With apologies to Garrison Keillor:
It’s been an exciting week here at Lake Stuff-Be-Gone.
The rains have passed; the matzah is still calling, and the children have all gone home.
We always know to expect the unexpected, but it always surprises us, however prepared we think we are.
And it’s like cleaning for Pesach; you aren’t finished until you get to that point where you give in, but you can’t anticipate when that will be, exactly.
The water came in slowly, then more and then in places that it never came in before. Then it came back in because the hose that we had put on (we? the people who did it for us) the new permanent sump pump split and so the water re-entered the basement. And so I had to put on boots to go to the basement to get any food that we were still keeping there. Thank G-d the fridge didn’t go out. That’s not a little thing over Yuntuf. But many of the boxes that had been piling up and up and up got wet and needed processing out of the house.
So Ishi hired a great kid (anyone under 30) to help him for 7 hours yesterday get rid of all that stuff plus things that had been lingering for years and years and years. This is after I spent many hours last year cleaning out the basement, but it got re-messed up after we brought my FIL’s stuff there last year.
So my basement is cleaner than it has been in almost 30 years, but oy to get to this point! I must put things in perspective; there are many people whose houses flooded, not just nuisance water. Our neighbors lost their water heater, their heat wasn’t working for many days, and their washer was out for a long time due to 1 foot of water in the basement; they’ve never had water before. Ever.
So this, in comparison, was not bad. But the timing…
So can we learn from this?
Of course we can! (No apologies to speechwriters here.)
We can learn that you should never put something aside to be dealt with later, since later only gets bigger. Sort first, and delete/recycle/get rid of most stuff.
Don’t hold onto stuff. This is not the same as the first; this is a continuation. You know the closet rule? If you haven’t worn it in a year, dump. The same with papers, except for what the US government requires.
Books? Library! I know; I do like some books, too. I think that’s the difference between books and sefarim. Even then, there’s a limit!
I could have called this column Dayenu.
Take time with people; not things.
Less is more; it gives you more space for the people. We still have the living room chair in my bedroom because of priorities. I need to move it to go back to my exercise ball tomorrow. Okay, one more day.
And my camera? Somehow that got misplaced between our one outing last week with the kiddies and my house. Perhaps it will show up and perhaps it got stuck in the mud. It will sort out sooner or later.
Or not.
But Mostly Hers 