Instead Of Complaining, I Just Did It

When you're retired you truly don't pay much attention to time. For instance, if it wasn't for the uploading of pictures taken with my camera I wouldn't know I had acquired it towards the beginning of August. The uploading creates folders that have dates on them and the first two pictures taken were these.

The date on the folder they were stored in is 8-9-15 which was the first day I took pictures with my then new camera. The full woodshed and the amount of wood we still had to stack. 

The weather was hot and humid and we're in our later 60s so we just didn't have the energy to do that much work. We decided to wait for cooler Fall temperatures which usually start happening about the middle of September, but this year they were a lot later arriving. Towards the end of September we were reaching the high 80s every day. 

Once the weather cooled off my not retired husband's business picked up due to people wanting to get their septic tanks pumped out before winter so they wouldn't have to deal with a back up when it's below freezing outside. When he comes home, he's tired since dragging hoses, shoveling dirt to get to the cleanout covers is hard physical labor and he is not as young as he once was. Needless to say, he wasn't getting to the wood pile the way he normally does. 

I decided this week that I'd do some of it for him. I am sadly, seriously out of shape. However, I plugged away at it until the pain in my joints and muscles would call a halt to my activity. I didn't do too badly, it took me most of 4 days but this is how it looks out there now. 

It's going to rain for the next few days and possibly snow this weekend. However I am out of pallets and plywood to stack the wood on. A neighbor said he'd stack the rest on my deck for me once we get the table and chairs put away for the season. I will take care of that in a day or two and this snowfall, if we get one, won't last so he'll have plenty of time to do it in. I know I can't. My joints are so swollen today I can barely move. I feel a very satisfying sense of accomplishment though. 

A little Tylenol and an application of Arnica gel to the complaining joints and I'll be puttering around the house in no time at all. And tomorrow when I see the doctor, I'm going to find out what kind of regular exercise will keep the muscles I built doing the wood stacking in shape. I'm going to need them to get all that stacked wood into the woodstove for warmth.