I don't know what happened, but I suddenly got all kinds of energy on Tuesday.
There were so many dirty dishes (and cat food cans) in the kitchen sink that I didn't have room to wash them, so I carted them all into the bathroom and washed them in the bathtub. (Don't act shocked - I told you I'd lost control!) A few days before, I had washed a maroon silk shawl in the bathtub, and it had turned the tub pink, and it was so hard to get it clean (hard to reach to scrub it). Soaking the dishes in the tub also removed all the pink. Two jobs at one swat! Wow!
Then I attacked the three-month heap of newspapers and junk mail that had filled the front passenger side floor and seat in the van. (NK - the heap had grown since you saw it in December - it packed the floor solid so that I had to turn off the heat to that side, and had grown up to spill over the armrests on the seat.) Now no more paper avalanche when you open that door. What makes it so difficult is that it all has to be sorted into three piles for recycling, and I'd just never gotten around to opening everything and sorting.
Then I dug the garbage can out of the snowdrift, filled a couple of bags and collected the 3-weeks worth of garbage stored in the laundry room, and dragged it all down to the end of the driveway.
Garbage collection is so expensive here. For me (I pay monthly "senior" rates because I produce so little) it works out to about $8 per Hefty bag. My can holds three bags, and I fill one "kitchen-sized" bag in about ten days, so I take the can down to the end of the drive about once every three or four weeks. For this I pay over $24 a month. (The high collection fees are directly responsible for all the garbage you find dumped on the side of the roads.) If I lived in the village, collection would be free. The village even takes brush cuttings and grass clippings. Unfair!
Between collections, I can't put the garbage outside because it attracts dogs, raccoons, and bears. I could put it in the garage, but that's a pain. So I just keep it in the laundry room. There's almost no food scraps beyond dried-up cat food scrapings, cheese wrappers, and yogurt containers, so it doesn't smell bad.
I can't blame the collectors for the cost - they raised their rates last spring, but I got a nice letter saying to ignore the notice, they wouldn't raise my rates because I put out so little. The cost comes from the dump tipping fees. And that comes from the NIMBY factor.
I drive past neighbors who put out three to five cans a week! Every week! I don't understand how. Unless they don't recycle. I produce about three times more recyclable trash than garbage. I can easily get buried in recyclables - witness the van ....
Speaking of the van, (the service appointment was Wednesday, yesterday) the leak was transmission fluid, but it wasn't serious. There's a hose arrangement that carries the transmission fluid from the transmission to cycle it through the cooling system and back, and one of the clamps had come loose. Mr. T. said that it was down only maybe 5% capacity, so it's unlikely I had done any damage. He didn't charge me anything yet - said to bring it in for a recheck in "a few weeks", and then we'll see. I might still see some dripping, but not to worry, "it had splashed all over up in there, and will probably continue to drip off every time it warms up for a while". So, that's nice. I'm glad it was a minor hitch in her gitalong.
While Mr. T. was working on the van, I walked to the diner next door and had breakfast, and paid the month's bills. When I got the van back, I went to town hall and paid the property taxes, then to the bank and deposited some checks, then to the PO and mailed the bill payments, then ... three or four other errands. I was home by 1 PM. The temperature was 30, but the sun was shining and it actually felt warm. It was nice. I haven't been so productive in months.
Didn't do much today. My hips and thighs ache. Don't know why.
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