Missing The Window – Again

Earlier this spring our best carpenter, builder, handyman Joe built some very useful shelves in out attic.  See the American Girl world collection had gone up there and nothing had come down so the shelves were Russ’ answer to a problem I had created.  When we moved to this house almost twenty years ago a large number of very important boxes moved directly from the moving van to the attic on the promise that I would go through them at the right time.

See the issue is that the right time only happens about three days in the spring and three days in the fall when the weather is just right so that the attic is neither too hot nor too cold.  This spring, being as cold as it was for so long, might have only had one day that was just right and certainly I was busy doing something much more important on that day, so it just slipped by me.

I need to post a sign on my bathroom mirror that reads, “Is today the right day to clean the attic out?”  The issue with that sign is the answer is almost always going to be no, even if the weather is right.  It is not just the temperature obstacle, but also the fear I have that I will find things that will interest me that I need to not spend time with.  For instance one thing I know I have in the attic is the entire collection of Gourmet Magazine from the 1980’s.  Even though I also have the Gourmet magazine annual cookbooks the magazines include many more stories on travel and restaurants and was written back in the time when real cooks read cooking magazines.  I know that each carton contains hours of distraction I just don’t need.

Certainly one could make the argument that I could just throw away every box I have not opened in the last three years because if I did not need it there is no reason to even think about it.  Unfortunately, I know that there are things like my diplomas or old photographs I really would like to have, which means opening the boxes to find them.  Now some of those boxes are Russ’ old engineering textbooks and I am sure they could go right to recycling, but I think he should weigh in on those things himself.  What if he happens to have a first edition book from Goddard himself, how would I know?

At best all I can hope for now is a string of cold rainy days while Carter is away at camp.  Of course I want the cold to be here in Durham and not at camp in the mountains where Carter will be…little chance of that.

The heat in the attic could be a great weight reduction chamber like they used to have in old movies, but it would clearly be offset by the Gourmet Magazine fattening recipe enticement.  Carrying boxes up and down the pull-down stairs is a great weight training exercise, but could prove fatal, especially if I was alone in the house.  It seems like for my long-term longevity I will have to wait until that just-right day in the fall.  Let’s hope I’m not already busy that day.