What Longview Means To Me

1. Everything I need is packed in a box behind stacks of other boxes.

2. By the time I find what I need, I've either lost the energy to use the tool, or have forgotten why I needed it.

3. Tile cleaners frequently leave soap scum behind. Pure rubbing alcohol doesn't remove all of it. Using a razor scraper gets most of it.

4. I do not need all the clothing I own. I intend to sew more of it. So there, world.

5. The list of things that should be done is self multiplying, but my energy level is constant and inadequate.

6. Cats do not like change. Tokens of their discontent are usually smelly.

7. Banks LOVE change. It gives them new reasons to erect barriers between me and my money. My accounts are secure because I do not have a Smartphone. People at customer service desks for banks are naive and cannot imagine that everyone in the world does not have a Smartphone.

8. Putting checks in an envelope and mailing them, as I eventually did, is MUCH faster than hunting for an ATM that accepts deposits for other banks. Five (5!) days searching. Two days after I mailed the checks, they reached the bank. The next day, I could use the money. 

9. Laptop computers are wonderful electronic pacifiers.

 10. I searched for 3 weeks before locating Snyder's Sourdough Pretzels. Texans may stock Snyder's, but they stock pretzels covered in chocolate, with honey mustard flavoring, or other fad flavors.  

12. It is warmer at 10 pm than it was all Saturday.

11. There are 55,000 people in Longview. Many of them were at Hobby Lobby Saturday  afternoon.

13. Jarritos grapefruit soda is easy to buy in Longview. 

14. My Magna cart with folding wheels allows me to move filing cabinets. To those who sneered when I bought it, I say Nyah.

15. One interior door stretched over 3 filing cabinets provides a secure temporary workspace for two sewing machines. I say temporary because it looks slightly repellent and is far from my desired sewing space, but it is a sewing space.

16. Six weeks is too long to go without sewing or beading. This is undoubtedly the reason I ventured into Hobby Lobby.

17. It is warm enough outside for plants to grow, but I don't know enough about native Texas plants to do any planting.

18. Learning Open Office is not intuitive. Spacing for numbered lists is idiosyncratic. 

19. My digestive system lives in Dayton.

Are We There Yet?

My possessions got here 2 days before I did. They were stashed in the garage and shed with malice aforethought. All detailed contents labels are hidden. Nothing is where is ought to be. My shoes are still missing.

On the bright side, all computer pieces landed in the same room, a room  without a lot of boxes. The laptops are fine anywhere in the house. The Tower demands direct hookup. We had planned to put the Tower in the same room as the TV, as we so often end  up checking facts from the news.The movers and the installer thought differently.

It is slow going. The dishes have not surfaced and we had to buy 4 plates. The flatware, pots and pans did surface. Whee. One day I managed to shove around two dressers in order to put my bed against a wall and hidden from the entrance. Movers had it positioned like a stuck out tongue. No matter what you did, you'd see that bed.There are days I don't feel like making the bed until 5 pm, and I don't want to look at it either.

Another day I shoved bookcases, a loveseat  and a recliner to make room for a computer desk. The next day I returned the computer desk to the bedroom. In between, I moved 3 small bushes to the property line, dug grass from the street gutter so that rainwater from a steady daylong rain could trickle into the drain, and discovered that portulaca grows wild here. That explains why a mammoth pot of portulaca sold for $2.49.

Curtains and draperies? I sure that someday I will  find them. Meantime, a quilt over the front window gives nighttime privacy and daytime gloom. My room seems oddly barren without  plastic crates of patterns. My mother's room is a box canyon of plastic storage containers. She believes that plastic organizers save space. I believe they are the work of Satan.

My gardening implements are MIA. Also the work of Satan.