When Money Can Buy Happiness

At least, when a little money can buy a little happiness. Like this . . .

One of the extremely irritating places to me in my house is the pass-through. This is a spot where there were windows in the original trailer that became, well, glassless windows that lead into the added-on living room. 

There is a shelf there, and that is where our landline phone lives. Also the pencil sharpener, pens and pencils, tape, stapler, calculators, etc. It's basically like an office desk, which I do not have. 

That stuff was always all over the place on that shelf. Calculators spread out all around the phone, random pads of paper, pencils that had fallen out of the repurposed honey jars . . . It was a mess. All the time. And it drove me crazy.

Finally, and why this took me so long I do not know, I bought an organizer for this spot. I knew what I wanted to put in it already, so I looked for one that had the appropriate number and size of compartments. 

It cost me $25 and fifteen minutes to go from this:

Yuck.

To this:

Yay!

Of course, keeping it that way will require constant vigilance to put things away as they get taken out, but at least now I have somewhere to put them that is not just the general location of the shelf. And that is $25 very well spent.

Snapshots: Driving and Messes

Starting right off with a candle . . .

This one looked like a mushroom as it started to burn down, much to my amusement.

I spent much of Thursday driving. I was already planning on going to a basketball game, but then the meat processor called to tell us we could pick up our beef. This was not on the way to the game, at all, but rather directly to the east of the game. 

Our house is sort of the point of a triangle between the two towns I was going to, so I went first to the northeast to pick up the beef.

Over 100 miles of this . . .

To pick up this. I covered it with two sleeping bags to keep it frozen for the next six hours until I got home.

Then another 90 miles of this, due west.

And then about 60 more miles of driving after the game, but it was dark and I didn't take a picture.

I drove around 300 miles this day and never went through a town bigger than 3,000 people. The American West really does have some very empty places.

It's been warm the past few days, and I didn't even start the woodstove yesterday. It was nice to have a break from the mess.

Constantly sweeping up bark under the wood holder in the dining room.

And ashes from cleaning out the stove every couple of days.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.