I think not, but I’m still going through the items that never made it to the jewelry cases, most of which still had pieces of information to identify them. I am indeed a fortunate person. I can’t claim to not have moments of profound sadness. Greta seems to sense these moments and does her best to lead me in a different direction. I’ve been reading, “A Dog’s Purpose: A novel” by W. Bruce Cameron…a great read. The book set me a few degrees off my normal center…for which I am very grateful. A “tear jerker” of sorts for me, but a gentle flow of salt to my lips. I loved this book. The combination of loss, reinforced by the gain of such a wonderful friend/pet as Greta, leaves me feeling almost whole.
I am amazed by the success of my eBay endeavor. Yes, it consumes my time, but in a productive way. I’ve recently been figuring, algebraically speaking, the hours in a week (168) with the sum of sleeping hours (8x&7=56), and the estimated time spent identifying, writing the “ad-blurb”, and photographing each item and creating the eBay listing (26 per week, 3 hours each = 78). The simple math says 168 – (56 + 78 ) = 134. 168 – 134 = 34 hours left in my week for personal care (laundry, cooking, bathing, etc.), lawn mowing, distractions, walking the dog, having a lunch with a friend. I can see how tight my time line is. I’ve decided to limit the number of days that Patty Higham will be cleaning the house to just one 8 hour day. She was trying to hurry through getting the house in a saleable condition, but 3 days/week was providing me with more distraction than I could handle. eBay is flowing cash, but it is so time consuming.
Now I’m starting to think about the realities of preparing for taking the whole month of June and possibly July off from eBay. We had our campsite and boat-slip at ShelterCove on Odell Lake which is prepaid for the whole month of June. My kids will join me for part of that month and we will scatter some of Mary’s ashes in some special locations and share our feelings about her impact on our lives. I’ve invited friends to come up as well, to share the joys of that special spot in Oregon! There are a little less than three weeks left in April. Beginning in May, I will cut eBay back by 50% to give myself time to prepare the camper, boat and make fishing lures for the trip.
