January 17: Glass Doors

I sent Phil an "I'm going to bed" text at 12:30 this morning. He was in the office trailer, working. At 4am, he crawled into bed, freezing cold, as he had fallen asleep at his desk some time before.

We were both up before 8 (perhaps a bit unusually), and I mentioned that I had rather wished to move the wall unit down. I have been waiting for about two months now, but between muddy, sodden ground, broken ribs, and illness, there hasn't been a day yet. I've been watching the weather reports all week, hoping for a good freeze.

Phil went out to check and said, "We could do it if we go right now." And he was right. Another fifteen minutes and it would have been too late.

Phil must be doing significantly better, because he basically manhandled the enormous wall unit onto the dolly, and then pulled it, over uneven terrain. I did little except stabilize it. Together we carried it inside, and then Phil put a piece of cardboard underneath it and I tugged while he pushed. That was quite easy, and, thankfully, didn't leave any ugly scratches in the floor.

Then, because he has waited for four and a half years, Phil went right up and brought down the two heavy, antique glass doors, that we had left packaged for protection. I didn't know for sure that they had survived the move to Virginia intact. (They had.)

Caleb has not had such a good day of sleep in weeks. He would eat for a few minutes, then doze or drop back to sleep. That was perfect, because with the wall unit in place, I wanted to do nothing but populate it with books!

How lovely. I have Sonlight's Cores 530, 400 and 300, each on a shelf. I have a shelf with my favorite agriculture books, and blog books; a shelf with poetry and health and healing books; and three shelves with assorted books, mostly classics, along a few books that I simply like.

My photo albums, now wiped clean of mildew, fit nicely on top.

But that didn't entirely clean up that portion of the space. I had been stashing things there, such as Lego instructions. Over the four years of tight quarters, we would get new Lego sets, and the boys would build them. And often the instructions would get put away, but not always. Sometimes the instructions would end up on the floor, trodden under foot by (little) men. I ended up with a couple of gallon ziplocs, full of Lego instruction pieces, and I sort of despaired that I could ever play archaeologist enough to reassemble the pieces.

That day came today. An enormous pile of torn papers faced me, but after many hours, and most of a roll of tape, I have reestablished order.

And, again, I am blown away by how little real damage there is. Between all the crumpled, eaten, torn papers, the most demolished instructions were duplicates, and between the two sets of torn papers, I could make one full set. I am missing two pages of instructions, total, so far as I can tell. (And those two might yet be in the house trailer.) Considering how many footsteps went on those dozens of instructions, I am astonished by how little real damage occurred, once taped together and reassembled.

One of my mentors said that a lady is a civilizing force, bringing order and peace. (I believe his exact words were, "You are humane to the degree you order yourself. You have peace to the level of order you maintain.") I have not felt like I even knew how to bring order and peace to my world. We did more than simply survive, but order ... that is not a word I would have used.

Today was a day to bring some order. It was a good day.

Phil, among other tasks, installed the final door all by himself. I don't know how he did it, without anyone to hold it in place while he held the level and hammered and such. But he did.