Geo. Washington comes across in the series. "Father of our country" is a fitting accolade for him. I'm a member of the DAR, which usually evokes images of stuffy, older, ultra-conservative ladies sipping tea. But in reality it is an organization of active, committed women, working together to make a difference. It's a great nonprofit, striving to promote education, historic preservation, and patriotism. Evolving through the years, it is has been interesting to watch it "go green", help schools, look out for our veterans and soldiers (whether members believe in the war, or not, we look out for our own). I'm proud to be a member and honor my ancestors' memories for sidling out on that tree branch.

Yesterday we had our monthly meeting and honored the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln with a guest speaker ~ Col. Isaiah Turner. Col. Turner gave a first hand account of what it was like to be a solider in the Civil War. He talked about how a lot of the Northern boys looked like the Southern boys -- young, 18, 19, 20 years old. He talked about the hardships, the battles of Bull Run, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, and the surrender of Gen. Lee in 1865. He also described the life of soliders when not in battle, including gambling, louse races (picking lice off their jackets and putting them on their plates to race), and how the song "Home Sweet Home" was banned because it made the soldiers too homesick and they always ended up with desserters. He ended by talking about how the Civil War was the deadliest war in US history, with more than 620,000 dying, and reflected on what that war meant and its impact on our country today.

It's always made me curious -- what would possess a grown man to don a uniform from a by-gone era and participate in re-enactments, as our guest speaker does? He explained he is concerned about how poorly our American students perform in history. Do they really care what our country has been through? Is it all just blah-blah-blah in their ears, like war stories told one time too many? He believes by bringing history to life, he can help people understand and remember our history more poignantly. So a sharp salute to Col. Isaiah Turner. He earned our respect yesterday for what he is attempting.