After a couple of days of colder weather today was a delightful surprise. It was warm. I wore short sleeves for a brief time today. According to weather reports — and we all know how that goes — we will have another couple of days of warmth. Then the cold will reappear, probably for the remainder of the winter months. That’s okay. I love winter if for no other reason than I am still partial to areas of the country that celebrate the seasons. Sometimes that makes me wonder why I am looking forward to moving farther south.
Yesterday morning when I first went outside there was a brief, a very brief, period of spitting snow. It wasn’t enough to get excited about but it did show up for an instant like very tiny scattered polka dots on my black car. But, like I said it was all in an instant.
Today started out warmer and as the day passed the temperature probably reached 60 degrees or close to it. It was pleasant and did give me a chance to do a little last minute yard work. More importantly it was a wonderful day to be outdoors. I raked. I trashed a few things that had accumulated in the garage. And, that leads me to wonder why I — and you, too — decide to keep some things, to store them in the garage or outside storage building.
I remember putting that old chair in the garage. I think I had dreams of doing something exciting with the chair when I put it there. Maybe I was thinking of refinishing it, after I did a few repairs. Today when I looked at it stuck in the corner with a box on the seat and a old tarp thrown across the back I decided it was time to get rid of it. As I dragged it down to the road for the trash man to gather on his rounds tomorrow I tried to figure out why I always thought I would get around to “fixing” stuff. It seems that I never do. The road to hell…. and good intentions, followed by a lack of interest.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a hoarder. In fact, in my older life I have almost become a minimalist. I am not a collector like some of my friends. I do have a few figurines of hippos but not because I really liked them when I got my first one. With all my friends collecting one thing or another I decided that if I was expected to collect something I would collect hippos. After all, how many of those do we see in stores. Well, believe it or not, a few friends would go on holiday and bring me back a hippo, from the tiniest to one that is rather cute and sits about two feet tall by the hearth. Once I realized that some of my friends were determined to help me add to the collection I confessed that I actually had no real interest in collecting anything.
I don’t like to dust. That comes from my childhood. My mother and my grandmother collected everything imaginable. Every table in our home had tiny little teacups with the saucer on a stand behind the cup. There were figurines of all sorts — all that had to be dusted. Of course, as an only child by the time I was ready to take on a few chores dusting was delegated to me. I swore that I would never collect anything that had little practical use and needed to be dusted every few days.
Well, back to the chair. It was beside the road for less than two hours. I saw a car stop in front of it and a younger woman got out to examine it. I suppose she had the same idea I must have had when I first came across the chair at a yard sale. It looked promising to me when I saw it and it must have looked promising to her as she placed it in the trunk of her car. I do hope she has better luck getting some use out of it than I did.
Anyway, today I am thankful for a warm day that allowed me to free up a corner of my garage — and making an unknown passerby smile. I do hope she enjoys it. Maybe if the warm weather holds for the weekend she will get it refinished.
