Making more progress

These are Plastic containers, most of which will be sent to my daughter or my wife's relatives for the "archives". They contain memories, but nothing of value other than sentimental. Pictures, old school stuff, maybe some books, etc.
The stuff behind the ironing board (you never know when you might need an ironing board!) are empty tin cans, leftover cups that don't match anything else in the house, a can opener that doesn't work, and lots of stuff that one might need someday. I have been picking at it for two years now. Oh, I have a box of Ball jars for canning. They must be 30 years old and never used. I might set them up for target practice someday. Or not.
All of these cardboard boxes are empty. The plastic containers used to have clothing in them, but now have old blankets that I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away. They are no longer useable. I have a box cutter somewhere, but I put it down and now can't find it. I will get a sharp object and break some of these down over the next few weeks. This area will be completely clear when I finish. Read below for more information.
These are the boxes I have cleaned out the past 2 weeks or so. I am keeping them for now because they are mainly the same size and will be stack-able.
This is the darkroom. If you read my posts from last year, you will know that I had a family from my school bus come over and help me clean it out. This room was full from floor to ceiling, and had little or no room to move around.
The brown bookcase is removable, and I will use it, along with a second one before I finish. If I am able to stay in the house, I will remove everything from this room. All of the cabinets, right down to the wall. I will probably turn it into a bathroom since it is the right size. It already has plumbing. The orange thing to the left is a slide projector, and the gray thing on the floor is a Super 8 movie projector. I also have a Brownie Camera out of the shot. They can be dated back to when I was a kid.

For the full story, read below:

I was watching TV this morning and came upon a show about the 7 deadly sins. I don't usually follow this type of broadcast, but they were talking about "Sloth".
I have heard the word before, but really didn't know what it meant.
They were nice enough to give several definitions, enough so I could get a good idea what the word meant.
Sloth can be laziness, or idleness. It can mean that you lose touch with things that are supposed to be important and you just give up. Depression might be a good description as to how you are supposed to be feeling when experiencing Sloth.
Of course, they went on to say that some believed that a demon was in charge of the sin, and when you gave in to it, the demon inhabited your soul, calling for an exorcism to get rid of him/it.
Well, now that I know about Sloth, I decided to think about it whenever I get complacent.
I don't give in to religious fanaticism, but this term is a good description of how I've felt for a long, long time.
I deserve to be depressed. I lost so much in the past 5 years.
I never gave in to the depression, but it sure has slowed me down.
Now that I've given it a name, I will know how to fight it better.
When I am too tired to keep going, I will go a little further.
I still have to pace myself, but when I know I am just goofing off because I can, I will try to think about sloth and instead of just watching TV or surfing the web, I will get up and do something.
In this post, are pictures of some of the progress I've made in the past month or so.
I started saving boxes. Empty boxes. I am not going to become a hoarder and never get rid of them. I am going to use them to document my progress.
I will caption these pictures above, since I can't figure out how to spread the pictures throughout the post. You will have to read all the way down to here in order to know why I would post pictures of empty boxes.

These boxes represent two things:

1. Purchases I've made to replace broken things. Or, new purchases in the past year of things I've wanted for years but were never allowed to get because the kids came first.
2. I've gone through the boxes, and consolidated, given away, or trashed the contents.
   

The empty box means there was something in it that fell under those conditions.

Some of the boxes were never opened since before 1992. We have moved many times over the years, as I've said before. With each move, we packed things well, but never had time to open some of these boxes. Or, we didn't have anywhere to go with the contents. There may be boxes in that collection that haven't been opened since they were packed in 1976. I'm not sure. We got married in 76, and moved into our first apartment in September of that year. Who knows?

The next door neighbor worked for a company that made boxes, and he brought us a pile of them with Reese's logos on them. There were two different sizes. I liked the smaller ones because they were easier to pack and lighter to carry. Those are from 1988.

When I finish with all my re-packing, I will have several kinds of boxes:

• Worn out or empty boxes that I will break down and trash.
• Storage boxes filled with things that I want to keep. I will try to organize them so they are all close to the same size, so I can stack them.
  
• Storage boxes with things to give to my wife's relatives for their "archives".
• Boxes to give to my kids with things they would want or not.

I took 6/42 gallon bags of trash to the curb last week and this week. This is my battle against Sloth!
I wonder what I will do when I run out of things to trash? At this rate, I won't ever run out!
On a side note, the house that burned down next door has been emptied out. They had a restoration team take everything out of the house. Furniture, clothing, stored items, appliances. They filled up 4 trash bins. These bins are the kind that come on the back of the huge trucks and are dropped on the driveway. They are 6 feet high, about the same wide, and 30 feet long.
I estimate that if I had gotten a bin for my stuff, I could have filled up two of them myself, instead of taking bags to the curb. That wouldn't include furniture or appliances like the washer, dryer, etc.
Last year, I estimate I took at least 3 bags to the curb every week. That would be at least 150/42 gallon bags just last year. I didn't mention the stuff that didn't fit into bags that have gone too.
So, even though I feel like sloth is creeping up on me and threatening to overwhelm me, all I have to do is look at where I was, and where I am now to see that.....
Life is Good!

Breaking records

Well, almost.
I cut my lawn this afternoon, and then went next door and did their lawn. That's the house that burned down last month. The owners haven't been seen since a few days after the fire. They are living somewhere else.
The grass was growing, and I needed the exercise, and then maybe someone would think I was being helpful instead of self centered. In reality, I was being self centered.
I walked over to a meeting tonight at the Borough hall. The East Petersburg Day committee has expanded to become the East Petersburg Event committee. We used to do just one day per year. We would go all out and celebrate the community with a prayer breakfast, parade, 5k run, and then have field entertainment along with live music.
The past few years, we have had changes in personnel and have expanded quite a bit, adding firework in the evening, a Saturday morning farmer's market, and a 1st Saturday concert in the park.
This year, they are going wild. They have something scheduled almost every month all summer long, and a blues fest in October. There is a car show planned, a circus, a fire equipment expo, among many other things.
I feel proud to have been part of the event that lead to all of this. Our community is really shining now.
I will do the MC work for most of the events, and will help out with DJ music and be a stage hand when needed. I'm not sure how I'll fit in, but will be there until I figure it out.
Next month I will be recording with a friend helping out so I can get an idea of what I need to do in order to improve my music. I am hoping I have the energy and will power to write a few songs that have been clogging up my brain.
As far as the kayak is concerned, I will have to wait until next weekend because it looks like it will be cold and rainy all weekend.
I am pretty tired right now. Tomorrow, if I can, I will try to roll the lawn again. The first effort was tough, but seemed to help smooth out the lawn a bit. Maybe this time will do the trick.
More later...

Making progress

If you've ever put a 1000 piece puzzle together without doing the edges first, then you know how I do things.
I roam all over the place, getting things done, but it's usually not what I started out to do. Yesterday, I started out to do the curtain rods in the kitchen, and ended up taking most of the morning because I did so many other things too.
I have many plans and will do them as I get to them, but I don't know when.

I am probably going to be unemployable soon. I feel as if I'm losing my hold on reality.

Despite how I feel, I've made some real progress this past week and I plan to take advantage of the warmer weather to continue to make progress.

When I was fat, hot weather was horrible. My layers of insulation made me overheated all the time. Walking around in nice clothing was a disaster. I was always too hot.

When I got married in 1976, I weighed 155 (5'7") and was active all the time. Working up a sweat felt good because I was comfortable getting a workout. As I gained weight, I didn't have to work as hard to work up a sweat. When I was my heaviest, I sweated all the time, and was out of breath most of that time.
Now, it is a mixed bag because age has been factored into the equation. I am not as fat anymore. I don't sweat as much, as before, but I get tired much quicker than when I was younger. I can forge ahead if I can get some sugar into my system.
I keep hydrated, and it now takes quite an effort for me to work up a sweat. I do get winded, but can keep going for quite some time. I still haven't tried jogging but am getting closer. I walk along at a very brisk pace compared to before.
I walked with a friend on a rail trail this week, and we measured about 3 miles round trip. But, he strolls rather than exercises. So, all in one day, I walked with him, cut the lawn, and then took a second walk of about a mile at my much faster pace. The next day, I crashed. I took a two hour nap in order to start feeling alive again.

But, I am making progress. Today, I took a drive, and stopped off at Muddy Run State park in the southern end of the county. They have a rather large lake. It is very shallow, and they have boat rentals. I found out today that they have Kayak rentals so I spoke with the owner and got enough information to know that I should be able to rent one and be reasonably sure that I won't drown myself by trying my hand at it. There is enough of an area that I can paddle around and still be close enough to the dock in case I get tired. If I want to go for longer trips later, there is plenty of space to do that too. He estimated a round trip at a leisurely pace should take about an hour and a half. It is very scenic too. My wife and kids have rented an electric rowboat there many times.
I wasn't sure how I would feel about going there again because there are so many memories. I can see my two dogs walking with us across the bridge, over the water to the trail. I remember walks around the lake with my wife, although we never quite made it all the way around in one trip. We walked different parts of the trail every time we went.
Muddy Run was a good place for us to stop to use the restrooms and sometimes get something to eat after a nice, long southern drive on a Sunday. We took the kids to the nature center there many times, and fed the geese and ducks too.
Today, after I spoke with the owner of the boats, I went to the other end of the park and took a walk up the hill. It was pretty steep and the few extra pounds I have slowed me down. My jeans are too tight now too, so they really felt uncomfortable and hindered my progress. I got a bit out of breath, but I pushed on to the top. Then, I took my time coming down and around to where I started. The wind was blowing and it was chilly, but the bright sunlight made the day very pleasant. I much prefer looser pants for walking and look forward to when I can wear my shorts again.

This coming week is the Easter holiday, and my bus driving week will be kind of strange with different schools having different schedules. One school has school next Monday due to a snow make up day. The rest are off. I will take advantage of the time off by trying to get more work done on the house as well as getting more exercise.
My diet is back on track, although I still have to become a bit more strict. I cheated a bit this weekend.
Let's see what happens....
Life is good!