All I can say is . . .  I hope today is better than the last few.  It was one hell of a weekend!  It started Thursday when our weather dipped to zero, and the cold water line to the kitchen froze.  Of course, I didn’t worry too much about it because it has happened before.  However, I woke to a note from my husband (lets just call him Mr. Stodgy which has been his unofficial nickname for many years) that the pipe was froze.  He came home early from work and started working in the basement to unthaw the pipe.  Now here is where my problem comes in.  Over the years the girls have put their unused junk in the old laundry room.  I also had some boxes of old paperwork in there that I pulled out of storage and never did anything with.  Of course for him to get to the pipe, he had to move some of this stuff.  Not thinking I told him to bring up those boxes of paperwork and I would start shredding it.

Saturday morning Mr. Stodgy started his chore.  He crawled under the deck to get to the air leak, insulated the pipes, cleaned the old laundry room and the workshop.  Bags and bags of junk were carried up and out to the garbage . . . something that we have needed to do for years.

I started my chore of shredding.  Oh my BADness!  30 years of accumulated paperwork from old bank statements (when they actually returned the checks to you) to our lease to our apartment when we moved to Lexington, KY in 1983.  I would work as long as the shredder didn’t overheat and then would have 30 minutes to sit and wait.  During those 30 minutes I found many things to get involved in . . . and none of them were stamping related.  I cleaned the front closet tossing out old worn our tennis shoes, jackets no one wore anymore, just more junk!  I think I shredded up until about 9:30 on Saturday night and still had more to do.

Sunday morning I was awoken by the dogs running in and then Mr. Stodgy making the announcement that we had more problems.  For pity sake . . . could I not even have a cup of coffee!  The water line in the garage to the outside faucet burst and the garage floor was covered with water.  Have you ever paid the hourly rate that plumbers get for emergencies?  Of course, we had to shut the water off at the main and then wait.  We waited until mid-afternoon for the plumber to get here.  He is such a great guy that we didn’t mind too much.  He kept calling us letting us know his time schedule and that he kept getting calls that were slightly more important than ours.  I took the plumber all of 15 minutes to cap off the line, which is all we needed done at this time of year.  We discussed the problems we had been having in the garage with water leaking, and all decided that he would come back in the spring to put a shut off for me at the joint, and fix the mess that was initially put in when the garage was built.

In the meantime, I was still shredding.  In all, Mr. Stodgy carried out two 39 gallon bags, four large kitchen bags, and I think five 30 gallon bags.  Yes, my shredder still works only now lacks a few parts that fell off.  It was a very productive weekend here!

I still have more paperwork I now want to go through.  I find it pointless to keep some of this stuff around any longer and actually feel a little lighter and a tad more organized.  I know that buried in the well closet is another box from 1978 to maybe 1983.  When I finally get the Christmas decorations put away, I’ll pull that box out!

Needless to say, I never ventured into the studio all weekend, but I do have a few more ideas for altered projects now!

Oh and it’s snowing!  A pretty, wet snow.  I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some great pictures later today.