TheBanyanTree: Station 4

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The sun is trying peek out on this fine June morning.  We had some rain last
night, so I won’t have to water my garden too much this morning.  Our
flowers are in full bloom and our yard looks beautiful from all our
decluttering efforts.  Ray gets full credit for its beauty as he was the one
who spread the mulch throughout the yard, painted the big deck under the oak
trees and painted the upper deck.  I only planted the flowers and I keep the
dog poop picked up.

We’ve had two people wander through our newly for sale home this week.  No
offers yet.  I personally feel our home is priced too high and we’ll have to
drop the price to sell it.  I guess after less than a week on the market, we
’re not at that point yet, but I’m already worrying about what’s going to
happen if we don’t sell.  Some great houses have come onto the market and I
can only go through them and hope they don’t sell before we sell ours.  Our
agent is going to take us out this morning to look at several houses.

Most people want to move out to the suburbs, but we want to move back into
the city.  Most people want a larger house and we want a smaller house and
yard.  We drove to a couple of open houses last Sunday and discovered this
wonderful neighborhood in St. Paul that’s centered around a large park.  I
didn’t know about this neighborhood and it’s just beautiful, filled with
tall shade trees and homes built in the early 1900s.  I love the front
porches and the sidewalks and the long skinny back yards.  There are several
homes for sale and hopefully, they’ll still be for sale after we unload this
house.

It’s also difficult to live without cluttering.  It’s not too difficult to
keep the house clean, but it’s difficult to live without easy access to all
our stuff, like toothpaste or coupons stuffed into our napkin holder or all
our little appliances spread out on the kitchen counter.  I can go through a
few weeks of this, but I don’t think I can be this uncluttered for very
long.

Ray cut off part of his thumb on Monday.  He was sawing some wood and his
thumb got caught on the blade of the table saw.  I wasn’t home from work
yet, but Ray managed to get something to stop the bleeding and then drive
himself to the hospital.  He didn’t need stitches because he had cut off all
the skin, but they put a big dressing on it and gave him some pain
medication and an antibiotic.  Ray got sick from the pain medication, which
was a narcotic.  He was dizzy and kept throwing up, plus he didn’t want to
eat.  Not wanting to eat would be great for me, but it doesn’t do much for
Ray, who doesn’t need to lose weight at all.  He didn’t go to work for the
rest of the week.

My son and his friend Tim put on another hip-hop show last night, another
Lyrical Order Showcase, which features various hip-hop artists as well as
other types of urban music.   Asher told me the good music doesn’t start
until around 11 pm.  Oh, that’s great for someone who gets up at 2:45 am on
weekdays to exercise.  Ray and I went grocery shopping, had dinner, and then
I took a nap until almost 11 pm.  I didn’t want to get up, but I dragged
myself out of bed, and got dressed.

It was actually fun to go somewhere at 11 pm.  We got a parking spot right
by the club.  We could hear the music from the street since the doors were
open.  The baseball game was on in the bar and Ray was happy about that.  We
found Asher and Susan and they got us stools to sit on.  We watched about
three acts.  I talked to, or rather screamed at Asher’s graphic designer,
who’s very talented, and a couple of his other friends.  The music was good
and even Ray, a dedicated Barbra Streisand fan, enjoyed it.  We left after
midnight and I spent some time tossing and turning before I could get back
to sleep.

The sunlight has been swallowed up by some dark clouds.  I guess it will be
a rainy day after all.  As far as I know, no one is coming to look at our
house today, so I’ll have to keep my dreams on hold for another day.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.  ~Cicero