Descend into cave,
Crystals await in the dark.
Slow climb back to light.
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I could not believe it when I saw this prompt this on Monday. Am I being stalked? Is this an algorithm?
No, I read the explanation and its a total coincidence that very morning I got a photo on Facebook of a cave I climbed out of!! Blew my mind!
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “the last thing you emptied.” Think of the last thing you emptied or something you empty often and use it as your prompt any way you like.
Two weeks ago I emptied my laundry room and it was horrible.
I had a very bad water heater that only heated about 50% but it was enough. I could do dishes and have showers. But to have a bath I had to boil a big pot of water to get it hot enough. Every time I went from the kitchen to the bathroom carrying a big boiled pot of water I thought “this could go very bad”. It cooled down quickly, too, and couldn’t be topped up with more hot water.
I could live with that and have been for a few years but one day, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the floor of the laundry room was wet. I put down some old towels and found it was leaking from the bottom! OMG. All that night I imagined the bottom falling out. There is no basement here, my laundry room is on the main floor, between the kitchen and bathroom with no floor drain. It truly would be a disaster.
On top of that I was in a depressed state. A very close friend was in the hospital with cancer and I didn’t hear anything after that. I was so worried, checking my email and her Facebook timeline several times a day. Now this laundry room demanded my attention. It was so stuffed with stuff I had to clear it out to let a plumber get to it. And I didn’t have a plumber yet.
Luckily the leak was slow, I could change towels morning and night to manage it. I kept my fingers crossed and used my “chipping away” method. When a job is too big or overwhelming I use the chipping away method: do a little bit everyday.
There are shelves behind the door and they were filled with craft stuff, painting stuff, weird one- use cleaning products, an extensive collection of rags. Not only shoe-shining stuff but my dad’s old shoe shining stuff.
First day I rolled up my hallway runner and emptied the top 2 shelves into the hall. That was it.
The next day I put a big garbage bin in the hall and ruthlessly started to throw things out. Way to much craft garbage I’ll never use. I started a box for the annual hazardous waste drop-off but I only did 2 more shelves. Still keeping the leak in check with towels.
I chipped away for a few days until the shelves were empty and I could get them out from behind the door. Finally had access to the heater. Put the shelves in the hall and put the clean and organized stuff back on them. Ta-da! I’d say it took 5 or 6 days.
THANK GOODNESS I DID IT THAT WAY! In the meantime I found a plumber trusted by my neighbors. I called him and he said he could put it in the next day! If I hadn’t have done the methodical emptying of the laundry room I would have been tossing all that crap into the hallway that night!
And here it is: my beautiful, clean new water heater. My baths are so hot I haven’t been able to stay in them long enough to top it up with hot water. Now its over, I’m glad its done. The shelves are back behind the door, all organized. Now I can chip away at paying for it on my credit line.
My friend passed away this week. I’m so sad. I have a headache from crying. I’ve had a few nice hot baths.
Bittersweet berries
Vine reaching to catch the sun.
Birds store for winter.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “tape.” Use it as a noun or a verb. Use it any way you like.
Well, I’ve been sitting on this for a while and don’t have much. I have finally replaced ‘tape’ for ‘record’ in my vocabulary although I may say it occasionally because its only one syllable instead of two.
I used to tape a lot of stuff: off TV with a VCR.
I tape my jigsaw puzzles boxes after I’m done so no pieces can ever escape.
Exciting day today; I’m starting a new puzzle. I have some ghost reality shows I tape at night because I can only watch them during the day.
I can joke about how ‘I sure know how to have good time’ but really: its a privilege to be able to spend my day this way. Its snowing, my woodstove is corking hot, and I have a new Ghost Adventures. If I was anywhere else, I would wish I was here doing this.
Lost in a dense fog.
Horn blows; from what direction?
Seeking a way home.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “mat/met/mitt/mot/mutt.” Choose one or use them all, any way you’d like in your post. Have fun!
Today is my old wedding anniversary. Not that it matters because I’m not married anymore. It still makes me sad though, I still grieve for a lost love.
I met him when I picked him up hitch-hiking. He was American. No, he’s not dead: he’s Canadian now. He had been down east hiking the Appalachian trail and was going back to Wisconsin. The shortest way was by crossing the border at Niagara Falls, hitch-hike across to Sarnia and cross back into the USA at Port Huron, Michigan. He was wearing shorts, a bandana head band and hiking boots. I hit the breaks on my Volkswagen van and the rest is history.
We had to make the commitment early in our relationship because it was hard to cross borders or wait for a fiancé visa. So we got married after only 8 months of holidaying together.
My mother wasn’t too happy about it.
We had 3 mutts during our marriage; Labrador Retriever crosses. . .
What a buzz-kill! I’m getting out of this post!
I am Boudicca
defending my patch of land.
Queen of my domain.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “wild animal.” Choose a wild animal (or many wild animals) and use it any way you’d like in your post. Enjoy!
Glad to see the pingbacks are back. Linda wrote: “It was nice to see the community come together to help with a solution! Thank you. ☺” I’m not here everyday so I don’t know what y’all did. Or as we say here: “yous guys”. I don’t know what yous guys did but thank you.
And I see a bunch of you already wrote! You must do it at midnight. I usually see it on my second coffee Saturday morning as I’m getting my brain in gear. I scroll swiftly past your posts until I write mine so my stream of consciousness is not muddied.
Last night we had another major snow storm. Thunder and lightening with high winds. That’s a new thing: thunder snow storms. It feels apocalyptic.
When I went to bed I opened the window (I have a small bedroom window just big enough to put my face outside) and said “Good luck everybody.” I can’t imagine what its like outside at night up in a tree that’s swaying back and forth, whipped by snow, then thunder and lightening . . . poor birdies!
This morning I awoke to a lot of snow. I’m guessing its about 6 or 7 inches deep. (We Canadians still use inches even though everything we buy is in cm.) I saw the wild animals had already been to the bird feeder and I was up at the crack of dawn.
I have a table as a bird feeder. Its an ornate marble top table I got from my niece’s wedding. I gave up trying to put up squirrel proof bird feeders that are a major ordeal to fill in the winter. I put out a table and everyone is welcome. Besides, squirrel is my totem animal. While we are on SoC, I’ll tell you that story.
I went to see a psychic years ago who told me my totem animal was a squirrel. She read in somebody’s house (I can’t even remember who) and gave the reading in the basement. I had a $100 bill folded up in my wallet I kept there for an emergency and was going to use that to pay her.
When it was over, I remembered I left my purse upstairs so I ran upstairs to my purse, got into the little secret compartment with the folded $100 bill then ran downstairs again. . . and realized ‘I’m a squirrel!’
Back to the bird feeder/ table: something was there before dawn digging for seeds and that gave the squirrels a path in and they have been digging enough to let the birdies find some seeds. I use ‘birdies’ because I really love my birdies and just saying ‘birds’ reminds me of the Alfred Hitchcock movie.
I have had deer a couple of times which is very exciting. I lived here 15 years before I saw deer at my place. I was captivated until I watched them eat the tender Yew needles. They go up and down them like corn on the cob so now all the growth is at the top. I sure didn’t want to chase away deer though.
I think my SoC ran out. I’ll go take a photo. There is no screen in my bathroom so I can take shot from inside.
Damn, the birdies flew away and I didn’t get the Yews in. Oh well, not going back and doing it over . At least I got the squirrels in!
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I went to publish this and discovered I had no internet. Not only that but the modem was dead; no lights at all. I thought it might be a fuse . .. nope. Then I remembered about the circuit breaker outside! YES!! Put on my snow clothes, pushed open my back door, fixed my problem and shoveled out a spot to put down more bird seed. Now the sun is out and things don’t feel quite so overwhelming.
It sure is pretty but the snow is deep and heavy. I’ve got some work to do.
Carry the burden;
the crushing weight of baggage.
Or just shrug it off.
monicle's chronicles 