Frustration is spending an hour and fifteen minutes filling out one page after another online to change from dial-up to high-speed and then having the danged thing screw up and go to an error page that tells you to call the company’s 800 number.

     Extreme frustration is after calling that number, jumping through all the hoops, listening to horrible canned music (the same song repeatedly) while on hold, finally getting a human to arrange things, and then after being on hold AGAIN having that person tell you, “oops our computers crashed I’ll call you back.” 

     I’m thinking that this is a sign I’m not supposed to have a high-speed connection.

     The pool table is gone from the MIL’s basement!  Before we headed home yesterday, G and I packed up a ton of glasses and mugs and loaded them into my van to drop off at Goodwill.  They weren’t selling and we were sick of looking at them.  We are down one typewriter too, that one went to a cute little red-haired boy with Harry Potter glasses. 

     It helped that we had a sunny day and mild temperatures yesterday.  Sunday’s rain kept people away. 

     It is nice to see the piles of stuff dwindling.  We’ve given ourselves until mid May to clear out the rest of the stuff.  Anything not gone by then I’ll have a clean-up crew come in. 

     No phones.  No computer.  No housework.  No gardening.  No dogs.  No MIL’s house.  Today, for the first time in almost three years, we’ve gone fishing.

     Yippee!  Yesterday, we actually had several people come over to the house and buy stuff.  The piles are dwindling.  A couple more days like today and we can start on the basement.  I’ll be happy when we can finish that.  It will mean we can start the painting, flooring, outside spiffing up, and roofing projects. 

     As soon as we finish those projects, we can put the house on the market.  I’m shooting for June but earlier would be nicer. 

     G and I dragged home around five-thirty.  It is exhausting but now is becoming satisfying as we see more progress.  I’ve printed out some sale signs to use Wednesday.  I’d love to see an empty house. 

     Wow, I made a whole nine dollars at the consignment shop.  It seems that a few of the scarves I left there sold.  That’s great because right now every penny counts.  I looked at washers today.  Holey moley, there are too many choices out there and none of them is cheap.  I seriously thought about a front loader until I began to think of how many times I’d have to bend on a laundry day moving clothes from the washer to the dryer.  My back might not love me after that.  I’m going for a top loader.

       I even went over to get a good look at G’s new washer.  Hers is a top loader like one of the two I’ve narrowed my choices down to after shopping.  She loves it.  She ran hers to show me how quiet it is and how the machine sits like a rock on the spin cycle.  My water pipes will be happier.  The old washer used to rattle them something awful on the spin cycle.

     Tomorrow I will buy the one that I think suits us the best.  It’s almost identical to G’s but has a slightly larger capacity tub.

     Today we made a little foray into the MIL’s basement.  I wanted to measure the new stainless kitchen sink we found in a box down there and G remembered seeing two wood picture frames that she wanted for her counted cross-stitch.  We really must remember not to open anything unless we’re prepared for a fright.

     G decided to open a box and found tons of plastic containers from every food known to man.  We know we’ll be setting out two recycling bins a week of plastic again once we begin to clear out down there in earnest.  I happened to look in a paper bag and found a large pile of gorgeous antique linens of every sort.  We will have to wash and iron all of them now.  You might know we already got rid of the ironing board along with the iron.  At least the MIL’s washer works. And that’s more than I can say for mine.