I have been "retired" for nearly 5 years (next month will be the 5th year anniversary of the retirement) My Best Friend has been retired even longer than I have but you would not know it by the schedule that is kept around here at the Buffalo Bluff.
There are so many things to work on around a farm! The pole building (a.k.a the "Polar Barn"…a leftover cute saying from a young grandchild years ago) contains all sorts of possibilities for projects and hard work that can easily consume 8 or 9 hours a day. There are things to weld , things to build out of the Buffalo Bluff supply of our own ash lumber, there are wheels to be greased, there are tractors to be conditioned…it is an endless list of jobs that must be done in 8 hour shifts and sometimes even at night til the light is gone. I need my little push mower revved up for spring work..that is another project I will push for.
Today I came home from being a gad-about slacker who had gone to a church rummage and plant sale in town to find two of my family….husband and son…..putting in their 8 hours even on a Saturday. One of them is engaged in changing oil on a vehicle and the other has a big horse trailer backed up to the garage. The trailer is being partly filled with the "Non-recycle-able" garbage which is destined for the county landfill, eventually. I feel guilty as all get-out, because there is an unloaded "other trailer" parked inside the garage which is my 8- hour a day job just now. I have ignored it for about 4 days so far… but the guilt is getting to me. This trailer contains all the contents of an RV which has been sold to another couple who have better use for it than we do. Now it had to be unloaded and cleaned up and I did not lift one finger to help with it because I reasoned that I was not the one who sold it! How is that for irrational, but necessary reasoning for one who did not want to go out and do a retired person’s 8- hour day on something that no longer belongs to her????
Where am I going to put all that stuff on "my trailer" that is sitting in the garage with all the RV stuff on it??? I have lots of "silverware" already…and the stuff from the RV is definitely not precious stuff having been bought from rummage sales and second hand stores. The towels and washcloths can be used but I need another cupboard for them. I am not a carpenter and I am also too cheap (retired income is not lavish) to buy a cupboard or storage shelving unit. Where will I put all the "grocery items" (mostly paper products) that have sat in the RV cupboards? Tehre are blankets and sheets I really do not need in the house. Why didn’t that church rummage sale have anything like an extra cupboard for about five bucks? I would have snapped it up in an instant. I am already filling the nice storage spaces in my little "Hytte" (cabin) with plastic-lidded storage bins full of Christmas decorations and other seasonal decorations. The Hytte cabinets are filling up with my craze for collecting old glass malted milk glasses and tulip sundae dishes. I live in a very large house with many rooms and I cannot think where to put the RV stuff! I know a commenter will tell me to get rid of some of my stuff (junk) but I am my mother’s daughter. My mother had a hard time parting with ANYTHING due to the fact that she came of age in the very hard times in the 1920′s to say nothing of the Depression when she married an equally frugal husband. That generation did not want to throw out anything since who knew when the Hard Times would return and you might need the stuff again????
I think my Best Friend is blood-related somehow to my own mother. He also, does not like to get rid of stuff in his Polar Barn. Rather, it is much more fun to put more stuff in there and collect stuff. Everyone who comes out here to visit, who is a collector, loves the Pole Building…it is a collector’s delight. My Dad when he was alive used to say "anything you need you can find it in G’s pole barn!!!" He could have said the same thing about some of the closests I am responsible for….although I do put in 8 hours on a few days and go through the collected closet stuff…..there are things that cannot be disposed of, however. Nobody will every convince me to throw out any of the 1960′s-70′s vintage Fisher Price toys my boys used to play with. That F-P castle and all its occupants and the Pink Dragon, the King’s carriage, the tables and beds and all that good stuff must be worth a fortune by now. I intend to take it to the Antiques Roadshow in about another 20 years and find out how valuable it really is. No 8- hour- a -day work cycle on closests will NOT find me throwing out that Good Stuff. I still have a pair of shoes I bought in Vienna, Austria , in the summer of 1958. I cannot, and have not, worn them for decades, but who can get rid of a pair of Cinderella- like, high heeled slippers that came from Vienna? I cannot. I won’t even mention the green wool size 6 "sheath dress" in another closet that used to fit me like a glove back in the late 1950′s. It is such a great reminder of a lost "figure" from my 20 somethings.
But getting back to the Retired Person’s 8- hour- a- day work schedule: if I go out and appear to be really working hard in the raspberry patch, maybe I won’t get any scornful, "you-lazy-bones" look from either of the Male Members of the family later today. What I need to do is go outside and work awhile and then come back in the house, lie back in the recliner with a pitiful look on my scratched-up face (raspberry barbs) and put on the blood pressure cuff to feign an appearance of being overwrought by the hard work I have done. It usually works so what is the harm in doing it one more time??
The only good thing about going out today (it has gotten colder) is that I will not even have to think about any flying bugs that usually bother me terribly when I go into any space associated with gardening. Even the early flies of spring have a way of hovering around my face and head. I can think about our good friend, Stan, who reported that after he retired, he got so busy he was thinking of hiring a guy, half time to help him with his 8-hour a day work projects on HIS farm which lies just a few miles east of ours!
The guilt has gotten to me….I have to get outside and get to work on a Saturday….but it will not be for 8 hours like others around here that are related to me are putting in today.
Welcome to the crowd. Being in the midst of “downsizing” and in the midst of a move, one must find a solution as to what and where does it go. Solution – just have a place where one can say we now have stuff-stuff or pc wise – layered stuff. Better yet, the old refrain – “just put it down the basement”.
Such good sound advice Mudduck!!!! But we need toi build an addition to the basement too…..we keep way too much stuff and have for a very long time. Oh Woe Is Us!!!
You could have your husband and other male relatives dig you a great big hole, like a cellar, finish it to keep the bugs and what not out, then ask them nicely if they would put all that stuff down in your new cellar room, close the door and there you are. Out of sight, out of mind.
If that doesn’t work, I guess there’s always e-bay or the kids’ homes.
Prairie Woman—you are Brilliant! Now if I can just convince them without their thinking I have gone a bit off the deep end saving all my stuff!
You should have sold that RV furnished..I have way too much “stuff” too but your stuff sounds more interesting than mine! Men, I think they just appear to be busy all day long..who can really tell what they are really doing out in their shops or sheds:)
Those sheds and barns and pole buildings have many secrets, I wish I knew half of them. My guy has his radio ears on when he is out there and I cannot get his attention even at close range.