Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

So today Earl and I made the trek to my hometown in a pickup truck. Today was the first day I had step foot into my Dad’s house since the beginning of 2012. The reasons for the long stretch of not visiting the house is not really important.
Per my Dad’s wishes outlined in his will, the estate is getting ready to list the house for sale. This involves cleaning out the contents, making sure things are in order, etc. My aunt and uncle have been handling most of this and quite frankly I am very appreciative of their efforts.

Since it was most likely the last time I would be in the house that I grew up in, I took a few moments to reflect and remember the good memories I have of living in that house. We had moved into the house the night before my first day of fourth grade. Dad had been building the house for two or three years prior to our moving in; the house wasn’t completed that first night we slept there. I remember Mom not having a stove at the time (it was on back order), so she was making everything in an electric skillet.

This room was my bedroom. The carpet is original to the house, the walls are lighter than the matching green paint that was chosen for me shortly before we moved in. The ceiling fan was added long after I had moved out on my own.

So many memories in that room. My Yorx stereo with recordable 8-track deck, messing around with my first computer, looking at a magazine that I didn’t dare let anyone in my family know that I had (it wasn’t porn, it was actually Army recruitment literature. There, I said it.) I didn’t really get too emotional when I walked into the room and saw it in the state that it was currently in. I appreciated the moment for what it was.

Earl and I loaded a couple of things into the pickup truck we had borrowed from his work for the occasion. We have two small pieces of furniture that match our house in a very natural way.

I walked the property, visiting the barn that my father had built in the 90s. The barn still smells new. It’s where he finished building the plane that he ultimately flew for his very last flight. I didn’t know a lot about that plane but I know that he was excited to build it.

Going through some of the stuff in the garage I did find the checklist that he used for the 1940 J-5A that he had restored in the early 1980s. The checklist was my contribution. It was typed by me on a manual Smith-Corona typewriter. I remember typing two identical copies up for him as if it were yesterday.

After gathering the few things we wanted from the house, I decided to walk the front half of the back eight acres. The property is actually 10 acres, with the front two being the site of the house and the lawn. The remaining eight is bisected by railroad tracks that aren’t nearly as busy as they used to be.

The woods were my domain when I was a teenager and I was always outside on some sort of personal adventure whenever the weather permitted. Being the road geek that I am, I had a “road map” of the woods laid out in my head and I even marked these imaginary roads with paper road signs. My geekiness hasn’t died off as I’ve grown older. I loved those woods, and I thought it was appropriate to go for one more walk.

Dad built this bridge over a swampy area around 10 years ago. While starting to show its age, I think the bridge is still holding up well. The path leading up to either end is barely discernible, but I was able to find my way. I guess the road map in my head still lives on. Dad’s paths followed my trampled down paths from years earlier.

Facing east on the railroad tracks. The tracks are actually a north-south line that runs from Syracuse to Watertown, however, a short section runs from east to west. When I was younger trains seemed to pass by every hour or two. Before my day there was a second set of tracks (as seen by the roadway on the right).

I always used this marker, which indicates that Syracuse is 41 miles away, as a guide to know where I was when I would come out of the woods and end up on the tracks. It’s about a 1/3 of the mile west of my Dad’s property but it was a good orientation beacon when I was a kid. I surprisingly jogged the distance from the far side of Dad’s property to this marker to snap this photo. I guess being in the woods helped me find my youthful energy again.

After we said our goodbyes, I told Earl that we had to make a run into town before heading home. We stopped at the Byrne Dairy in the center of town where we both enjoyed a chocolate milk.

All in all it was a good day today. I have been going through old yearbooks that I inherited from my Dad’s estate this evening. I never knew that my grandmother had collected yearbooks for many years and they are in pristine condition. Kinda cool.

So beginning on the first of this month I decided to take the 30 days of September to build a new habit. I was inspired by Matt Cutts from Google and his TED talk on trying something new for 30 days.

I am trying to say something nice to a complete stranger at least once a day for 30 days. It could be a friendly smile, wave and greeting as we pass by in the mall, I could compliment a waiter or waitress on their demeanor or I might tell someone in an elevator that they look quite nice today. I am doing this for 30 days for a couple of reasons: 1. I need to break out of my comfort zone a little bit, 2. I want to send a positive vibe by sharing positive conversations with others, with the hope that the recipient will pay it forward and 3. believe it or not, I’m a little shy when it comes to talking with strangers. I’m not comfortable talking on the phone and while I am good at filling “dead air” with random chatter, I’m not really that good at making small talk.

Five days into this challenge and I’m feeling I’m making progress. Just a few moments ago I waved to a man getting into his car simply because he had a SU jersey on. He waved back. I said “Go SU!”. I refrained from jumping up and doing a split in the parking lot because I didn’t want to ruin my work slacks. I’m not that much of a cheerleader anyways.

I’m thinking I like the idea of this 30 day challenge and I’m already thinking of what my challenge could be in October. I’m finding this challenge to inspiring.

And inspiration is always good.

I am in a bit of a mood today. It’s not the best of mood that I am in and I kind of feel bad about that. I’m not feeling like my usually feisty/angry/frustrated self when I’m batting around this kind of mood, but rather I’m feeling pensive. Analytical. Disappointed.

For the past 20 minutes I’ve been trying to write a blog entry about my mood and I just can’t do it. I guess what I’m feeling today is better suited for my personal diary and meditative efforts.

So here are some things to smile about:

1. It is a gorgeous day in Central New York. Autumn is quickly approaching and the leaves are changing color to dress themselves for the season. I’m looking forward to some crisp cool weather for cycling this weekend.

2. My husband always makes me smile and today he brought home lunch so we could enjoy our lunch hour together. Jamie always makes us smile and he phoned during lunch to make sure we were having a good day.

3. Earl and I have little in the way of plans this weekend outside of cleaning up the house and reorganizing our existence a little bit. The whirlwind of travel over the past month has slightly scattered things and quite frankly I’m looking forward to home time this weekend.

4. For one that could theoretically claim that he is halfway through his life, I’m feeling good physically. My prime might not meet the charted ideals, but I’m feeling good, comfortable in my own skin and overall just feeling “prime”.

The glum feeling that plagued the beginning of this blog entry is lifting. Maybe I just needed to think about the good things for a few moments.

My hopes for lunch time tranquility have been somewhat interrupted by a new distraction in my lunch time routine, that being the presence of a minivan populated with one adult and two children.

The ever present seagulls are delighted by the fact that the parent has opted to feed the children Whoppers and French Fries today. For some unknown reason, the parent has opted to dine in the minivan instead of going inside the restaurant. I believe a the state’s non-smoking law is involved.

One of the children in the backseat has noticed the prissy seagull that is she him- or herself today. The child is making “wooooo”, “yoo-hoo” and other assorted shrieking sounds in an attempt to attract the attention of Mr. or Miss Priss. The seagull is making like a cat and sharing an air of disinterest. However, when the girl waved a french fry around, the seagull took notice and snatched it right from the loud child’s hand.

I laughed at the site of this. There was no harm done. No one was harmed in the process and it brought and end to the shrieking noises. In fact, Mr. or Miss Priss made such an impression that many seagulls started to descend upon the van.

The minivan has now departed. Tranquility restored.

New York State, like a handful of other states in the United States, has a container law which requires the inclusion of a bottle deposit on drink bottles. Originally limited to beer and soda pop bottles when the legislation was introduced in 1984, the law now applies to many different kinds of beverage bottles (water bottles, etc). The mechanics are simple: you pay an extra $.05 for each bottle you purchase (for example, an extra $.30 when you purchase six pack of something) and when you return the bottle you get your nickel back.

Pretty simple, right?

The idea behind the effort is that it is suppose to curb littering and encourage recycling. I can speak to the former: I believe it has helped with littering efforts but I don’t know if littering is down because of the bottle law or because of general societal trends. I can’t speaking to the recycling effort: I don’t know what happens when a bottle is returned these days, we plunk it in a machine and the machine makes belching noises and adds $.05 to an accumulative credit slip. Don’t forget to press “Finished” when you’re done!

Earl and I lived in our previous house for six years. When it was time to move we had six years worth of returnable bottles bagged up and shoved in a dark corner of one of the barns. Too lazy to return the bottles, we donated the effort to a local civic organization (I think it was a high school band or something) and we were happy that they got to keep the proceeds of bottle return money. While I’m assuming returning bottles is making the environment a better place, we are lazy when it comes to returning the bottles. The vast majority of markets/packies/beverage places that take bottles for return have automated the process with machines must like the one pictured above, but it’s just a pain in the butt to actually return the bottles. Since New York State is famous for taxing its citizens to death, we just figure the $.30 on a six pack of whatever is just another New York tax and I’m sure the government enjoys that line of thinking. We don’t return bottles now until they start overflowing all over the garage floor. In the past we’ve convinced others (mainly Jamie) that they can keep the money if they return the bottles, but the lure of a little pocket cash isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Maybe we should start saving them up again for another civic effort and we’ll donate them if we decide to move someday.

I guess we’ll start building a barn.