Notes From The Canyon

This morning brought the first frost to the canyon, 22 F and, unfortunately, only 55 in the house. Remembering that old folks can get hypothermia, I quickly turned on the heaters (we never used the floorboard heaters, not trusting the electric, I think) so stand-alone heaters and a fire in the wood burning stove/fireplace are enough to heat this small house. But I'm leaving the fireplace alone until the chimney gets cleaned.

Faith says, mommy it's cold outside, either I go running, or you let me inside.

So I can go snooze by the heater. 

She gets cold this dog. I keep hoping she'll grow some winter fur, but now I think I may have to crochet her a vest. Not that I would know how to do that, so it would be a challenge, and then she'd probably eat it. My Material Girl, is who she is.

Back to the hypothermia - I quickly put on longjohns and brought out this wonderful wool sweater, made and worn by my friend Carol. She gave it to me when I first moved up here and it has kept me warm ever since. It's a bit worn now, but I still love it. One of those gifts that just keep on giving.

It rained here for about two days, on and off. A soft and much needed wonderful rain. There was no point in Glenn coming; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the days he works here, but it was just too wet and muddy. With no one here, I got to work on my closets. I emptied out Errol's closet in here, cleaned it, and then put my clothes in it. I accomplished most of what I set out to do. My "office" clothes and my nicer clothes for going out are still in my closet in the master bedroom. I guess I will never wear most of those clothes again, so I need to go through and purge some more.

This is the master bedroom right now. I just throw everything in there and then work my way through it. It's not as bad as it looks though, the boxes are empty I'm taking some more clothes to the thrift store today, and the rest I will sort through and take care of. When I'm done with this and the hall closet, I'm ready to begin tackling the old van that we have used as a storage unit for years now. It's stuffed to the gills also, but I hope to get the stuff down to where I can find room for it in my little house. I'm good at this, so I think I can make it work.

These were all the hangers left after I cleaned out Errol's closet. A lifetime's worth of clothes hangers, I thought. It made me sad. This is not easy, cleaning out what's left behind. All these hangers, empty now, no longer being used for Errol's clothes, brought home the temporary nature of our stay on this earth. 

I felt sad, but I don't want to end this on a sad note so I want to let you know that I kept many of his clothes and I'm wearing them. And that doesn't make me sad. It actually makes me smile to think that Errol was almost 4 inches shorter than I, but with age, I shrunk so that now I can wear his jeans!