The driver from the building supply place woke me

up this morning with news of a delivery.

He was there early, which was good. He also had a fork lift which made things a whole lot easier and he managed to get the entire pallet well into the garage, which made things easier.

Neighbor Bob wandered in at just the right minute and pitched in and within a short time, 42 bundles of shingles, 8 rolls of iceguard, 3 packages of ridge caps and a pack of starter strip were stowed in the garage in such a way I could get the Miata in and keep the little car out of the weather. We were done by nine AM and I was surprised.

One of the things we did was thaat when the stack lowered itself to the point where we had to bend over too far, we teamed up and moved the bales with the 2 of us, one on each end. This was to avoid having to use our backs to lift.

We are both old men and are a lot wiser than we were as youngsters. It doesn't take a whole lot for an old man's back to go out, and when it does it will take a lot longer to recover than it would have a few years back.

The Amish crew that is supposed to do my roof is working on anothe one down the street. I stopped and waved and they smiled warmly at me in return. I stopped for a second and complimented them on their home and their faces lit right up.

Yesterday was a first for me. I had some paperwork from them to get squared away and I went to the home of the lead man. He invited Mrs Pic and I in and I will say that it was simply the cleanest home I have ever been in in my entire life.

It was also very simply furnished and the laundry was hanging out to dry. It occurred to me that every single piece of clothing on the laundry line was hand made, and it the laundry clothes are anywhere near as well made as the handmade work clothes the crew wear, they are beautiful.

The visit brief visit into their home made me do quite a bit of thinking about the stuff that fills my life, most of which is pretty meaningless.

Most of the stuff we have is just that;it is stuff. Meaningless stuff not worth getting upset over. The first thing that occurred to me is there was no television in their home and the minute I realized that, I felt that there was no great loss there.

It is a shame, too, because TV could have great potential as a learning tool, but instead it is nothing more than a vast wasteland of so-called reality shows, sitcoms and general stupidity. Then again, I don't watch a whole lot of television.

All in all, I am grateful to have been invited in to their home.

It is fun to see how different people live and the truth be known, I tend not to look at differences, but what we have in common.

One of the things I have noticed when I was in their home was that the lack of clutter and stuff does make it a whole lot easier to keep clean. I am going to do some rethinking about that and maybe do a little de-junking. We'll see.

One of the things I wish I had spoken to the contractors wife about was sewing.

I'll bet she'd have been quite surprised to know I've made a number of shirts myself using a sewing machine identical to the Singer treadle model she uses.

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Yesterday I saw a young girl in her early twenties walking along with her grandmother, probably about in her 70s.

I was feeling a little mischievous, so I looked between the pair of them and said, "Hiya, Gorgeous. Hope you're having a good day."

The young woman looked up and thanked me for the nice comment.

"I wasn't talking to you," I said, but not unkindly.

The old woman's face lit right up and I knew I had made her day.


It doesn't take a whole lot to make someone's day.








my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/