Amazing!

OK, folks, are you sitting down??? I cleaned out the hearth cabinets in the living room. I don't think we've seen the back of the inside of those cabinets since we moved in 21 years ago. I guess I shouldn't admit that, but it's true. And how many people do you know who can get six (6) garbage bags of videotapes ready to go to the GoodWill? I even found some that we need to check before we throw them away. We actually did have a videocamera for a little while.. That's going to be a great place to store my yarn stash/knitting equipment/needlepoint stuff. And in plastic storage boxes so I can actually find stuff when I want it. Be still my heart!

John cleaned out the bottom part of the corner cabinet in the dining room. He's organized all the games to store there, and actually purged a few of the 8 sets of dominoes. He threw out a lot of old playing cards, and packaged up some of the better ones to donate to the bridge group.

Every once in a while, these old dogs can learn a new trick. A while back, I read an article about how to "declutter". One of the hints was to set a timer for 15 minutes, and then stop when time is up. You'll usually work a bit longer, but you have given yourself permission to walk away from a job when only a portion of it is done. You know how how you look at a huge job, and get so discouraged that you never even start it. Well, at least I do. This method really works - we're doing that now - and we're actually making progress.

The guy from the landscaping service came by to talk about doing the yard. He's going to do a major clean-up first, and then maintain it. Of course, his schedule is pretty full at this time of year, but we're not in a big hurry. When he has time, he'll come to do that. John'll keep up the routine stuff in the meantime. Whew! That's a relief. I'm so glad he's decided that he just doesn't need to do that any more. And a potential cleaning lady is coming on Thursday to see about doing the inside. YEA!!!!!!!!!!!

Question of the day (decade? century?): If abortion is made a crime, what should the penalty be for the woman who has one? How much time should she do? The fanatics never think about that, do they? Click here for Anna Quindlen's column How Much Jail Time? in this week's Newsweek magazine.

Today's picture is of evening at Valley of the Gods.