mid-vac

Tuesday was Mom's cataract surgery. I have to say that production-line surgery is fascinatingly efficient. The place we went does NOTHING other than eye surgeries, and there were at least five other people in at the same time as Mom. She walked in to the surgical unit at 12:30; walked out at 3:00 with a bandage on her eye, a new tote bag, and a plant (it's a thing they do, I guess); we then went to her doctor's office at 5:00, and by 6:00 she was back home with the bandage off and looking out of her new lens. So speedy! And she said there was no pain, and aside from reaching up occasionally to try to rub it (and catching herself just in time) there's no issue at all. They have her sleep in a plastic eye protector that she puts on with medical tape. And that's it. She's a complete anxiety-ridden hypochondriac, but even she admitted she'd do the other eye when she needed to.

So basically I spent all day doing that stuff with her (which meant I mostly sat around reading and being vaguely anxious all day). Tuesday night I sorted through a few weeks' worth of mail and paperwork and bills and such, wrote checks, clipped coupons, and recycled crap. Wednesday morning I filed it all away. I also brought Mom some lunch, did her grocery shopping, mailed off some stuff, did all my laundry, cleaned the bathroom top to bottom, and did the dishes. AND I made some more progress on my music weeding and organizing. Sigh. I really want one of my projects over with! I watched some tv at night and kept trying to get motivated, but I guess I have a maximum per day I will let myself do.

Today was almost a total wash. I woke up and it was so humid I felt disgusting. Every joint was sore, especially my knees. Hit the 'profen hard, hung around reading the internet until it kicked in. Put away my final load of laundry, then went out for some lunch. Had a free lunch on a loyalty card, so I used that. Came home and slouched around doing nothing much, then Patrick came home and we chatted for a while. Met Brian at the train and we did a quick grocery shopping, stopped at REI, then stopped at Home Depot. Home again, he made dinner and I started digging into PART TWO of my book weeding project from last summer. I had a sudden urge, so hey, strike while the iron is hot, right?

It's now the spring, see, which is when the Friends of the Library lady said she'd accept more donations. And oh yes, have I got stuff for her! I moved all the furniture around in the living room (both so I could easily get to the bookcases, AND so I could have a lot of flat surfaces to put everything on). Last summer I really only weeded the fiction, so now I'm working on the non-fiction. Also when I emptied out my storage unit last year I was focused on regaining floor space and losing boxes, so while I was obsessive about alphabetizing and spreadsheet-ing my fiction, I did nothing at all to the non-fiction. It's basically on the shelves with no order whatsoever, so I'm organizing and weeding at the same time. I have some amusingly ancient high school texts on things like Biology and Astronomy and Oceanography, and while they give me warm fuzzy feelings of nostalgia, they are about as much use as my ancient computer texts (goodbye Pascal!). I am tempted to keep my history texts from yore, because I fear the Texas Board of Education and what they're doing to history and social studies, but I can't be the keeper of knowledge for all of mankind, so I think those will have to go, too.

I try not give useless out of date stuff to the Friends of the Library. I use the "Got Books" bins for anything I don't think the library book sale will find a home for. They are pledged to at least recycle anything they can't use. And since they bug me with their veneer of non-profit when in fact they're for-profit, let 'em deal with the rubbish. I dumped a load of elderly computer books and travel guides on them last year.

Ideally I want to have only good books, and books that will fit on the shelves that I already have, and not another line of books in front of each shelf. Additionally, I'd like a couple of empty shelves so Brian can put his stuff on them, too. And I'd like to have somewhere for my puzzles. So I really need to weed this stuff HARD. And I am ready. I dunno if I'll be able to part with the Latin textbooks, but I think I can lose enough other junk to make up for them.

Hopefully I'll get that done tomorrow, leaving me the weekend to find some fun. I'm just not that good at fun. I'm better at this.

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