Day Twenty-one: Cleaning, eating, shedding

Three full weeks of LIFE, that is, Life after Layoff, which is L I F E.

I got up this morning closer to what was my normal work time for rising. I jumped into getting the dishes done while fixing my high fiber breakfast, oatmeal, All Bran, and lots of fruit. I almost got done before the oats boiled over and made me clean the stovetop.

After cleaning up, I was hit with a food coma and took a nap. By then it was time for lunch.

This afternoon, I swept the shed area and unloaded the shed from the back of my truck. Unloading consisted of opening each box one at a time, taking out its contents, moving the empty box, and reloading it. I kept out the instructions so I can see whether or not I can put it together by myself. Unfortunately, to conserve space, I stacked the boxes back on top of each other, with the floor being in the one on the bottom. I'm sure however it is built, the floor is first.

The day seemed more productive than I just recounted. Oh yes, I need a couple more boxes. I can't believe that I unpacked several books for storage in other places, packed storage boxes only, throwing away the water cartons that were used as three book boxes, and ended up without enough ... boxes.

I also worked on some lyrics to a song that I hope one of my sisters will sing.

I added a couple descriptive words to my focus pages and thought on them a little bit. I wouldn't say what I did was meditating. I'll work my way up to that. I'm adding it to my mental list. If I tried to write all my mental list down, I would spend all my time doing that and still not get enough done.

Day Seventeen: Sheds, shirts, and strawberries

Today was an "s" shopping day. In addition to the list in the title, I also bought salad and shorts, the kind that come in a package of six.

As reported yesterday, I shopped online for sheds and found two that were roughly comparable in price at two stores I could easily get to. So, this morning I hopped into my now starting truck and drove first to Costco. Costco had a different shed at the store with just a slightly reduced price so I got it. I also got a couple dark micro-weave T-shirts, and four pounds of organic strawberries.

Now that I've had two meals with strawberries and haven't made any noticeable dent in the remaining amount, I realize that I wasn't thinking. I guess that combined with them being organic, my wife loving strawberries, and a brain burp, I loaded up on the things. Perhaps it was the memories of the very non-vegan strawberry shortcake my wife used to make. I am searching for a substitute in my Veganomicon, which is supposed to be the Joy of Cooking for vegans.

Now, it took three of us to load each of the three shed boxes into the back of my truck. So, there they have sat since I got home. I guess figuring out how to do things by myself is just part of my Life after Layoff.

The big accomplishment today was not the shopping but rather starting on the boxes of books in my bedroom. So far I have books in stacks by author over a good portion of my floor; books in drawers; books in five boxes to give away/sell; and books in boxes destined for my new shed.