Completion, offloading/sorting, New Year

Other than some small touches, the hall bathroom is completed. We need to make a small adjustment to a cabinet and get the countertop purchased for it sealed with polyurethane, but everything else is done. It looks very nice. Norman took his time to get things right and it shows in the final outcome. To complete all the final touches, I will make the shoe molding required to seal the floor, but other than that and a few small touches to the paint, the bathroom is set and ready for years of use in its remodeled state. It is wonderful to have it done and come out looking so nice.

Grandma, Grandpa and Norman traveled to Wichita Falls this morning to see if the Apple store there could get him through the required steps to verify his Apple ID. This was the only location that had an available appointment to see if the reset could be accomplished. It could not. Norman set the phone number for the ID to a phone number he got in a temporary situation and cannot remember that number. Without that specific number, his account is fully locked down. Unfortunately, he did not include a backup number for such a consequence as this. That being said, access to certain programs and apps on his current phone will be locked down January 1.

In the outing, they will stop at Sam’s in Wichita Falls and, on the way back to the farm collect another full load of containers from his storage unit in Bowie. He hopes to empty that unit this month. He has been paying for three storage units for many months. One in Florida, one in Texas and one in West Virginia. Taking this one out of use will not only lower his expenses, but it will also help him consolidate his many forgotten items and get a better handle on what all he has in his possession. Much of the totes, boxes and trash bags are filled with items of questionable use. Either being too old to be put into use or too worn out to be put into use. Odds and ends of plumbing and electrical work long since done. Many useless leftover parts not yet discarded. Items thrown haphazardly into totes in too many hurried moves from one living quarter to another. Sorting through all the clutter will certainly reveal some useful keepsakes, tools and generally practical pars for his remodeling business, but it should eliminate those useless items that no longer need to be kept – especially when such retention requires a monthly charge to safeguard them.

One stack of more than fifteen totes, boxes and bags is already sitting at the corner of my shop. That will be augmented by an additional collection being hauled to the farm today. I am almost certain that this will not have emptied his storage unit – not by a long shot – but it will have made a dent into the accumulation of the hoarded containers. In preparation for this eventuality, Grandpa already bought shelves which we placed in our well house so he could separate his things from Norman’s things. That was probably a wise move on Grandpa’s part to ensure that anything important to him remained in his possession. Though I have to admit that much of what Grandma and Grandpa have stored in our well house will never be used by them again. Nevertheless, it is set aside and available to them should they ever find a need to check on it.

With the weather much warmer than just a week ago, life on the farm is once again in a routine that is easy to manage. For the next ten days or so we will be able to leave the hoses hooked up to the hydrants and spigots making it far easier to get water to our animals and birds. Mama has a routine of refreshing the water in the ducks swimming pool every other day. That takes a good bit of both time and water to get done, but the way the ducks celebrate the fresh water in the pool makes it worth the effort. I don’t know if this current weather qualifies as an Indian summer, but it is quite temperate for late December.

To add to the ease of the weather, I have not been required to report to the office this week. That gives me opportunity to split the cores with Mama every morning. It will seem a hardship to go to the office or the HQ house when required after the first of the year, but for the moment, we will enjoy our little break – and our time together.  

Saturday night, New Year’s Eve, we will spend the late evening at the church for a fellowship. We will not stay past 10 pm ourselves but that option will be open to anyone who would like to do so. I have not watched a New Year come in for many years. To me it is merely a change of the calendar, not the new beginning some try to make it out to be. Since we will have regular church services the next morning, it does not make sense to stay up any later than would be polite to our church family. Though my wife and kids enjoy long visiting fellowships, those kinds of game nights are not really my thing.

My endurance will only take me so far, but I will try to enjoy it as much as I can.