The Shortest Month

February is the shortest month, so why should I be surprised that it has gone by so quickly?  We even have a bonus day this year, but March will be here on Thursday. 

At the beginning of the month I was thinking that February would be a good month to start those resolutions that I didn't make at the new year.  I figured that since February is the shortest month, it would be easier to maintain those promises I make to myself.  It's only 29 days...surely I can maintain self control for 29 days.

Apparently not!  I never got around to exercising regularly, drinking more water, avoiding salt, and eating more vegetables. And now February is almost over and I've only got time for a quick resolution.  It's too late to drop 10 pounds or become physically fit.  So, I decided to take the few days left in February and organize my life. 

I started my organizational frenzy with our mail basket.  The original idea of the mail basket was a temporary resting place for the mail when it was brought into the house.  It has become, however, a long-term storage area for any bit of paper that doesn't make it to the trash.  I actually found bank statements from 2010!  Unopened! 

The spouse says, "We really should review those statements to make sure we're not being embezzled."  Note the use of the pronoun "we." 

I decided that if the spouse hadn't reviewed a bank statement in the forty years that we've been married, he probably wasn't going to start now just because I had the urge to get organized.

I actually do review our accounts regularly, but now I do it online.  I almost never write checks, everything is done electronically or with a debit card.  Most of our bills are paid automatically.  Why do I still have all this paper clutter?

I have now gone through all the paper in the basket and have a huge pile of bank statements from the past three years to shred.  This morning I visited our two credit unions to get passwords for online access to those accounts.  I'm in the process of switching all our statements to paperless.  Now I'll just have electronic clutter! 

I'm going to spend the February bonus day preparing for the electronic onslaught.  I'm collecting all the web addresses, passwords, and account numbers in a big notebook just in case I'm hit by a truck and the spouse has to start reviewing statements online.

Reflections on an Uninteresting Life

The spouse doesn’t read my blog.  I’m not sure if it’s because he isn’t interested or if it’s just that his technological skills haven’t advanced enough for him to be able to find it.  I expect, though, that he just prefers to be in denial.  So, last week he saw me chuckling at my computer screen and asked, “What’s so funny?”

“I wrote about your ear wax and I’m reading the comments from the readers.” I innocently replied.

“Well, THANK YOU for sharing my issues with the world.” (If we had a sarcasm font, that sentence would be in sarcasm bold!)  But, I like the idea that he believes that people the world over are waiting breathlessly to read my words.

Yesterday I told him I was going to write about his weekend project…I am not making this up; he says he is going to “organize my rock piles.”

“If your life is so uninteresting that you have to write about mine,” he tells me, “maybe you shouldn’t be writing a blog.”

Damn, I hate it when he’s right!

Nana Disproves The Theory That Pre-Planning For Yard Sale Shopping Is Beneficial

Fridays in the summer are prime time for yard sales.  This week, as temperatures hit the high 90s, the residents of Hermiston seemed to realize that the lazy, warm days of summer were almost over and they were losing their opportunities to hold an outside sale.  The Nickel Ads had column after column of yard sales listed.  This week I followed the spouse’s advice and made a list.  Last night I entered all the addresses into Google Maps, organized the sales by proximity, and printed out a detailed plan of attack for Friday morning.

My first stop was an estate sale.  I bought a pile of old towels to use for cleaning rags and a Field Guide to Western Birds.  I also called the spouse and told him he should stop by to see all the tools and man toys in the basement of this sale.  I moved on to the next sale on my list but later received a call from the spouse.  He was ecstatic.  He had bought every drill bit they had.  He found several old Stanley planers which he is sure are valuable (as if he’d ever sell them!)  He purchased several tools that he’s not quite sure what they’re used for…but he’s sure they’re good ones.  He also bought, wait for it…five chunks of lead and a giant plank of steel!!!  It really doesn’t take much to make him happy.  Later in the day I heard him talking on the phone to his brother and bragging about his great finds.  It’s fun for me to see him so giddy about shopping.  I know the feeling, but I usually get that way after Macy’s has a 50% off the sale price special on shoes.

I expected to find some real treasures today because I spent all that time organizing.  I think I shattered the spouse’s theory of the benefits of pre-planning.  I was even out the door before 8:00!  I wasn’t any more successful today than when I follow my usual practice of sleeping in and then late in the morning aimlessly driving around and looking for yard sale signs.    That’s what I’m going to do tomorrow.  It’s Saturday and there are more sales starting, but I’m not getting up early.

Forty Years Ago Today

Earlier this week I read a lovely tribute that a blogging friend had written about her marriage on the occasion of her anniversary.  You can read it here.  Because I try to be open to the messages that the Universe sends me, I realized that it was a reminder that my own anniversary was approaching. 

The spouse and I have never been sentimental about our anniversary.  Most years we would forget all about it until the anniversary card from my mother would arrive in the mail.  She always decorated the envelopes with anniversary greetings and drawings of flowers, so the mailman always knew it was our anniversary before we did.  My mother died four years ago and now no one remembers, so it’s nice that the Universe has stepped up to prod my memory.   

Today the spouse and I have been married forty years.  Forty years!  I have been married for two-thirds of my life!  I’ve spend as much time married as Moses spent wandering in the desert!

The traditional fortieth anniversary gift is ruby.  I won’t be holding my breath waiting for that to arrive.

The spouse and I married in Granada Hills, California at the Catholic church that I had attended as a child.  I was Catholic by birth, meaning that my mother had made me attend church every Sunday and Catechism classes every Wednesday night until I escaped to college.  The spouse and I met with the priest the night before the wedding because the spouse was a heathen.  Since I had attended those Catechism classes every Wednesday, I knew that anyone who wasn’t Catholic was a heathen, but I loved him and wanted to marry him even though he was probably going to spend eternity in Limbo which, if I recall correctly, isn’t such a bad place except Jesus never hangs out there.   It’s definitely a D List location.

The wedding party gathered at the church the evening before the ceremony to rehearse.  The priest asked to meet with us alone for a few minutes in his study before the rehearsal.  He asked the spouse, “Do you commit to raising your children Catholic?”   …and there was an uncomfortable silence in the room until I jumped in with “I thought the Vatican changed the rules and didn’t require non-Catholics to agree to that?”  And five minutes before our families were scheduled to join us at the rehearsal the priest says, “Then I don’t think I can marry you in good conscience.”  Do they learn those blackmail techniques in priest school?  The spouse and I sign that we will raise our yet to be conceived children Catholic.

On August 21, 1971 we married in a small ceremony in front of friends and family.  The priest wore Kelly green socks and sandals under his long flowing vestments and the wedding party got a case of the giggles when the priest pulled out a plastic squeeze bottle of holy water and spritzed the rings held out by our best man.  Perhaps he was warding off demons.   

At our meeting the night before the priest had told us that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to kiss at the end of the marriage ceremony.  We did it anyway, so between that and not raising our children Catholic, I’m probably joining my life partner in Limbo.  We marched out of the church to the organ playing the tune made famous by the Carpenters in a bank commercial, “We’ve Only Just Begun.”  Grab the Kleenex and click the link below...

I dug out my wedding album this evening to look for a picture to accompany this post.  I hadn’t looked at the pictures in years.  We were all so young and all the men had so much hair!  It is hard to believe that forty years have gone by so quickly.  Forty years, two children, two grandchildren and a lifetime of memories and it still feels like we’ve only just begun.