Parting with My old Suits and other Personal Belongings is Hard
This week after several urgings and reminders from my spouse of 57 years, I decided to donate to a thrift store my old suits, shirts, shoes and ties. I have accumulated more than 2 dozens suits. 200 ties, 50 pairs of shoes and several dozens white shirts that I have not used since my retirement from FDA in 2002.
The donation barely fitted into 4 large suit cases. Along with my clothes Macrine ( my spouse of 57 years) and my son David also donated old shirts,pants and dresses. The suit cases are fairly new, but we have newer ones that we can used in case Macrine is well enough to travel. Along with the clothes we also donated a TV ( still working well and used to be in our bedroom), This TV was replaced by a new 42” slim model, that I got for my Birthday.
It took me almost 13 years of holding on to my suits and ties. To me it was a symbol of my younger days and professional career, thus the emotional attachment. However as part of my New Year resolution to clean -up, I decided to call the thrift shoppe. The thrift shoppe is picking it up today.
Speaking of cleaning up, I started to throw and shred ( manual and automatic electric shredder) all my old files ( receipts, bills etc...) beginning last week. I have files as old as 2004. It will take me at least 2 weeks to finish this job, since I get tired doing it after 1 hour. During this clean-up and shredding process I listened to my favorite piano and violin classical pieces.
Last week had been disastrous financially in our household. Last Sunday, when I woke up, the temperature of the house was a cool 63F. Our heater was blowing cold air instead of hot air. I immediately called the emergency number of our local heating company. In the meantime I requested my son to buy 3 space heaters from Sears.
After waiting an hour the gas furnace technician inspected our 13 year old gas furnace He informed us that the gas furnace has so many things not working and to fix it will cost me about $2000 and he does not guarantee the heater will work more than one year. He recommended we purchase a brand new heater as replacement.
That same day ( Sunday afternoon) a salesman from the Heating company came to our house, give his sale pitch and I had no choice but purchase a new gas heater. Total cost including installation was $4800. The bad part is it will not be installed until Wednesday, that is we will not have central heating for at least 3 days. Luckily the temperature in our area was not that cold ( 40F in early morning to 60F in mid afternoon). With the space heater in our bedrooms, the cold was tolerable but the whole house was not comfortable at all. We went to the mall the whole day to have some heat and comfort. Lessons learned is to have yearly maintenance check up of your heating and air conditioning equipments.
Now to a more pleasant topic. This week, I have been communicating via Facebook, with the daughter of my high school contemporary from Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, Philippines way back in the late 1940's. We met thru the Balleza Clan group in FB. She happened to reside in a city only about 60 miles from us. Her Mom is now 83 years old and vaguely remembers me. I have still a picture of her during our high school days in my album. I promised to give it back to her, if she decide to visit me in the future. I am looking forward for their visit.
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