random thoughts – Day 1,827 – (Tuesday) – outdoors and in

The snow is gone from the backyard and the squirrels were frolicking and digging random holes. It seems they are good at burying things and less good about remembering where. It must be what I look like when I misplace something. Today was a good day in the sense that I didn’t misplace anything and didn’t have to run around like a backyard squirrel looking for it. 

Evening sky, 3-18-25, 7:09 pm.

It might have been nice weather based on the numbers of squirrels and birds in the yard. Except for trying to get a picture of the pinkish evening sky from the side deck, I didn’t really have a reason to go outside and find out, so I didn’t. 

When Moose and Winston were around, I was outside several times throughout the day and night as they stretched their little doggy legs and did their outdoor activities. Now, it feels weird to go and stand the yard by myself. I feel like a doofus just standing there not watching and talking to a dog or two and I’m not really a sit on the stoop by myself person. I need something to do. 

Later in the season, it will be easy to take a quick break and go outside to pull a few weeds, but it’s too early and chilly for that still. Based on a few articles I’ve read, it’s too early to clean up the flower beds, because the pollinators are still winter sheltering and aren’t quite ready yet. One article suggested mid- to late-April for flower bed cleanup, which works for me in terms of delaying it, but it removes a reason to be outside.

Sometimes I wonder if other people jump through 27 mental hoops first, or if they just boldly go and stand outside their homes. I don’t think I was like this in Tennessee, but in my neighborhood there, the houses were further apart and mine was set back from the road, and if I stood in the yard and pretended to be a scarecrow, nobody would see anyway.

The outside will wait and for now, the focus is indoors. There has been studying of the contents of cabinets to see what can be donated away. Do I really need so many plates and bowls? Probably not, but some of them were Mummu’s, including items she told me were wedding gifts when she married in 1941. Much of the stuff I own was handed down from family elders and there are sentimental attachments, making it nearly impossible to ever downsize.

Mummu's porcelain shoes.

Once, as I struggled with getting rid of a pair of porcelain knick-knack shoes with chipped flowers and leaves that Mummu had given to me, Mom said, “you do realize she gave those to you because she was getting rid of them, right?” Well, no, I hadn’t seen it that way. I thought it was because she saw me admire them 1,000 times when I was a kid and they sat on her dresser. Oh, and maybe she was getting rid of them. 

Decades later, the porcelain pumps are still around, and now sit on my dresser. Maybe some day I will let them go. Or maybe I can be buried with them.