Two rooms cleaned, top-to-bottom, so far this week. Not what I had planned, but the best laid plans never survive the initial encounter.

Today I mounted wall brackets for my husband's shelving. I really had to put my back into it--screwing the inscrutable, we call it--this house is 50

[husband interrupted asking if the filter between my computer and the telephone line had been messed with. of course I had to drop everything to help.

btw, he reloads the Windows XP operating system about every 6 months because of "computer problems". i think it's crazy; whoever heard of having to reload the operating system and then re-load and reconfigure all the software and the drivers for the periphals etc. weird]

as I was saying when I was so thoughtlessly interrupted, is that this house is 50+ years old and the wood structure is well-aged. Hard to screw a screw or hammer a nail into it. My shoulders and back are protesting the hard work; since I'm not as strong as a man, I have to use shoulders and back as well as arms and hands to get the job done. Thank you to my first husband for teaching me how to do that.

Not only shelves are going to go into this room, but a $100 revolving tower for all his software. He fantasizes himself a techie, I think, though mostly he uses the computer to IM his girlfriends and play on the girlie websites. I will say, though, his collection of software is impressive.

I pry him out of his chair once in a while to walk around the house a bit (to the kitchen, mostly) and outside for a few minutes of throwing the ball to the dog and sitting in the sunshine (vitamin D and all that). His only other amusement is watching DVDs in the evening and reading. Oh, and going to doctors' appointments.

Please, please, dear friends, don't let me turn into a little old lady who sits in a chair all day and becomes a mental and physical vegetable. Keep me up and fighting and living and learning. Thank you.