Organization

Since we're pulling back on searching for a house, we have to get all the stuff that was in storage out. Our house has been looking less cluttered lately, so I am not looking forward to having it all back, but we can't afford to pay for the storage unit, plus do the things that get us financially able to afford a new house. Since I don't want my stuff to end up on Storage Wars, it's coming home.

Left-brain was a little concerned about all the stuff coming back. I told him a lot of my stuff is BOOKS, and I need bookcases. Why do builders not put usable bookcases in houses anymore? Do people not read? Or do they all just have Kindles? Anyway, he said he wouldn't build bookcases if he could buy them already made--this is quite a change for the man who had to be convinced that the pre-fab railing sections were a better buy because the difference in material costs was much cheaper than the opportunity costs of him nailing the sections together. So we went online and looked. I ordered 3 large bookcases and one low for my office. The low one is for my work manuals and probably some freebie binders. And the tall ones will hold as much of my book collection as will fit.  They're almost 6 feet tall, so I figure that ought to hold a good bit, PLUS the top can be used to display some of my tchotkes. I don't know what I'll do with my stash quite yet. I'm determined to get that straightened out, but not sure how to do it--I'm still watching Youtube cross stitch videos, and I see how other people store stuff and I haven't found a system that calls to me, other than a non-vlogging friend's method of storing her extra skeins of floss in envelopes in photo boxes. I'm going to work on that when things settle down.

I know a lot of you know me from FB and stitching sites. So y'all people know that my father was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and given days to live. I'm compartmentalizing how I deal with it. I mostly try to push it to the back of my conscious, because, if I dwelled, I'd be a wreck. On the whole, I know we can not stay, we have to die, and he has no quality of life. But that doesn't always help.  I never knew my dad's parents--my gramma died when I was 9 months old, and my grampa died when I was not quite 5. The only memory I have of him, other than at the funeral, was him with the tattoos to guide the radiation. I had a great relationship with my mom's parents--I adored them--but how would things have been different if I'd gotten the chance to know Daddy's parents? And will Katie be affected by losing him? He is the only one of her grandparents she really calls by name, and she really talks good to him on the phone. She told him "All better" both on the phone last time we called and when I took her to see him, and she draws him pictures. People say to take her in to see him, but she was messing with his oxygen on Sunday when we saw him, and he isn't the Poppy she knows, and I don't want her to be scared. I want her to have good memories of him, cause they've got to last the rest of her life.

And I'm trying to be as normal as I can be; one thing I've learned over the years is that, even when we're grieving, we have no right to inflict our misery on others. So I try to be cheerful; it's strange, but it's how I deal. And I joke, because that's therapy. Laughter is healing. Besides my dad told terrible jokes, and he'd probably want it that way.

So, if you "see" me out and about, and I seem oddly jovial, just know that I'm trying my hardest to deal with a bad situation the best I know how to. And pray for my dad, if you can.