We started today with our lists of things to do: he was going to call and order our gravel now that my stimulus check finally arrived, then unload the lumber he's been getting from a neighbor's garage tear-down and move his truck in case it rained hard, because it would absolutely not come out of the low spot where he was unloading. Then he was going to fix the bottom of a dresser I want to paint, pick the cherries, re-plant a few tomatoes, go to town to get feed for the chickens, and maybe mow some grass if it didn't rain too much.
My list: pack my ebay, track down the new fridge I ordered almost two weeks ago, call the courthouse and pay the remaining taxes I owed, make a cherry pie, catch up the laundry, plant flower seeds, and do my string-trimming.
All was going well until about 10am when Lowe's called to say my fridge would arrive between 1 and 5pm. That changed up our plans pretty quickly! Larry hurried to town so he'd be back in time; I took care of ebay and got the taxes paid over the phone. I waited til about 3pm then packed everything in the fridge in boxes, and put the freezer things in coolers. I put the boxes back in the fridge to wait until the truck arrived, then I could unload it quickly. Larry picked the cherries and I pitted them while he fixed the dresser. Then he went down to unload the truck while I did the string-trimming. Just as we both finished, the Lowe's truck arrived, about 4:30.
The young delivery men were great. They changed the door opening direction of the fridge for me, bless them, and then carried the fridge in using these strap harnesses that are just the coolest things. They took away my aggravating won't-stay-cold-longer-than-two-weeks used fridge that we bought last year and plugged in the new one. How blissful to have a refrigerator that stays cold like it's supposed to! It's a little smaller, and has no bells and whistles, which is perfect for us. We're not bells and whistles people.
In the end, we managed to do everything on our lists except bake that pie. I believe that will be first on my list tomorrow. Lots and lots of gravel will be arriving Wednesday. What joy that will be! It's been a long time since we've done the whole driveway, and expensive proposition since it's about 1/4 mile or more long.
Oh, and one more piece of news: I won third place in the WV Writer's Annual Writing Contest for my children's story, If I Lived by a River. I have not written many children's stories, especially not in the last ten years, so it was pretty cool to win third place (and $75 is nice too). So that was another bright spot this weekend.
Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.
Enjoyed blog on both your mothers. My Mother died June 1992 at ag 60-not a good experience...she was the best Mother...Congrats on your story-hope you are posting it here. I am trying to imagine where you live that you still need a gravel driveway...I imagine you have posted it all before, but I have only been reading your blog for awhile-one of my favs. For some reason, my IPAD and IPHONE do not let me comment on blogs unless I go to Blogger and sign in...I do not have a Blogger account and do not want to. I wait until I get on my new laptop and comment. In the meantime, I love love this blog.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your story award - how exciting! And it's especially nice (I think) to be recognized for creative work :)
ReplyDeleteYour new fridge sounds perfect, and I'm glad the delivery people could switch the door for you. For many years I have had a small chest freezer and a little dorm-size fridge because the dridge sits atop a sturdy metal cabinet and I don't have to lean down to access anything in it. The down-side is, I usually have to take out 8 things in front to get to the item I want. I sometimes think it would be nice to get a small "normal" fridge, but when I looked into it, the small ones - "apartment size" the store called it - are very expensive compared to the big ones that most people have! Oh well, it would probably be foolish for me to get a fridge that sits on the floor anyway, because the stuff on the bottom would be neglected and perhaps spoil because of all the days when I have to avoid leaning. I'll keep my eyes open for a slightly larger dorm fridge, though :)
Hi Brenda, so glad you can comment in some way. Technology can be such a pain. I live 4 miles from the highway. Our road is tar-and-chip, a kind of cheap pavement, until a mile from our house where it turns to a gravel road that runs across the ridge. When we moved here this gravel section had never had any rock at all, it was just a mud road, only passable about 4 months a year. The state does maintain it in a fashion now. Our driveway is about 1/4 mile long and there's no way we could afford to pave it--that would be tens of thousands of dollars. So, gravel it is. The up side is that it's very private here, no other houses in sight or closer than 1/2 mile or so.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your win! How exciting.
ReplyDeleteYour driveway is very long. Congrats on coming in 3rd place in the writing contest. Before moving to Dungloe our last fridge had the same problem as yours. Nice to be able to forget about it and let the fridge do what it's suppose to do. Have a nice day!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on winning in the writing contest. And being the owner of a new fridge! That is a good day :-)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your award!
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