Most weeks I try really hard to post at least three times a week, as I believe in the power of consistency and perseverance. That said, life, especially in the spring, makes dishing out Consistency Curry in the form of tasty blog posts a bit on the challenging side. Thus, my distinct lack of posts.
That said, I am clinging to my mental goal of post persisting like one of the pine tree destroying stink bugs that so inhabit this part of the world. I can't say whether I smell as bad as those destructive little articles, although I will admit that I just took a shower and smell like roses, so there.
Anyway, I've been busy. But who hasn't right? Anyone who is trying to actually live is going to be overwhelmed with the task, so I have no complaints. And in the spirit of existential adulation, I decided to write a post highlighting some of the many cool and not so cool things that have happened in my realm over the last few days.
We are in the middle of helping our family members move to Tucson, Arizona, a delightful little burg 1500 miles to the south of us. These particular family members had A LOT of stuff. Since two households were combining into one property, an offloading of 3 decades of things was in order. Enter Kat and crew facilitating a massive estate sale of the likes of a cleanly Hoarders episode.
We sold thousands of things. No, that is not an exaggeration. The hubs, daughter, cuz, and I were in charge of the shop part of the sale. The sale was simultaneously going on in the garage and house too. Let's just say, after moving a lot of the artifacts more than once, we were all very motivated to have other people move the items, and by move, I mean take them away forever.
We had a garbage can of 2'X 3' bags. I told person after person that a bag was $15 for whatever would fit in it. Some people were shocked by that, because a skill saw and other expensive tools would fit in the bag. Let's just say there were some happy garage sale attendees. We, Americans, have a lot of stuff.
Nature also decided to be a bit testy about our awesome liquidation sale and froze us, so by the time I had put in five hours and froze my little digits about off, I was ready for some food and a warm bath. I should have rebelled, got in my car, and disappeared for the week because that garage sale was just a warm up.
Many days of weed-eating, state skeet and trap competition practice, mowing, and overall chaos later I arrived at yesterday. It was our grandma's birthday, so in honor of her 77th year, I had constructed a German Chocolate cake the night before, as I had to work all day and attend my daughter's Powder Puff Football game right after work.
It was while at work that the most interesting event of the week occurred. While I was pulling holds at the library, I spied the town's front end loader flying down the street with its bucket tilted down. It looked like the driver was dragging gravel into the middle of the highway, which was weird as I knew they had already swept the winter's sand and gravel off of the side of the thoroughfare.
As my manager and I peered out of the windows, a water truck appeared. Our town has a highway running through the middle of it, along with a turn lane in the middle. The water truck was weaving in and out of the turn lane, dodging traffic at a bit of a reckless speed, spraying the gravel the loader had scraped back into the ditch. This was a bit weird, at least my boss and I thought so, for they also had no traffic direction and things were generally a bit chaotic.
While we were pondering that weirdness, some guys with shovels and a backhoe appeared and started acting like a bunch of ants, scraping and shoveling more gravel. At this point we were truly perplexed when my manager's husband called and said that a concrete truck had leaked his entire load onto the highway through town and an emergency clean up was going on. That clean up bill is going to make someone's day!
Later, as I strolled into the grandstand section at my daughter's high school, I didn't even get seated before I started laughing. Every year our kid's high school has a girl's powder puff flag football game where the freshman and juniors face off against the seniors and the sophomores. My darling Squeaky grew up with boys, so I was a little concerned that she was going to break one of her classmates. She kinda did actually, but nothing too serious, but it was the boy's cheerleading that made my day.
So much enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness was exhibited by the very, very in it to win it cheerleaders. Many of them had on school logo crop tops and little shorts, there was backflips, Whips and Nae Naes, and YMCA's galore! I died multiple times at the spectacle of it all.
Due to an unfortunate interception in overtime, my daughter's team lost the game, but to be quite honest, there didn't seem to be any losers, the kids were all just so happy. I was beyond elated to see the kids getting to be kids and enjoy their youthful exploits after a year of weirdness. Okay, it was fun messing with them too, as I know most of them from my time at the library, most of them either call me Mom or the lady with the blue hat.
Later, as we enjoyed a magnificent meal of Instant Pot roast beef, potatoes, and carrots and noshed on that cake that I baked, I reflected on how if I make it to 77 there will be no regrets in my carcass with regards to lack of living. Yes, some days I have a little more to do than I should, and I am working on forming myself into a better person with boundaries that facilitate conquering obstacles and moving forward, but in the end I am rejoicing in living, and that is the best anyone can hope to do.