From Carolyn (non-exchanger) (coping)

Carolyn is a friend (former neighbor) who has a design degree so I've always known she'd be able to do lettering. You cannot imagine how excited I was to receive this - her first attempt at lettering - while I was in Chicago. And I had neglected to send her a birthday card in February even though I knew exactly when her birthday was. Or maybe I did. I have no way of knowing what happened in the past couple years. Anyhow, I am very proud of her and think she did a fabulous job. 

I've mentioned Carolyn previously. She came up with the concept of The Sifting Room. That's the room where you put all the stuff that you need to sift through. The rest of the house has only the essential items needed in each room - none of the extra stuff that you might need to get rid of. It has taken me 33 years to get a sifting room and I am wildly excited. I already have several closets and cabinets where you can see exactly what is in each one. There is nothing stuffed behind something else. This is my goal for the whole house. No digging. Everything is clearly visible and if it is in a box, there is a legible label.

Hopefully, there will also be a spreadsheet with a list of every single thing and where to find it. This will be for Mr Wilson when I am out of town.

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One more thing crossed my mind about languishing and dragging ourselves out of our fallow periods. As I mentioned, I don't think we need to be too concerned about the timeline. Most of us have been through hard times at some point and we got through them. So, it's likely that we will get through the pandemic. Of course, with the variants, maybe we will have to adjust to an ever changing virus that complicates things for the rest of our lives. If that is the case, eventually, we will just refer to BC and AC: before covid and after covid - and we'll adapt. It's like TSA. There was life before TSA, and now it's just how we do things. As much as I would like to just wander into an airport and go to the gate, that's not going to happen. 

That's not an exact parallel, but it works for me to just see the whole thing as beyond my control - and I can remind myself of the standard advice to simply accept that which you cannot control and focus on those things which you can control.