Evidently I Can't Count to Five

Last night at knitting we were talking about all the stuff that we needed to get out of our

houses.  KW said that she'd resolved to get rid of 10 things per week.  Laughing, I said that I could get rid of 10 things standing in one place.  So this morning I wrote in my Bullet Journal to-do list that I'd toss 5 things today.  I thought of what I could easily grab and either throw away or donate while I showered and once I was dressed went into the basement to find the boxes of Durwood's hypnosis and parapsychology books that I would never use.  I hadn't ever used them and the only time I laid hands on them was when I boxed them up and shoved them onto the shelf.  Well.  There were a lot of them and I was evidently a whole lot stronger 20 years ago when I shelved them because I was dripping sweat and gasping for breath by the time I got them all carried up and loaded into the car.  This is more than 5 things, I'm convinced of it.  It's even more than 5 containers.  Now it's Goodwill's problem.

On my way home from Goodwill I stopped at the birdseed store and bought 50# bags of cob corn, peanuts in the shell, and safflower seeds.  Family Pet Center on Military Ave. has a big sale every November so that's when I load up for the year and usually don't have to resupply much before the next November sale.  Coming home with 150# of birdseed makes me very happy that I can drive around into the backyard so I can unload close to the patio and don't have to haul all of that stuff very far.

Once all of that was stashed into the aluminum cans lined up on the patio I fired up my new leaf blower and went out to tidy up the leaves.  TS from across the street came over on his riding mower/leaf picker upper when I got home with the birdseed and offered to go around the side yard to get most of the leaves.  Not being a fool, I said thank you and let him do it.  What leaves he didn't pick up I blew onto the daylilies and under the lilac bush to act as winter protection and I also raked some of the leaves together to put on the blueberry bushes to protect them too.  I was planning to mow one more time tomorrow but it looks like it's supposed to rain all day.  Ah well, the grass isn't long but I thought I'd bag the clippings and put those on the blueberries too.  Maybe I'll go out before it rains and haul a couple bushels of the leaves that TS picked up today back to the berries tomorrow morning.  Maybe.

When I made my breakfast this morning I realized that the fresh pineapple was looking a little aged so it needed to be eaten faster than I was managing.  My stomach piped up, "make a pineapple upside down cake," so I did and let me tell you the pineapple was glad to get baked into that cake.  No danger of that pineapple going to waste now.  No-siree-bob, that pineapple is a gonner.


 
After supper I finished the first Appleseed Mitt.  It's very soft and will be nice and warm this winter.  Since it's supposed to be rainy tomorrow I predict that I'll get a good bit of mitt #2 knitted.


3 November--Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore.  I stand staring up at the four impassive faces looming out of the mountain above me and I wonder at the vision of the man behind the monument.  What led him to believe that this was possible?  Part of me is impressed with the scale, the effort and planning it took to care out these four heads.  Another part of me is embarrassed at the desecration of a natural place with this man-made attraction.  Another part of me thinks about the tribes whose ancestral lands these are.  I feel like I'm standing on shifting ground.

Daylight Savings Time starts tomorrow.  *sigh*  I know I bitch about it twice a year but it really screws up my internal clock, although I must admit I do like that it'll be light earlier in the morning but I don't like that it means it'll be dark earlier in the evening.  Does anyone really believe that changing the clocks saves daylight?  No.  We have the same amount of daylight no matter what the clock says.  Leave the bloody time alone, why can't you?  I have too many clocks.  Time for cake.
--Barbara