Morning Fog

It's hard to believe that this was taken in the middle of my neighborhood. The fog hid all of the houses around the lake.



A close-up of the little heron fishing in the water.



Hold on, abrupt change of subject ahead:

I am starting to see the light at the end of the clutter tunnel. Tonight I put a large load of trash at the curb, and after Girl comes by tomorrow to go through her stuff, a large load of stuff will go to Goodwill, and next trash day, the rest will be at the curb.

It is so liberating to get rid of things. There is a line, of course, between parting with treasures and parting with shit, and finding it is not easy, and is an ongoing process. It is particularly difficult when dealing with children's treasures and Christmas things - those are the gray area. Photos I will keep, ditching frames as needed. I ditched a lot of frames this weekend. Bathrooms still aren't painted. I had an epiphany of sorts the other day, when it dawned on me that I could get the bathrooms painted while working during the week, but the cleaning out of 12 years of household crap is a very time-consuming, exhausting process, and that is where I should focus while I'm not working. My lady of leisure time is drawing to a close, at the end of this week I must focus on updating the resume, and the following week I will hit the legal agencies and prostitute myself for contract work - if there is any to be had.

I can see the first, dim glow of the light at the end of the clutter tunnel, and the glimmer of a house ready to put on the market - there are things to be done, lots of them, but it's the million niggling little things that kill you, and those are the ones I'm knocking out, day by day. When we moved into this house I took vacation time and so did my husband, consecutively, so we could devote weeks to the moving process. Now I'm trying to psych myself to sell the house and relocate to another state, a process which by necessity will require addressing my mother's issues. Those are not even slightly improved, but I don't have the heart to go into that now. I can't fix her.

The exterior paint is nearly done, they'll finish up tomorrow, so that bitch from the HOA management company can get off my unemployed and nearly broke back about that. But the landscaping took a brutal hit during the freeze the other night, so I'm sure in a couple of weeks she will drive by and write me a "friendly" letter about how I need to spend a couple of thousand dollars I can't afford to buy new plants to make everything all perfect again, so I can keep "Pleasantville Estates" a lovely place to live. (If you've seen the movie "Pleasantville," you'll get that reference. If you haven't, watch for it on TV or rent it.) That's the cheery, upbeat way she wraps up every letter. This is a Lovely Place TO LIVE, GODDAMMIT! Dead spouses, sick children, lost jobs, a brain aneurysm or two, that ain't our problem! Boo-hoo, suck it up, send us our newly increased HOA DUES and get your house painted, you slob! Don't let your weed and mildew prone real life interfere with our vision of Suburban Utopia!

/rant off.

There will be actual knitting content this week. I am actually knitting. Really.