Dream building

This was one of those terms from high pressure sales training. The idea was to drive around, or look through magazines, or watch TV, etc. and find the things that you thought you couldn't afford, but wanted.

A big fancy house, a new car, toys, jewelry. Whatever would motivate you to ignore all of the pitfalls of selling, and concentrate on buying something that was supposed to make you happy.

Then, you would find a picture of your "dream" car or house, and post it somewhere that you could see it anytime you wanted.

In other words, dream building was doing what you had to do in order to make your dreams come true.

The problem I found with using this type of motivation, was that I was not motivated by greed.

Even if I had the money to buy a Mercedes Benz, I wouldn't buy it. 

Now, I found out that there were some things I wanted, and I've already gotten most of them. But, I've never gotten to do the things I really wanted to do. So, I'm going to list some of those things here and see what happens:

In no particular order.

1. I want to learn how to fly, and actually continue to fly after I finish learning how.
2. I want to play my guitar again, and work with some great musicians again.
3. I want to write some songs. I want to record those songs and I want people to listen to them and like them.
4. I want to be able to buy and play a Hammond Organ with Leslie speaker. I would love to play in a club somewhere.
5. I want to finish my amplifier project. Currently, it is on hold until my friend gets settled into his new apartment.
6. I want to see Israel.
7. I want to be able to take the time and have the money to drive across the United States. Then, I want to be able to drive through Mexico and Canada.
8. I want to see Hawaii, and maybe live there for a little while.
9. I want to design something that everyone finds useful.
10. I want to either write myself or have ghostwritten for me, my books. I have several ideas and would like them to become a reality.

These things for the most part, are selfish things. I didn't add anything that I wanted for my kids or grand kids, and those things will remain in my head and not here on a public blog.

My basement work is finished for now. I will not go down there to work, except to finish a few loose ends.

My next projects are to iron and smooth out the curtains upstairs. I may install a few more rods, and may even go out and get more curtain panels. There are some other projects here that will require physical effort rather than mental and I will tackle them over the next few weeks.

I wanted to start looking online at Florida, but didn't get to that yet. I took some walks instead to think about what it was that I really wanted to do in order to focus my efforts in the right direction. I think I have a clearer picture now.

My visit with the Bariatric team today went well. I lost about 3 pounds since last month and that is where I want to be. I noticed some of my clothing was easier to wear. Walking, carrying boxes, climbing the stairs, and keeping myself busy to keep from eating helped a lot. The doctor ordered a few blood tests to make sure my fatigue wasn't an indication of something more serious. I also got an RX for a B-12 shot. I always liked the way I felt after getting one of those years ago. I would like to see an increase in my energy level again.

My pain in my hand may not be so easy to get rid of. The doctor seems to think it might be related to my years of playing guitar, but I am not so sure. His solution might work too, and I will think about it but won't write it here. Right now, my fingers are frozen, even though the temperature here is 70 degrees. It's not poor circulation.

So, one more day until the end of 2011. I still here people saying "two thousand eleven". I wonder how long it will be until they go to the abbreviation and say "twenty eleven"?

Happy New Year!

Tired, but truckin!

Da love seat! Wanna buy it?

The hand made water bed. 7 drawers underneath, with a book case headboard. All made of Poplar with a cherry stain. It was constructed so that none of the pieces were wider than 2 feet. This makes it very easy to take apart for moving. The Blanket was made by my wife while waiting for my son to arrive back in 1985.

Da Couch to go with da loveseat!

I was looking online at the photos of the house that the agent took. To me, they look terrible. I hate bringing it up, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to. I can't imagine selling the house after seeing those pictures. Google 6294 High Street, East Petersburg and you will find it listed among multiple companies.

The guy's camera turned up the worst color I've ever seen in a photograph. He staged the rooms very nicely, but he also took all the wrong angles, bringing out the worst in the house.
The problem is also that I am living in the place and haven't been able to do everything I need to do in order to make the place look perfect.

Oh well.

Monday and Tuesday, I was working on the basement area. I was able to empty the back section of the storage area. I repacked all of the boxes there, getting rid of 3 more 45 gallon bags of trash. I now have about 5 full size boxes ready to bring upstairs to be stored until I move. I have several smaller boxes too that were labelled and packed. I cleaned the areas that I cleared and got rid of old boxes and stuff that had that "musty" odor of the basement in them. That improved the aroma nicely, although I now have to get those boxes off the porch or that room will soon smell as bad as the basement. See the problem? I am only one person. When I ran out of energy yesterday, I had taken numerous trips up and down the stairs, but hadn't gotten everything moved for the trash. I just transported it to the porch until I had more energy. I guess I need to be 35 or 40 years younger to do it all!

I took the photos and paintings off the wall upstairs as well and boxed them. The walls are bare! UGH!

I found a box full of stamps, postcards, and albums of stamps and postcards. I took an hour to sort through and pull the ones that had writing on them. Some of them date back to 1900 and are from my wife's family. It seems that they travelled a lot and as they did, they sent these postcards for the kids to collect. Well, my wife collected them! There must be 2000+ cards there! For some reason, they thought that collecting stamps would be a great idea and investment, so she has cancelled stamps from all over the world and all throughout time. I'll bet I could find a stamped postcard that Jesus sent if I looked hard enough. My daughter decided she wanted the postcards, and as a bonus, I will give her the whole huge box of other stuff too. No, I didn't find an upside down stamp of the Wright Brothers first flight. Maybe I missed it?

I decided to try to give away my TV system to my daughter. I don't want to waste money when I re-locate on sitting and watching the damn thing. I am too addicted to it as it is. I love the thing, but have caught up on almost all of the TV series I missed in the last 20 years or so. The movies today are good, but I don't need to see them in order to be a better person. I can keep up with the news through the internet, and I plan to upgrade my phone next year anyway.

I emptied out some of the frozen food over the holiday. My son and his family now have sausage and butter. I did plan to take the freezer, but now am not sure. I may be able to change my eating habits so that the freezer in a refrigerator will suffice.

At this point, I am concerned that there won't be anyone at my destination that will be able to help me unpack the truck, so I want to get rid of anything that I can't carry myself. All of the boxes are just fine, but furniture may be a problem. I was planning on buying a mattress when I got down there, and not worrying about a real bed. That means I still have to get rid of the king size waterbed I have now. My music equipment is also small enough for me to move myself, even though there is a lot of it.

I have long been a fan of keeping things simple, but haven't been able to do anything about it until now. If I stay in this house, I will continue to get rid of almost everything but what I need. I hate clutter. It's too hard to clean around clutter. I understand how things accumulate, especially after observing how my grandkids got inundated this Christmas with presents from all fronts, not just me. My kids don't have anywhere to go with all the stuff. My daughter's garage is now housing boxes floor to ceiling with little room for the car. My son is living in a single wide trailer with 4 kids.

I have an almost empty house, and if I don't sell it, I will stay right where I am. That is one of my plans. If the house doesn't sell, I can stay here and get a job to pay for expenses. If I live bare bone basic, I can keep costs down and use this place as a base, and travel when I want without worry. I may fix the place up, but it will be on my terms.

3 of my plans require me to move out of this area, by the way. 2 of the plans require me to stay local. One of the plans is the right one for me, but there may be a variation based on reality.

The easiest plan is to stay put. I can get a full time job to pay the bills and become a working stiff. The mortgage payment is low enough here for me to want to stay. I couldn't live in an apartment for much less without giving up a lot of freedom.

I won't bother posting the other 4 plans here. They are well thought out, but who knows what will happen?

What's next?

Time off?

Jackson and me

Jazlynn trying out her new lipstick!

Lillian and me!

The for sale sign has gone up.

M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD.

My phone isn't as new as it could be. I will wait until next year to get an Iphone. So, my pictures are OK, but not great. My battery was also low, so I only took 4 pictures of the stadium.

My friends and bus riders came over on Friday and dropped off the perfect sized boxes for me to use for packing. They had a dozen large, but not too large, and a series of smaller boxes. I put them together on Friday afternoon. I was able to put all of my album collection into several smaller boxes. This made them very easy to carry instead of loading them into large boxes. I gave away one of the boxes of albums that I know I won't listen to. Probably about 35 albums there. That still leaves about 150 so I won't run out of music anytime soon.

Saturday, I did something I have never done before. It took all of my effort to do it, because I am just not into change and I felt some real nervousness and fear of the unknown. I knew I would be OK, but I didn't know what to expect from myself. I know the last time I tried to take some time for myself, I had a panic attack and it ruined my weekend. I wasted a lot of money too.

This time, however, I was OK. My friend had two tickets to the Raven's game, and his wife didn't want to go, so he sold one to me. I split fuel and paid for the ticket, and we had a ball. I froze my ass off, but it was still fun. I don't know if I will ever do it again, but now I know I can, and that makes it OK. I ate well, and was able to take my vitamins on time because I carried them with me. Never the less, I was exhausted by the time I got home and I went right to bed and slept about 14 hours. Climbing the stairs to the top level and then coming down and back up a few times along with the cold took it out of me.

Sunday, I took a drive to York and then on to MD. to see all the grandkids and give them their presents from me. I got lots of hugs and probably some germs too, but that's OK. I have a week off to recover. I slept well again last night. But, I did have to get up once around 1am to solve a problem that I had been working on. The solution just came to me and I knew that if I didn't do it right then, I might forget it by the morning. Strange how that works.

So far, during this particular vacation, I have been able to pace myself and stay on track in order to get a lot finished. I worked steadily this morning and throughout the day. I was up and down the stairs numerous times, and collected 3 bags of trash as well as cleared out a whole section of stuff in the back of the basement. I will be taking pictures as I go. I vacuumed the darkroom, and put down some more baking soda to absorb more odors. The windows are open and the fan is running, so that will take some more of the "basement" aroma away. Less dust, fewer smelly books and newspapers, pictures, paintings and other assorted stuff wrapped, labelled and boxed.

As I've said before, this whole situation is throwing out some mixed emotions. I hate getting rid of my wife's stuff. But, I refuse to carry stuff that I will never look at of have a use for. There is a lot of stuff that I am giving to my wife's relatives so they can store them until they dissolve, but things that I know have no monetary or sentimental value, are being trashed. Either way, I will never have to see or think about that stuff again.

I have a blanket chest filled with thousands of pictures, and other memories, and that will be what I give to my kids when I am gone. I may or may not look at the stuff in that chest, who knows?

Regardless, it feels very good to know that the things I take with me when I leave here will be what I want to take with me. There were too many years of moving boxes that we never opened. I can now safely say that I have opened every single one of those boxes. I've looked at everything, and thrown away tons of stuff, but kept all the memories in my heart and head.

Oh, I've lost a few pounds the past few weeks. Not enough to notice, but my long johns fit better. I will continue to adapt myself to the new life I have chosen and hope I am allowed to slowly move forward.