Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Old Stuff



 Not much done today. I took Tim's spring gobbler from the freezer, and fixed that today. The leftovers are simmering gently away in a roaster over night to be turkey and gravy hot sandwiches tomorrow. The left overs from that will be made into a turkey pot pie and we will hopefully be done with that turkey. 

I worked on my plants. I vacuumed. Put laundry away. Dishes and kitchen and just stuff. 

I also did some very painful Market Place stuff. Broke my heart a little to do it. The renovation is a 100 year old house. There had been a large hole in the roof and so the weather had gotten in and destroyed the rafters in the attic, and then continued down to destroy the bathroom. From there, the water worked its way into the kitchen directly below. We gutted the bathroom and the kitchen right down to the studs to assess the damage, and after substantial structural repair and a new roof, we are ready to think about how we will be putting those rooms back together. 

One wall of the kitchen had a gorgeous to-the-ceiling cupboard. We discussed that for quite some time. First we toyed around with getting cupboards that would blend with that piece. However, the kitchen is small, and a kitchen will sell a house. It will also be a dealbreaker. 

You can make a small kitchen functional. We've done that before. But this cupboard. It was shallow, only about 9 inches deep. It had no counter space. It was beautiful, but when counter space is at a premium, that beautiful thing quickly became something that we were struggling to work around. It took up the entire wall. We toyed with removing the doors and having new bases made, but the doors were odd sized and the height was wrong. And do you know how much it costs to have bases custom made? (Answer: Lots. Lots and lots!)

On top of everything else, we pulled the cabinet away from the wall. It had no left side. It had no back. It was just built right up against the walls, which was sometimes how things were done back in the day. So it sat there while we tried in vain to figure out how to incorporate it into the house. 

We gave up. So I put the doors on Market Place, offering them up for free, and it was a heart breaker, because I truly do love those doors. So did Tim. The very first response we received was from a woman who flips furniture, painting things, making fancy pieces, and she makes a good living at it. I don't begrudge her that, but as silly as it sounds, I wanted my homely doors not to be repurposed so much as given a chance to be used just as they had been used all along. 

Another woman said, "I love these. I will figure out something to do with them."

A third woman said, "Are these still available?" I sent her a private message. "It sounds very stupid, but what are you going to do with the doors?" And she said, "I have an old work shed that we are fixing up, and these would look perfect..."  I messaged back, "They're yours." It makes me feel a bit better about getting rid of them, knowing that they will continue being functional cabinets in an old building, maybe even for another hundred years.


Tim went out hunting today. While I was in the shower, I saw I had a voice mail and his irritated voice said, "I'm not leaving a message. Call me." 

So I did.

My call went to his voice mail. 

I texted. "Hey...I think you forgot to take your phone off of do not disturb after church on Sunday. I'm trying to call." He does this pretty much every week. 

Nothing.

I figured he was busy. Maybe he got a deer. Maybe he needed me to bring him lunch. I didn't have a clue. 

And it irked me. 

He finally got home, and he was grumpy because he hadn't seen anything. He was probably hungry too. I said, "I tried to call you back. I couldn't get through. Check your phone to see if it still set to 'Do Not Disturb'. He said, "I checked. I didn't see any calls from you."

Sigh.

"Check again, because I called." 

He took his grumpy self off to be grumpy. I continued on with supper. Later tonight, he was once again, complaining about a problem with his phone. I said, "Give it here." I fixed his problem. I also noticed my phone calls to him listed there just as plain as day, and so I checked his settings.  Sure enough, he still hadn't taken his phone off Do Not Disturb. 

I thought of us. He's forgetful. I've got a cataract. Both have ears that don't work as well as they used to, and I'm gimping around on a knee that needs surgery, but am trying to hold off because we're still paying off his medical bills. I don't drive at night these days... and....and suddenly, without warning, I just felt very old indeed. 67 isn't old. My gosh. And then there were big old tears rolling down my face, because suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe I'd gotten old without noticing. 

I'm sitting here in my dark and quiet office and I'm not quite sure what I feel tonight. 


54 comments:

  1. 100% understand about the cabinet doors. I heartbreakingly sold some old beds to someone who cuts them up and makes some kind of furniture she paints white. And sells quite a bit of it. But I wished that someone who wanted a sturdy well made bed would have bought them. (It's my unhealthy attachment to furniture).
    And I am so shocked and disappointed at how old I have gotten. If I were the age I think I am, I would not have lost the fight with a table and broke my nose. A sad commentary on my life.

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    1. OH NO!!! Was your poor nose broken after all? You poor thing. But you worked election day anyway!

      I wonder if part of this emotional stuff is just due to the election. I've been trying so hard to be sensible and not give way emotionally. Today, I think I broke just a little bit.

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  2. Oh dear. Don't let the technology get you frustrated. I don't even use, or know how to set the "Do Not Disturb" part of my cell. I know how to make it stay quiet and just vibrate, which works cuz I carry it in my pocket. Try just turning off the entire phone instead of using Do Not Disturb. Much easier to turn it back on than digging through Do Not Disturb settings. The doors and those TALL cabinets are amazing. Glad you found an understanding home. Linda in Kansas

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    1. It is frustrating only because Tim seems to have given up even trying to understand technology. It is a change, which means that I'm the one figuring it out, and I'm not so hot at it either.

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  3. First of all, good for you for finding an appropriate new home for the cabinet doors. I admire your diligence in making sure they went somewhere suitable.

    Dave and I find ourselves having conversations like that all the time. If it's any consolation, I don't think it's entirely age-related. I can imagine young people forgetting to take their phone off vibrate! He sometimes texts me and I don't see it for a couple of hours. Fortunately it's seldom (never) about anything important.

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    1. I just wanted the doors to be appreciated. I wanted them to continue to be purposeful. Like me, I suppose.

      It's not so much that it is simply being forgotten. It's just that even with reminders, text, verbal, etc. he's not turning it on. I take the phone and do it myself. That is the part that frightens me.

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  4. I refuse to get old Debby. I have too much to do. I'm planning on going to another Rock festival camping trip next year. I am 61 next month.

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    1. I used to believe the same way, Dave. Rock on, my good man! Rock on!

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  5. I refused to get old and then suddenly I was! Still 'only' 69 which was ancient but now isn't.
    That makes no sense but as I'm old it doesn't matter!

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    1. It's not so much the number that bothers me...it's more that I plainly see that things are different, and I never expected that.

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  6. Oh yes. I too am 67 coming up fast on 68 and this past year I seemed to have aged at super fast speed. Memory problems, clumsiness, eyesight and other physical problems. How did that all happen so quickly?

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    1. That's the part that shocks me...I was going along just fine, and suddenly, out of the blue, some old woman and leaped out of the shrubbery and is pummeling the snot out of me.

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  7. Good to see the cupboard reused. I love shallow cupboards where you don't hide things at the back.

    Getting old...yes.. I'm 71...and nearly ½😄...but sometimes that 17 year old is still there.
    It is a month since I tripped and landed heavily...and the realisation that the physio assessing me was really not bothered... didn't want my socks off to see the visible damage....Go away and do the exercises for two months...if it's still bad I may refer you to a local hospital...yeah right!!!
    I still want..,need..to be active, to still care, be needed and love....
    (((Hugs)))

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    1. My comment on JayCee's post today says everything that needs to be said about that. I know a large part of my sadness is that when people begin to see you as old, that seems to make you (and anything you have to say) easily discounted.

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  8. I have made lots of cabinets in my time because it is as you say, much cheaper than buying custom made cabinets. Even then, I think people would be surprised at how much it costs to make cabinets these days. Plywood and hardwood essentially doubled three years ago during Covid and subsequent inflation and are one of those things that have never gone back down as economy experts suggested they have. Anymore, nice cabinet grade plywood is close to $100 per sheet. When I built my pantry cabinetry, it was just shy of $40 per sheet.

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    1. We are spending $500 to have an undersink cabinet made to match our kitchen cupboards at the new house.

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  9. I forgot to add, I am more often reminded of the fact that I'm aging and my body is not like it used to be. It makes me a bit sad too to realize my deficiencies. John Denver once sang in a song, "It turns me on to think of growing old." He is perhaps lucky he died young and was never proven wrong!

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    1. There are benefits to it, I give you that but right now, I'm struggling just a little.

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  10. You are in a dark place but the light will come in again. Counting your blessings isn't easy when you're depressed, but your cabinet doors have gone to a good home and your new home is nearly ready. The grumpiness will pass - in my experience it always does. As for getting old - it happens without us even noticing and it's a shock. 'Significant' birthdays are the worst.

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    1. I really don't think that I give the number a thought. Those numbers don't mean anything to me. Unfortunately, to the world, they seem to mean quite a bit. It's the physical decline really.

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  11. I've been there too, hopefully it will pass quickly, start looking for the light, positives, all the great work you are both doing, your resolve to ensure the doors are having there second chance. I'm hitting a big birthday next year, I'm not sure how I feel about it, because my body is aging far quicker than my mind.

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    1. I remember Weaver and how she always was sure to exercise her mind daily. I have begun to do 'Mind Games' as well. She set a good example.

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  12. It is hard to see ourselves as we are sometimes. I am fighting the aging process, but not with botox or the other heartbreaking things some women do to hang on to their youthful looks. I just keep going to the gym, lifting heavy, walking, biking and staying active so I don't end up in a diaper in a chair all day. You are doing that, with all the work in your various homes. Since bodies are like cars, with a ton of moving parts, now and then the parts start to wear out, and we need to have them fixed. The point is to do good maintenance work on ourselves all along so that parts CAN be fixed. I am 63, and facing a possible repair on a hip, with an injury that mostly athletes get, and I am no athlete! Part of my maintenance is that I don't do old think and old talk. I keep learning new things, and don't stay married to old beliefs and ideas, and am playing more. When we stop learning and playing, it's over.

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    1. I've never understood that devotion to maintaining our youthful appearance. It is probably due to the fact that I've always been plain and never paid much attention looks to begin with.

      The most youthful people I know are not defined by their looks but by their attitudes. I try to remember this thing about aging.

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  13. I can't tell you that getter older ever gets easier, but eventually you get used to it and not much of anything surprises you. Once you are on Medicare, paying the bills is easier. If Medicare lasts that long.

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    1. We are on Medicare right now. Tim's hospital bills were hundreds of thousands though.

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  14. Mostly I don't think about my age, a few more than you, until I do. Life for a good long while is going to be us trying to be normal amid the chaos ahead.

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    1. I am thinking that perhaps I just feel my years because of my uncertainty about what the future holds. You might be right.

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  15. Boy I love that cupboard! Glad you found the right home for it.
    Age, yeah. It creeps up. I never felt my age until I got this knee. But it will get better.

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    1. I am most ridiculously pleased about that! The cupboard is too.

      (Cart me off to the dementia ward...)

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  16. I think it's like you said in your reply to that first comment - it's election grief finding an outlet. You are NOT old yet. You are very active and you and Tim have accomplished amazing things so far this year. You should read back over your posts of the work you have done on your new house. How often commenters (including me) said how impressed we were with all you guys are able to do.
    Hope you feel better soon, Debby.

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    1. Oh, I will Ellen. It's a passing thing. I know that it is.

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  17. First- I would have rented a house based solely on the presence of those cabinets. But I'm weird.
    And...I too have wept and do weep at the loss of my abilities and the cruelties of older age. "It's never going to get better," I think. And really? It's not. And yes, the election has put many of us on the edge and on the verge of tears constantly.

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    1. Well then, smack my behind and call me weird too. It's kind of nice to find your quirks in other people, innit? My tribe!

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  18. Age sneaks up on us slowly, and all too suddenly we are there. Looking back, I see a change around 70 (67 counts), so you are not unique. Well, you are in your own way, but you know what I mean.

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  19. Well, I am 81, have two replaced knees, minus a gallbladder, had a shoulder worked on, lost a tooth ... all since 2004! I carry way more weight on me then I like, but losing is not very easy at this age! I can't walk as much as I would like to do and, of course, I can't do what I did at 30!
    I'm not dead yet ... So I have to take the good with the bad and make the most of each day!

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    1. Too true. We make our peace with things, as best we can, and simply get on with living.

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  20. We all have moments like that. I am 60 and was quite upset to see some photographs taken of myself recently. That woman is not how I feel or who I see in the mirror. Then my best friend came to stay and, although she is only the same age at me, she was crashing out for a nap each afternoon and telling me about all her various ailments. Suddenly a few rubbish photographs didn't seem to matter so much after all.

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    1. A good perspective. A family member died recently. She was younger than me. It was mind bendingly quick, and nobody really had much time to wrap their heads around it. When you view life from that perspective, you're right. Rubbish photographs don't matter AT ALL.

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  21. Good gosh, Debby… I wish I were 67 again instead of 75. But yes, my memory is definitely getting worse and worse and I sure get tired a lot faster. I can’t carry heavy things as much. I once carried my mother-in-law up a short flight of stairs once when she was in a wheelchair many decades ago. Time flies. But you’re still young and doing so much. I’m in awe of all you do. I’m sure the situation now is not the easiest for you with the political climate too. My glucose jumped up for a week from stress and is only now starting to stabilize. Sigh… We’ll all be OK. We’ll just hold each other’s hands.

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    1. This has GOT to be Kay!!!!

      I know that I'm still young. It's just that I am looking at a definite difference between what we were and what we are, and got a bit of a shiver.

      I'm not as young as I used to be, but I'm not nearly as old as I hope to be.

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  22. Jeanie here. Get your knee fixed, woman! Living in pain is a big factor in feeling blue. I live with pain in the shape of a husband, ask me how I know!!!

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    1. Oh, and I attribute a lot of his pain from the fact that his knees weren't fixed early and so arthritis had free rein to wreck his body while he was waiting.

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    2. I have an appointment next month.

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  23. I read the entire post and all the comments, because it reminded me that I am not alone in this blue sad feeling that keeps coming up this past week. We will get through it, but who knows really what's on the other side?

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    1. We can't know. Not for sure. But we can do our best to meet these challenges with as much courage as possible.

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  24. I think we're all feeling the effects of what happened on November 5th, I know I am. Still coming to terms with it, and if I dwell on it I get really pissed off. I am depressed about it, that's for damn sure, as far as that age thing goes, I collected my 78th birthday last July, but I'm still riding my bike and hiking, not as far or as fast as I used to, but I'm still out there! Have to keep at it.

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    1. This is just a minor wobble. It has been a tough we. I am avoiding listening to the news, and sticking to reading it

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  25. The thing I hate the most about being old (72) is the loss of muscle mass. It was there, and then it wasn't. We never quit exercising daily, but somehow it just fell away. The weights came yesterday, along with the weight bench, it's time to start up the program again. Your program of building houses is better, though.

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    1. Also, could we have a picture of Tim's meat saw? I had never heard of such a thing. Like a band saw maybe?

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  27. I feel the same way sometimes. I've lost a lot of strength in my legs and can't seem to move as well as I once did. Last weekend, I twisted my ankle twice, same ankle, and both times wrenched my back when I did that. I wonder what shape I'll be in, in ten years time when Jack is only fifteen. Scares me sometimes.

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I'm glad you're here!

The Old Fellas

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