Saturday, April 20, 2024

Attic antics!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid.

---

Daily Diary, Day 1327:

I am sitting here recuperating from this morning’s decluttering, which took me up into the attic. There’s a very steep ladder that gets to the attic, so my husband went up first and I was able to hand him the various things bags of books and stuff that I wanted to put up there.

Then I went up the ladder, while he sat in the room below in case I needed something. What I should have asked for is a mask, because the floor of the attic was covered with sawdust that I think may have come down from when we had the new roof put on several years ago, and we just never did anything about it. But I didn’t, although the final thing I did before coming down was to sweep up as much of the sawdust as I could so that in the future when we go up there, it won’t be quite as messy.

Anyway, what I did while I was up there is go through the boxes that were already there, which primarily held things like a couple of dolls that I had growing up, then a baby doll and an American girl doll that my daughter had growing up, their clothes. They were in all very old, sawdust covered bags and so I put them in new plastic bags. There was also doll furniture. I initially saved these thinking that perhaps I would have granddaughters or even grandsons who would be interested, but that didn’t happen and the grandsons are now 13 and 14 so I don’t think it is going to happen.

Anyway, there’s no reason not to keep them. There’s always the possibility that there will be great, grandchildren who would be interested and I don’t mind leaving this kind of thing for my daughter to go through and decide whether or not to keep if they simply stay up there until my husband and I are gone.

The main thing I decided to get rid of was I had several boxes containing all of my old week-at-a-glance books (where I scheduled everything, and I still use, for at least the last 30 years. I kept them because they were the closest things to a diary that I had. There were a couple diaries in there, but as I had remembered, none of them went past the first month.

As both an historian, and because a few times I had actually gone back to look at old ones to pin down a date, I had kept them. But I decided today I was ready throw them out.

What did not get thrown out is the box filled with all the letters I wrote to my parents, nicely organized by year. They started in 1967 when I went off to college and I’m not sure when they end.

I’ve always known they were there, but I was never ready to look at them. However, I decided to bring that box downstairs to see if I’m ready to start looking at them. I also grabbed a packet of letters that that my husband sent me, covering the summer after I met him in college. I don’t think we were ever apart from that summer on.

What I didn’t bring down, is a box that included letters my mother wrote to me over the years (which I was not as good at keeping and are not organized), plus journals that she started writing in the last years of her life. There is also large envelop of letters sent to my dad when my mother died…she had lots of friends who really cherished her.

For now, this box is going to stay upstairs because even thinking about reading them makes me  cry. However, when the remodel is done, and everything is put away, I will bring them down and put them in a better box, and probably leave them downstairs.

Finally, I put all the children’s books I had I decided to put in the attic up in a couple of plastic boxes, as well as a box of miscellaneous things like photographs that I haven’t bothered to put in albums (which are downstairs). Basically, couple other things that I don’t know that I have any desire to look at again, but my daughter might find interesting.

I also noticed way back in the corner of the attic some old computer stuff, like our first computers that are probably at least 20-25 years old. Figuring what to do with all the computer paraphernalia most of which is already downstairs) is one of the tasks that my husband will do, but there’s really no particular rush on that in terms of the remodel.

And now that I have showered and put away the groceries, I am sitting seriously contemplating taking some Advil, because every single joint aches. I suspect a fair amount of it is from yesterday since it’s my experience that when I overdo things, usually I don’t notice it until 24 hours later. However, I am feeling very satisfied with the work I got done the past two days.

The only tasks I now have left is  the decluttering and consolidating all the stuff that is in the three bathrooms. That needs to be done in the next week, but I don’t ahave to do it all at once. The new bathrooms vanities have drawers, which I think will be much easier to keep organized and straight in the future.

Anyhow, I think after lunch, I’m going to make this a day for just taking it easy. I’ll see about walking this evening, depending upon how I’m feeling. It’s sunny today, so I do think I’m going to do a fair amount of sitting outside in the sun and reading.

Here is a rose bush that has seriously overdone itself! 

If you enjoy my daily posts and would like to subscribe for free or become a patron (where you will get the pleasure of giving me the resources to spend more time writing and less time marketing) click the little button below. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!