I am not Superwoman.

I woke up this morning at my usual 3:30 and laid in bed reflecting on life as it plays out here on South Road.  I have a dumpster in my back yard and it is about 2/3 full.  I really need to either finish filling it or just call the pickup man and have it taken away.  That is when it dawned on me the reason for my indecision about a lot of things is that I am trying to save everything as well as everybody that I come in contact with in this world. I function best when I make lists and check things off as I go.  So here it is a little after 4:00 AM and this is my black and white list.

1.  I can not save the world.  The world can not save me.
2.  I can not change people.  I can change my perspective of people.

And here my list peters out.  Not doing so good, am I?  #1 is a given.  It is simple and to the point and there is no room for arguement.  I run myself ragged trying to make sure that everyone has a roof over thier head and a belly full of food, but I miss the big picture.  The world exists outside of my little realm. There are more homeless kids then just the few I see at Posada.  There are more immigrants then the few I see at Los Pobres.  And they change.  The ones I saw last year or even last month have moved on and forgotten about me.  New ones have come in their place.  I hope some where something I did or said helped someone, but I have no way of knowing.  So I move on as they have moved on.

Now as to my perspective of people.  I tend to project on people  I deal with the personna I want them to have.  Most of my friends have become my friends and stayed my friends from the first day I met them.  Frank and Clifford have been my friends since I came to this place from Kansas.  I go years without even speaking with them, but they are there and when I need something they are the first to respond.  I like to think I serve some pupose in thier life as well.

My circle of  friends changed from when I first came here and again after I divorced that husband and again after the stint in college and working at Liz's cafe in Bessemer, and another divorce.  I settled into rather a loose routine when I married Kenny.  That was when I began working in the  LGBT  and later in the AIDS venue.  After the loss of Kenny and then Mark the circle of friends morphed into the immigrant and/or the homeless sector.  I did a stint at Hospice and dabbled in the indigenous sector.  Along the way I picked up a (for want of a better word) "boyfriend".

Now what I was thinking on that little trick, I will never know.  I, once again, projected on him what I wanted him to be, which was a fine Christian believer who would not tell a lie and could always be depended on when I needed someone.  As that turned out he seemed to morph into someone I did not even know.  So while that one is dying a slow, painful death, I am re-evaluating and giving serious thought to selling everything in my garage in a yard sale.  I guess, if the people who stored it there, wanted it, they would have it.  Right?

But all that is neither here nor there and has naught to do with my life today.  Since I seem to be the "on call" person for getting donations from point A to point B, I am going to pick up a load of clothes for Sister Nancy and then come home and get out in that tin shed and get to sorting.  One pile is going to be garage sale stuff and the other is going into that dumpster.  Then I am going to start on this house.  I  have 2400 square feet of floor space crammed with stuff  I never used, will never use, and have no idea why in the hell I drug it all in here anyway!  I have 2 floor looms, for godsake!  I have more sewing machines than Singer!  I have boxes of thread for sewing, weaving, knitting, crocheting.  I have boxes and boxes of books for weaving, knitting.....you get the picture?


So there you have my life in a nutshell!  One passing thought.  Years ago I gave a plaque to my first husband.  It read "If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."
When he died I inherited that plaque.


When next Spring comes, there is going to be a "For Sale" sign up on South Road and there is going to be an empty garage and an empty house here on this little acre.  My little Honda Fit is going to hold everything I need to finish out my days on this big blue ball.  I am trading my purse for a billfold with a debit card.  My dogs are old.  My cat is mean and I keep remembering "He who travels fastest travels light....and alone."

A book sale is easier said then done!

PFLAG funds several  scholarships at PCC.  For many years we did it by hosting a spring yard sale.  Recently we have decided that book sales are the way to go and much less work.  See, all year Ross would gather stuff for the sale and until last year it was all stored in the basement at his condo.  Then my garage opened up and that sucker was filled to overflowing.  When the idea of book sale came up it seemed perfect.  The books would be gathered and stored on site at PCC where the sale would be held.  That was right up until somebody donated 80,000 books from the library of an estate.


 
And then my garage came into play again.  A big van backed up to the door and when it left it was empty.  Not so my garage.

The first thing I did was start repacking because a lot of these were in plastic containers that they wanted back.  I tried sorting, but I really got confused!  I did manage to get a box for Louis Lamore (?) and other authors that I remembered people asking for at the last book sale.  Oh, and the Harlequins, and some where I have a box for kids books and another one for cook books.  See all the boxes on the shelves?  These picture were taken after I had been working for over 3 weeks on this.  I plan on finishing up in the next couple weeks and I hope nobody asks me where anything is located!  See how neat?

And way back there in the corner I can see empty shelves!  It is my goal today to make a path back to those shelves so they can not be empty any more.  Wish me luck!  Oh, first I have to gather up some more boxes.

Should have taken a picture of my chair, fan, and box of Kleenex where I spend a lot of time crying!  Oh, yeah, and the plate with egg roll remains on it, my bowl of melted ice cream, a few chicken bones, and my bottle of water and Jack Daniels!  As soon as all the plastics are empty, I can take a break.  I have rented part of the garage to my son-in-law for storage so this will curb my ability to say "Oh, yeah!  I have a great big garage.  Bring all your stuff out here and poke it in there."  I am bad about that!  But, then again, if no one used it then it would just set empty and empty is not good either. 

 

 

So, for now it is off to church.  Next week I may give you a tour of my lower levels here in the house!  If you cringed at my garage, you will run screaming down the road at my basement, but Hey!  If I can live in it, you can look at it!

Have a good day and remember, 

 People who live in glass houses, should not throw stones!

 

 

 

 

 



Pre Sale Garage Sale

 

This was the sight at my house a couple Saturday's ago.  My garage was packed to the rafters with the rummage that Ross and his helper's have been hauling in for the whole year.  They started right after the PFLAG Scholarship yard sale last year and have not stopped.  Since it is almost time again he knew this stuff had to be sorted and what better way then to drag it all out, let people paw through it and anything that can be replaced with a hand full of money becomes that much easier to move across town to the big sale the first weekend in April.  So the plan was made.

Nancy is always head cashier, so she sets at this table.  The item is brought to the table and she eyeballs it and gives them a price.  Prices are always low.  If it can be held in one hand it is under a dollar.  Two handed items are over a dollar and furniture can run all the way up to $5.00-$10.00.  Buyers are reminded that it all goes to the scholarship program at PCC.  Rebecca and her crew are always on hand helping, so it kind of turns into a party of sorts.  You all know how I like to cook, so this day it was a cook out on my big smoker.

This was the view I had of the sale.  I pulled the smoker out and started my fire.  Being the lazy white girl that I am, I just pulled it far enough out of the shed to keep from asphyxiating myself.  As soon as the coals were ready, I dumped a package of hot dogs on the grill.  Now, here is something I figured out rather quickly:  Do not set your grill with the back part lower then the front and put round hot dogs on it laying straight as they tend to roll and do so rather quickly!  There is no back to the grill and so anything that starts a down hill roll does nothing except pick up speed.  So two of the hot dogs escaped the fate of being eaten.  I still had 18 hot dogs left.  And 24 hamburgers and 8 pounds of potato salad.  Oh, and a freshly baked peach cobbler.

The pre sale ran from 11:00 AM till 1:00 PM.  Course there were early birds, but by 1:00 all the signs were down and my house is hard to find without arrows.  I had fed several people early as they needed to get back into town.  Everything being put back into the garage, which now had lots of room, we began the finishing up of the food.   So Rebecca's husband threw the rest of the meat on the grill and cooked it to perfection.   And here is our hallowed leader, Ross in his lovely Christmas apron, testing our wares.  I am happy to announce that we fed at least 23 people and had no left overs, and no one went away hungry.

And I am also happy to announce that we are ready for the sale!  Sadly this will be our last yearly scholarship sale.  When the whole year is spent scrounging things for the sale, loading and hauling  things for the sale, sorting things for the sale, categorizing for the sale, and using every inch of storage for the sale, it gets to be a very all consuming event.  So, we will now concentrate on books only.  Those can be stored at the college and pulled out and put away easily.  We may have a couple bake sales.  Lord only knows what we will do, but knowing Ross and Rebecca, I am sure we will do something useful.  It has been a long run and I will miss it, as I am sure you all will, but time marches on.

So, see you at the sale!

 

APRIL 5 & 6, 2013, FRIDAY AND SATURDAY

110 LACROSS

8:00 A M -???????



LAST ANNUAL PFLAG SCHOLARSHIP YARD SALE

 

Sorry, I got side tracked!

Well, right in the middle of the mess came World AIDS Day and now that is over and for some ungodly reason known to no one in the whole world, I decided that the garage has got to be emptied.  See, my dear husband passed to his heavenly reward 10 years ago and left all his tools, truck parts, peg board, wood working equipment, nails, grease and dust behind.  Now in all fairness, I did sell what ever anyone was interested in at the time, or gave it away.  That was long ago.
Now PFLAG is storing stuff in my garage for the scholarship yard sale in the spring.  Bear in mind that this garage is large enough to park a semi with a long dump trailer attached and still have room for 4 full sized cars.  Getting the picture?  So a friend of mine moved from Vineland to Pueblo West and needed temporary storage.  The a son-in-law came dragging in a great big bunch of racks.  And lord only knows who stuck that pool table in the corner!  Are you getting the picture?  Forgot to tell you that this thing also has a loft!
So they been hauling stuff in and putting it in the garage and the center is now full!  And it is creeping towards oblivion. Along the south wall are steel shelves 3 deep and about 2' x6'.  On the said shelves were broken chains. lug nuts, valuable stuff and total crappola all mixed together.  Since my back has gone south long ago, I got my friend Dan over here and pointed and he carried.  I began to find stuff that I knew was good, but I had no use for it so I called my friends, Frank and Cliff.  These guys have been my friends forever and when I need something they are always there to help.  I knew they were still out and kicking because I had lunch with them last spring.  We had all started Colorado Dirt many years ago and they are frustrated "pickers".  And here they came in their car.  We checked the garage and the next day they returned with a truck and trailer.  Yesterday the returned with a truck, trailer and a bobcat!  Today will be the third day of actual loading and I can see bare floors popping out everywhere!  This is wonderful. 
Today they are on their own because I have to take the dog to the groomer and I just happened to notice that my drivers license expired 3 months ago, so I will be setting in that little room with the hoards waiting my turn.  The dog takes about 3 hours so this should all work out well.  At least it would in a perfect world.  Then it is off to lunch with my friend Linda at SCAP.  Then home to see if I can install Microsoft Office on this computer from Hell!!  And I have satin sashes to finish sewing for the rodeo club.  And listings are running out on ebay so I need to take care of that!  And I want to get a warp measured out for a set of towels.  Wish there was two of me.
In the meantime, I am neglecting the story on the Chapter One Blog and the desk is piling up again.  Good news though!  I did get the cookie bags ready for the SCAP clients and Sherman left me a new pair of jeans and I have those marked and ready to hem.  And did I tell you I have the old computer set up down stairs and the printer is working and God is Good!

Oh, no! Can it beeeeeeeeeee?

Looks pretty harmless, doesn't it?  Well it is not!  There are bees there and they are very mean bees.  The other day I popped over there to drop off a couple boxes.  First box delivered and on the way back to the car a bee stung me on the ankle.  I grabbed the second box and hurried inside.  Bee bite on  the way up the step.  Dropped the box inside, pulled the door shut, turned the key and another on the way to the car.  By this time I was in pain.  Those damn things hurt!  Luckily I always have my big container of ice water so I fished out an ice cube and rubbed the two on my leg that hurt the worst.  The one on my arm wasn't that bad. 
After a trip to the dermatologist, I drove back over to asses the situation.  Bees were every where and it seemed they were concentrated at the front porch and in the evergreens.  So I came home and started calling exterminators.  Well, let me tell you now, that is what my mother always called an exercise in futility!  The one company who actually had an opinion as to how to do this was quite clear on two things.  The nest in the front would cost $160 to remove and the one in the back would be an additional $45.  That was well and good, but I can not see a nest in the front or back.  Well, that is a problem then cause we can not move it if we can not see it.  Hell, if I could see it, I could move it!
Now you all know that I am a kind hearted woman and I do not hurt anything, man or beast, but me and those bees are going to come to a n understanding of some kind!  I do not like to kill bees, but by the same token, I do not like to be stung by them.  So here is the deal:
I know a lot of you out there have similar ideas.  If you have any idea how I could possibly get them to leave quietly, or at least stay away from me, I would love to hear them.  There is a comment place down there where you can click and get a thing to write on and tell me what to do.  Or email me at loumercer3@aol.com
We have a sale coming up at this house in a couple weeks and killer bees dive bombing our customers is not going to be good. I googled this and some where it said the safe and natural way to destroy them is spray with soapy water.  But, there you go killing them.  And if that does not work there are going to be some pissed off bees after me again.  As mad as they were the other day, I do not want to further ruffle thier fur, so to speak.
So I shall anxiously await any suggestions  any of you might possibly have to clear up this little wrinkle in my world.
 VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

From the back cover

Chapter One...Loose Ends
Lou Mercer

Meg Parker led a simple life.  She was a widow of three years and lived on a chicken farm at the foot of the mighty Rockie Mountains.  Life was good and her little store on eBay made her extra spending money.  But snow and wildlife were not the only things lurking in the forest above her house.  Nor did it stay in the forest for long.

Marshall Purcell came home a wounded veteran from vietnam.  He still had his dreams, but they were of an incestuous past that threatened to consume him.

When Meg and Marshall met it seemed an inconsequential meeting, but it changed both their lives forever.  And change is not always a good thing.

This is adult fiction at its best without all the sex.  Well, maybe just a little bit. 

About the author.  Lou Mercer was born in Nickerson, Kansas. She came to Pueblo, Colorado in 1977 and is now a product of the majestic Rockie Mountains