As I’ve said, this new life without Mike is a learning experience. Last year, Mike stood in the middle of the remodel one day and shook his head, saying, “There’s an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about!”
I feel his pain.
Another Mike saying, “There’s a project everywhere I look.” Yep, there is. And I could stay busy every waking hour. And Mike Powell would. Jane Carrie Powell, however, finds that I go between over-the-top busy to frustration with everything I see to giving in to the exhaustion that I feel after the last year and Mike’s death. And somewhere in the middle, I get things done.
Mike was teaching me country girl skills. Things that so many of my friends just know automatically, I do not. But my city skills served me well for 42 years. They just don’t come in that handy at this very second! These things that I cannot yet do are simply learned skills. I’m determined that I’m going to figure them out and make my new life work.
Last week, I decided to clean up the spots in the yard that needed weed-eating. All was going well until the gizmo stopped cutting. I did some troubleshooting – no more string. Ok. That’s simple. Wally World, here I come. Nope. Don’t carry the spools for my little battery-powered wonder. Amazon Prime, save me. The new spool reels came today.
Why is nothing ever easy?! It’s such a simple procedure – and one that I had never done. After watching the string spiral off the roll, I rewound the errant string, put the spool on the machine every which way but right – until I finally figured it out. Fed it through the right hole, snapped that cover on and tried edging the sidewalk. Success!! I felt like I’d won the lottery.
It wasn’t any big deal to send the wasp in the dining room into the next world after that.
Mike worried how I would deal with the trash when he wasn’t here anymore. It’s about a quarter mile to the trash can out at the road. I asked him – what do you think I did that whole first summer you were in Alaska? But now, I have the four-wheeler. Yesterday, I dropped the bags off the deck, loaded them up, and raced Gus to the road in the rain. Didn’t even flinch at the huge spider that leapt out at me from the trash bin. Just muttered something about why they had to be so danged big??!!
I mowed the yard last week with my pistol in my pocket, sure I’d find a snake in the high grass. Thank heavens, I didn’t. Figured out how to ease through low-hanging branches without running into the trees this time. Scoped out how to renovate the chicken pen this fall. Eyeballed branches that need to be cut, and tried to figure out how I will eliminate them this fall. Avoided a whole bunch of weeds near Mike’s shop, remembering pieces of iron and chain that the lawn mower would really hate. The mower died, and I switched between gas tanks, adjusted the choke, jiggled the loose switch until I finally messed with it enough to get it back to the barn – and it’s now in the shop again!
Every single day, I come across something else Mike did that I have no idea how to do. I feel I’m not progressing nearly as fast as I should. The list of things that starts with “I need to fix that” keeps growing. I need to put up a center support for my closet clothes rod. I need to replace an outdoor light. The water line to the garden that runs up from the creek needs fixing – and that’s way above my pay grade. The upstairs bath light switch needs fixing/replacing. The deck needs a new support. The trim on the porch door needs fixing, as do lots of other little trim areas. The gutters need cleaning.
Most of it will be addressed in the fall. I can and will do some of it. Other things, I’m going to need help doing.
But one way or another, I’m going to keep on going. I don’t have Mike’s knowledge, and I don’t have Mike’s experience, but I have Google and I have family and friends and I will find tradespeople who do such things. And between all of us, I will just keep figuring it out…at 62.
At 62 