Desk success, replacements, accumulating junk

After Trace and I made an errant run to look at a rolltop desk Sunday between services, Mama made contact with the seller of another such desk for me and her to look at Monday evening. The desk was at a location about an hour away but that seems to be the norm in most of our recent searches. To the best of our understanding, there was a gentleman at the house where we were sent to view the desk but that his availability would be limited. So, Mama and I left immediately after I signed out from work and made the drive to locate the house and the desk. It was not difficult to locate the house and the neighborhood we ended up driving through was one of the most picturesque we had seen in a long time.

When we arrived at the house, we found the desk sitting in the garage of a house that was being remodeled. It was pretty dusty, but everything seemed to be in good shape. It was a little difficult to determine if all the small drawers that fit into the cubby holes in the inside of the top of the desk were in place, because there were some open spaces that could once have been fitted with drawers, but there is no way of telling for sure. Having looked it over with some scrutiny, Mama and I determined that this desk was good enough to meet our needs. It is not an antique, but it is a solid desk. Plus, we had the help I needed to load the desk into the truck. That done, we paid the man helping us, tied the desk down in the bed of the truck and set out to find a Bed, Bath and Beyond to replace the brand-new vacuum I had sent back to the Amazon seller.

That vacuum had a broken latch on the cover of the brush head that allowed the second brush to slip out when the vacuum was in use and Mama felt that Bed, Bath and Beyond was the best place to find a replacement, although that turned out to be disappointing overall. We were able to get a replacement but not what I was particularly looking for. It will do, but I was disappointed to have to abandon the duo-clean model I was shopping for. What we bought will do, but it is not much of an improvement over the vacuum we originally set out to replace. One more stop to return some rugs Mama had recently purchased and we headed home.

Once at the farm, Trace and Victoria helped offload the desk – which is quite heavy – and I began the process of moving all the paraphernalia from the table I have used for several years into the new desk. To allow for cords to be fed through the back of the desk, I had to enlarge the hole cut through the back of the desk and set up power strip on the wall to accommodate all the items needing access to an outlet. I did not finish last night. I was feeling far too badly to stick with the project through completion, but that will be finished up soon enough so that when Mama’s furniture arrives tomorrow, we will have given as much room as possible for the new sectional with two additional advantages. All the desktop items can be covered by the rolltop between uses and the desk looks so much better than a cluttered tabletop.

As I paced through the process of relocating all the sundry items on the table to the desk, I was stunned at just how much of the clutter was useless. Outdated papers, things that have no current value, cords that are of an unknown function, things I forgot were even there and a trash bag full of magazines, catalogs, and flyers that were far past their publishing dates. As things turned out, the desk has several cubbies and three larger drawers had nothing in them as I wiped the tabletop and folded it for placement in the garage. Seems like a win-win to me, but it remains to be seen just how much I will accumulate to fill the desk with useless items. The good part of using the rolltop desk is that it has very little space to accumulate things on either the working surface of the desk or on top of the desk. That will greatly reduce the desire to just simply set things down for convenience sake. Time will tell.

I am feeling better today. After a fairly good night of rest, I feel like the bronchitis is abating and the cough is quieting. Praise the Lord! Meanwhile, Mama had a dental appointment today to have a tooth removed but that turned out to be a miscommunication. The dentist we go to does not pull teeth. He refers that to an oral surgeon. Somehow Mama had been scheduled for the extraction in the dentist’s office by mistake. I can only assume that the extraction will be properly rescheduled for a future date. Mama is a little disappointed at the setback since she had prepared herself for the discomfort of the removal and recovery process that would have followed, but not today.

We will enjoy the respite and take what comes.