Plan #1: Get my errands done by noon so I can meet with Handyman #113 (or is it #1113?).
Result: No call, no show. He probably wrote down my phone number incorrectly, but I will not call him, in order to protect him from (undeservedly) receiving the wrath of a woman previously scorned how many times? He has one grace period: to call me at work on Tuesday. He has that phone number, I did his business cards. Besides, I’m not in the mood for a man today anyway, ya’ know?
Plan #2: Start on The 3-Day To-Do List.
· Pot-up starter houseplant rootings. Done.
· Prune the re-sprouting I-refuse-to-die-maple tree by the pool. Done.
· Clean and refill hummingbird feeder. Done.
· Water garden, pray for rain. Done.
· Pray for rain. I will dance in the rain if it rains. It teases and teases, all day, yet still...
· Work in the barn. That’s the big one. Done, with amazing results. Treasures discovered, including:
o Gem stones, jewelry, and jewelry-making materials;
o Brand-spanking-new painting materials;
o Brand-spanking-new, un-opened, still-in-box craft projects waiting to be completed, including a birdhouse and a bookbinding kit, ordered years ago from a probably-now-defunct club of some sort;
o Dozens of picture and art frames, destined for glory: re-habbing, re-finishing, and made ready to frame some of the yet-to-be-discovered art of my own making, buried somewhere else, yet to be discovered;
o (2) huge (like 4-ft. x 5-ft.) wall-sized posters of Jim Morrison; I have no idea where these came from, and I was very tempted to salvage them, frame them, hang them, but I said no, put them in the burn pile. I still have time to change my mind. What do you think? (I just changed my mind and moved them out of the burn pile.);
o Several old-technology devices, including a manual typewriter and (2) battery-operated TVs, all new-in-box, and which probably need to be donated to a museum;
o 125 ceramic molds, purchased on a dime when I first moved here, a gift for Damien, never used, going on Craigslist ASAP.
o Several bags of concrete mix, the old-fashioned kind, but possibly usable for the new footings for my sinking dining room floor, if I can ever find a freakin’ handyman who actually wants to work;
o Wood, wood, and more wood. Of the home-improvement variety. And the crafting variety. And the burning variety;
o Windows, doors, electrical supplies, tools, tool boxes…I swear I could open a home-improvement store. Or a mini Wal-Mart!;
o Window screen material, to be used on the next project:
· Sew patches on my window screens, holes made by cats in need of scratching posts. (I stopped buying/building scratching posts because Jack-the-Dog keeps mistaking them for fire hydrants.) Materials needed: Screen material, check (I have an abundance of “scrap” screen material, I don’t know why); upholstery needle, check (it curves into a half-circle, turning a 2-person job into a 1-person job, right up my alley); nylon fishing line, check; scissors, check. Pool ladder to reach the window, check (pool ladder discovered in garden shed; my folding aluminum ladder went missing about the same time as did my air conditioner). And project done, not without a few challenges, I might add, like dropping the needle (more than once) into the overgrown grass and subsequently needing to – literally – look for a needle in a haystack. Challenge met and accomplished and I didn’t even cuss. Not once.
· Publisher’s Clearing House Visit: scheduled for and expected on Thursday 8.28.14 , $5,000-a-week-for-life, and then some. They too were a no-show, but they probably did a recon and determined that they shouldn’t show up unannounced (because of the dogs, right?). I’m sure the check is in the mail. You better be nice to me now!
· Oh, yeah, and I found a $10 bill today in the barn. Free, just because I decided to dig through – rather than dump out – a swept-up pile of dirt and dust. OCD at its best! So who cares if I win Publisher’s Clearing House? How rich am I?