You know how when you first build a house or move into a house, you have all these hopes and dreams? Like for instance, how you envision a tidy front hall with a place for everything? Heck, maybe even a nice plant or piece of artwork as you walk into the house! Well, that was then. This is now.
Let’s take a closer look at this photo. In the lower left corner, you’ll see my bag of bird seed. Very important. I usually have a couple of bags there – one plain sunflower and one fancy with nuts and whatnot. Then I mix them together to “cut the good stuff” with the plain sunflower. At the moment, however, I’m short on cash, so all they’re getting is sunflower. The birds, squirrels and chipmunks don’t seem to mind.
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Along the left is the church pew we picked up for free from the dump. When we first set the pew there, I had grand visions of sitting there to put on my shoes and organize myself before I went out the door. Nope. I’ve probably sat there a couple of times in the 20 years it’s been there. It’s always covered with important stuff, like:
Beach towels from this summer (it’s November).
A plastic bag that Tim’s electric blanket came in (he’s always cold, due to having only one-third of a kidney working, so I make sure to always have an electric blanket for him – and hey, this one was free, because the other one quit working and the company sent us a new one!). But he’s keeping the plastic bag because it makes a good “cover” for outdoor tools and stuff.
Life preservers for kayaking. Hey, I was kayaking two days ago, and it may be windy and cold today, but you never know. Yeah, there’s two there, but maybe some day someone will want to go kayaking with me (but I actually like being out there by myself – no one can bother me out there).
A snow-scraper underneath the life preservers.
Coats and jackets hanging on the wall. So many. Mostly mine.
Plastic bottles because we’re not yet ecologically-minded enough in this household (though I try to make use of the cool purple water bottle I got at the co-op, but I’m not exactly sure where it is right now).
Tools and more tools. There’s an “engine analyzer” sitting on the pew, and underneath the pew are a bunch of tools and tool boxes. I mean, it’s a good spot for them. Handy when you’re trying to get the car going and whatnot.
At the far end of the pew, there’s a nice woodstove. It’s not that woodstove that we’re planning to install at the far end of this photo by the other door, because the pipe opening on this woodstove is too big. The woodstove that we’ll be using is still in my brother Dean’s shop. We’ve been having some trouble getting someone, anyone to come take a look and tell us they can install the chimney. Two people are coming this week, so I have high (though skeptical) hopes that it might actually happen.
On the other end of the woodstove is a walker Tim brought home from his last stint in the hospital for gout this summer. You never know. We might need it. Though it could probably be stored in the black hole.
You can’t see it, but my electric violin is in its case next to the walker. I should play it more often, but I need to find a better shoulder-pad set-up because it’s got a different shape than my acoustic violin.
On the right side of the hall are the tennis rackets my daughter and I meant to use this summer, but never got around to, along with an empty sunflower seed bag (handy for recyclables) and a box of unknown stuff.
Next to the box is Tim’s junk shelf. Well, you can’t really call it a junk shelf, because it’s all stuff he uses, but remember when everyone had a “junk drawer” in the kitchen? Well, this is the way more impressive “junk shelf.” It probably deserves its own #RealityWednesday post.
At the far end, you’ll see the vintage Sunn Amp we brought back home from Marshall Music yesterday because, well, I guess it’s worthless. Or in the words of one of the guys at Marshall, “I’d love to take it home, but I don’t have any use for it.” Anyway, we chatted with Al Jankowski while we were in there, and he said we should open a music museum. Hmmm… until then, I guess the Sunn Amp is going on Craig’s List.
Beyond the amp is Tim’s area – which is mostly his little music studio, but also has assorted stuff stashed there, including items that we’d planned to sell at a friend’s yard sale a few years back (yes, a few years back), but the yard sale fell through, so here the stuff sits. I need to start posting stuff on one of those Facebook re-sell pages. Yep. When I get time.
Most of all, I see our front hall as the result of a happy, busy family with lots of stuff going on. It’s not pretty, but it’s beautiful.
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