Symbolic

 The wind is kicking up outside and it should rain soon, I think. Something that is blowing around is irritating my eyes. Or maybe I'm tired. Or both. 

Dave and I went out to the casita this morning (-ish--we were very late in getting started and had to make a stop at Starbucks on the way). While Dave scrubbed the kitchen floor, I worked on getting rid of stuff on the patio. 

I had some things to sort through, including a large tin of beads and beading material that belonged to my uncle. He died almost 25 years ago and my aunt had some of his things that she passed on to me several years ago. They've been living on the patio since then but today I went through them carefully and kept what I have a chance of using. I also sorted through my "head buckets"; I have three 5-gallon buckets of plaster casts of faces of my friends and family (from my mask-making days, twenty years ago) that have been living on the patio for about eight years, since we moved out of the old studio. The plastic buckets had disintegrated so I had to transfer them to new buckets to move them to the new house. I took the opportunity to get rid of some faces, friends who are gone from my life and my former stepfather. 

In the course of doing these things, I filled up three very large garbage bags of stuff that will have to be taken to the dump in the next week or so. 

We came home via a home center where we picked up a new mop and mop bucket and also via a fast food place where I got a grilled chicken sandwich and Dave got a veggie burger and we also got fries and onion rings to share. 

After our very late lunch, Dave went off with the dog to visit his mother. (They just got home.) While they were gone I called and talked to my friend Judi. We talked a bit about what's going on in Florida where her two step-daughters live. (They are nowhere near the hurricane-damaged areas.) When we got off the phone I had a snack and then unpacked some books (the book carton unpacking is never ending--though I am at an end of the available shelf space until we move more bookshelves from the garage into the house). 

I scrubbed a toilet. I watched some youtube videos. Just did...stuff. 

Later: 

It is raining now, though not much. There are also fireworks going on at the balloon fiesta park. There is no thunder but the booms from the fireworks are making the dog--who is afraid of thunder--very nervous.

We had a light dinner--salads--and watched a bit of Men in Black III while we did. It's a mindless movie, nothing serious, about all that we were up to. I loaded the dishwasher after since Dave had done all the salad prep work. Now we're just puttering around, waiting for bedtime to roll around. I think I'll go get in my pajamas.

I won't sleep for a long time. I've been waking up recently with my heart pounding, my heart rate elevated. It's been happening throughout the night and even during the day if I take a nap.  It's probably stress or anxiety or hormones, but it freaks me out. Makes me more anxious about sleeping. I switched my meds around to see if that would help and last night, before bed, I had some calcium-magnesium drink. Something helped anyway, since it only happened once last night, very minorly. I hope my luck holds.