I am spending several hours every day working in the garage, cleaning out all of the stuff I've been holding onto for years and years. I have buckets of stuff I haven't looked at since we've moved in 11 1/2 years ago and when I open the bucket, I wonder why I bothered to move it here from the old house. Some of the stuff is easy to throw away or give away and then some of the stuff will need a second go through. I can see the end, hopefully by the end of this week if I am able to keep at it like I have been.
Then, the difficult task of going through everything in the house starts and I will have to keep making decisions of finding a home for all of my things. I haven't had much time for quilting this week with all of the excitement that has been going on around here. I do have a couple of stories to share.
On Wednesday morning I couldn't put off the task of going to the grocery store any longer. I've been trying to use up the food in the pantry, but when I run out of bread, milk, bananas or orange juice, a trip to the store becomes a necessity. I shop at Winco because it is by far the cheapest grocery store around. The thing that helps keep the prices low is you have to bag your own groceries. They have two lanes per checkout for bagging groceries because you can't bag as fast as they can check you out so you are bagging as the person behind you gets checked out and hopefully you are finished by the time the next person is ready to check out. I was bagging my groceries and this 'little old lady' was right behind me in line. She was opposite of me, bagging her groceries and started talking to me about her cat and how happy he would be because he had food now. She was telling me all about how she found him as a kitten and how she thought he was a baby eagle who had fallen out of the nest and then mid story, stopped to apologize for talking to me. Then, continued on to tell me her son was a police officer and how he comes on the weekends and she makes him a sandwich. As I finished up my grocery bagging, again she apologized for talking and telling me stories. We started to walk out of the store together and she continued to tell me more stories about her other son, who was in the military. Every time she would tell me a story, she would apologize for telling me so many stories. I told her it was fine and I wasn't in a hurry (I had cleaning to do when I got home) and so we continued to talk as we walked out to the parking lot. I asked her where she was from because her accent sounded exactly like my mom's. She said she was born in Poland! So was my mom. :) I thought I recognized her accent. She told me about escaping from Poland during 'the war' (World War II) and I told her how my mom had done the same thing and about how her dad was captured by the Germans and I told her my grandfather had been captured as well.
Her family had escaped to England and then to South Africa for several years before coming to America where she raised her two sons by herself.
She said she really enjoyed talking to me and knew I was nice because I had a nice face. :) She also complimented me on my hair (someone always says something about my hair at least once a week-it's naturally curly) and that she knew she would see me around again. She said she was 83. I do hope to see her again some time.
I had jury duty Thursday and got the 'call back Friday to see if we still want you' message. Sure enough, Friday they needed my service. I was so excited because I love jury duty. I'm one of the weirdo's who hopes to get picked. I got there and security has increased. As I went in, they took my fingernail clippers because they had a nail file on them. Then, when they scanned my purse, they saw some things they were unhappy about. I felt bad for the guy because he had to start digging into the abyss. He pulled out a couple of sharpie markers and my keys that have an alyn wrench on it that is a key for a lock at school. He said he thought there was a lighter in there, but there was so much stuff, he couldn't find it. I told him that I'm not a smoker so I know there isn't a lighter in there. He asked me what exactly I needed from in my purse and maybe I couldn't just leave the whole thing in the car? Dude, I don't know what I need, but if I need it, it is in there! I probably have some snacks in there in case there is a lock down or something. But, I was convinced to leave my purse in the car.
Some people are so grumpy about doing jury duty. There was an older man who was really trying to get out. He asked if being 70 would exempt him from jury duty. The lady giving the talk just ignored his question. Later he said that sitting around waiting was worse than being in jail and he would rather spend a day in jail than serve jury duty.
It turns out the trial was for a many who was suing the company he worked for because he developed cancer and said it was due to asbestos exposure. The catch was it was a 21 day trial that spread out over 6 weeks. I was bummed because it went into the start of school and took place on 2 of the 3 conference days I have this summer. 95% of the people filled out hardship forms and almost all of us were excused by noon, including the grumpy old man. There were about a dozen people who said they had nothing interfering with their ability to serve. The lady said they had excused 300 people the day before and had another group coming in after us.
I made a friend while there. I just happened to sit next to another teacher from my district so we talked the whole time we waited. She is a special education teacher for the kindergarten and first grade students at the school my youngest son attended last year.
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