A project neither planned nor intended

I’ve had lost of projects over the years, most of which I’ve at least mentioned, but I never could’ve imagined that one of my biggest-ever would be one that I neither planned nor even intended. And yet, this project can change so much.

Last month, I started getting things together to donate to op shops (aka charity shops or thrift stores). It began because I’d never gotten around to getting rid of Nigel’s suits—absolutely no reason, I just never did. But then I started looking for what I could add to the donate pile. I started with shirts that had been Nigel’s, but that I kept to wear. All of them fit, but I decided I didn’t like them anymore, or else I realised the sleeves were too shot for me. That was just the start.

I started looking through my own shirts—ones that had always been mine—and I did that several times, always finding more shirts to add to the donate pile every time I looked. Then I found shorts, pants—all sorts of things. I knew I wasn’t done, but the donate piles were growing higher.

Nigel had put some stuff aside in those plastic zipper bags that you suck the air out of with a vacuum cleaner. Some of the stuff was his, and some was from his partner beofre me, Gary. Nigel wasn’t particularly sentimental about things, but those things he kept meant they were meaningful to him, and I wanted do right by him.

The problem was that after so many years in those bags, the stuff smelled bad. The culprit was the perfume in the laundry powder: Some scents deteriorate over time, and that’s what happened to those items. So, I spent a couple weeks washing, re-washing, and then giving them a special pre-soak before washing them yet again, and they finally stopped smelling bad/odd.

There was one more bag of Nigel’s stuff, things that no longer fit him, but that he didn’t what to get rid of, and that included t-shirts from our last trip to the USA. I went through an expedited process to wash them (I’d learned…), and, after trying them on, I kept most of them. One from our last trip to New York City was a bit too small, so I made that a t-shirt I wear to sleep in, and added one of my too-small sleeping t-shirts to the donate pile.

I then remembered that sometime in my first year in this house I’d put under-bed storage bins under the guest bed. I pulled them out—and it took a rake to pull them close enough for me to grab. Some of it was an instant add to the donate pile, but there were some of my shorts that I didn’t know were there (but wondered what happened to them…), plus a couple of Nigel’s that are perfect for my walking workouts. Even so, a lot ended up in the donate pile.

I know that if I go through my wardrobe yet agin, I’ll still find more things to donate, and this is a good thing, of course, so I’m going to do exactly that. However, there’s SO much more! I have—what’s the word?—“homeware”? “Decor”? Basically, decorative things that I don’t want or, in some cases, even like. There’s so much of that sort of stuff.

I also have excess bedding (chiefly duvet sets) and good quality towels that I can donate—once I go through them. In fact, I found one duvet set recently when I went through the blanket box at the foot of bed what I was working on the ill-fated steps for Leo.

And that’s where I’m at right now: Lots of stuff to pack up to donate, and more to go through. That’s why this will ultimately end up being my biggest-ever project, even though I neither planned nor even intended to start it. Yes, but I’ll feel so much lighter once it’s done!

Powerful again

Today was the day I was warned about: The power to my house was turned off for some sort of routine maintenance. And then it returned. Still, everything about it was strange.

This morning, I was sitting catching up on news on my iPad, sipping my coffee, and then I got an alert telling me that a personal hotspot was available on my phone. That message told me the power had gone off, because my tablet knew the wifi was suddenly gone (the iPad I have is wifi-only). It was approximately 9:03am.

My house was quiet at the time—but it’s always quiet at that time of day, so that wasn’t enough to tip me off; the alert did. I next went and switched off all important things at the wall (TVs, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, computers, etc.) so that when the power came back on, and in the unlikely event there was a power surge, nothing sensitive would be damaged. The alert from the power company had warned me to do that. I then had the presence of mind to make a list of all the power points I’d turned off so I’d remember to turn them all back on (except of the laundry machines, because they can remain switched off until the next time I need them.

I knew that apart from making a coffee or cooking, there wasn’t not much I couldn’t do today, apart from anything Internet-y on my wifi-only iPad (obviously not important). Yesterday, though, I’d planned on mowing the back lawn today, but I needed to charge the battery, and I forgot to do that yesterday, and didn’t get a chance to charge it before the power was switched off. However, it rained last night, so I wasn’t going to be able to do that, anyway. I’d also thought about doing some washing, and then remembered the power would be off. Ironically, I could do the vacuuming because it runs off 18v batteries—and I did vacuum today, but it was after the power came back on.

I made my breakfast (and Leo’s), which meant navigating the darkened fridge. I had my shower a little while after that, knowing that even though there was no power, the water in the tank would still be hot, and it was. But, then what?!

I thought about doing any number of the things that didn’t require power, but I realised the house was getting a little warm and stuffy, so I opened up lots of windows using the new window screens, really for the first time. It worked well, and helped lower the temperature. Even with teh wondows open, it was so very quiet!

I decided to hand wash some dishes while I still had some hot water, and that went well. And then I had an idea: I’d use my hot tap water, which often feels really hot to me, to make a cup of instant coffee. It was an incomplete success because it was quite warm, but not hot. Even so, caffeine. ‘Nuff said.

My phone was beginning to run down its charge (I didn’t charge it overnight), and I knew I had a solar-powered powerbank I bought not long after I moved into this house, well before I had the solar panels installed. I’ve never used it, apart from trying the torch (flashlight) function, whic told me the power switch was crap. After much perseverence—and reading the instructions—I got it to charge my phone, but at only 5w, it was slow!

While my phone charged, I spent some time doing some chores, but I eventually started getting bored (and I was tired, as usual, from poor sleep caused worrying about whether I’d have enough time before the power went off to get up and have a coffee (I did) and a shower (I’d didn’t). So I sat down and picked up my iPad to play a game that I knew didn;t need wifi. But I accidentally tapped on a different game that I thought wouldn’t work without wifi, and it loaded and played not just normally, it was better than normal. The game normally played endless long ads between levels, and it frequently froze for a second or two, but none of that happened without wifi. I wasn’t planning on trying to play the game, because I thought it needed wifi, but I definitely wasn’t expecting it to work perfectly without wifi.

The power came back on at 1:53pm, not quite 5 hours after it went off, and two hours earlier than we’d been warned about. Which is pretty good. I slowly started switching things back on, starting with the fridge, but I realised I wasn’t exactly sure how to turn the air conditioning back on. I went outside and turned the outdoor compressor back on, and when I came back into the house I saw the control panel was lit up, and the display said that it was off. I tapped the cooling button, and it still had all the settings—maybe it has battery back-up for settings? I learned I really ought to read that manual sometime…

What surprised me the most about today was that I didn’t mind the disruption at all. Sure, I could’ve planned things to work on, and arguably “should” have, but I wasn’t constantly checking my watch, and, in fact, was always surprised how much time had passed since the last time I checked my watch.

So, today was a bit annoying, sure, but the disruption wasn’t a big deal. But it was a day filled with lots of little surprises, too. Maybe the warning we got made a real difference this time?