Lots of Chores

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina

The above image is the one that made the Smokies workshop instructor say that he was going to break his foot too. Funny guy! I’m pretty critical of my work, but this photo did turn out very nice. Nobody would ever guess that directly below the frame is a road. No hiking was involved! I only had to mosey a couple dozen feet from the parked car, set up my tripod and camera, compose, and snap. Of course, digital editing always helps to bring out the details and contrast too.

It’s been almost two years since my life began to spin out totally out of control, and Jim’s been gone now for over four months. It seems like there is an endless amount of chores that I need to accomplish. I use spiral steno notebooks to maintain daily task lists. It’s been immensely helpful! Very little productive work got done around the house during Jim’s illness. Caregiving and ferrying him back and forth to medical appointments and the hospital took up every bit of my time. So I am faced with a huge backlog of projects, in addition to routine household chores and maintenance. With a solo life and a bum foot, I am slowed down further in trying to dig out of the proverbial hole.

Everywhere I turn, it seems like I am tossing and cleaning out different nooks and crannies. I plan to have a separate post sometime just about flinging outdated food in the pantry, kitchen cabinets, and freezer. The latest items to bite the dust and get donated to charity are a couple of pieces of luggage that I used for the Smokies trip. They weighed too much. I thought I was going to bust a gut trying to get them in and out of the car by myself.

I’ve had neurological damage in my arms since my late 20s, and I simply cannot lift things that weigh a lot. Travel items have to be significantly paired down. A friend helped me picked out some new luggage this week that weighs half of the older stuff. Yeah! And I am going to replace my big toiletry bag too with a small, zippered Eagle Creek bag. There are more pieces of heavy luggage in the storage room, and I will drag them down the stairs for donation after my foot has been declared healed.

In fact, my planned summer project is to clean out and organize the walk-in storage room upstairs. While I did consulting work, it was something that Jim was going to tackle. However, it wasn’t a priority and it simply did not get done. So we were going to work on it together the summer of 2013. Of course, those plans got flushed down the toilet with his cancer diagnosis.

I will visit the foot doctor again next week and get new x-rays. Let’s pray for a good report! The trip to Wyoming in late May will happen regardless, but a healed foot would be preferable. Next week will also include a visit with my estate attorney. The flurry of tax season is over (he’s also a CPA), and the estate tax forms and county deed paperwork will be ready for my signature. Those legal filings will conclude Jim’s estate settlement. I’ll be relieved to get that chapter closed.