Un/progress

Wow-o, we had a massive thunderstorm last night.  Very bright lightning, loud thunder, superstrong winds, lashing rain and HAIL!!!  Oh my word hail like we've never had before!  It sounded like people on the roof banging with walking sticks.  This morning the sky still looked grumpy, but it seems to have cleared up.

This week we watched a few movies.  Night at the Museum 2, Nightmare Before Christmas, Watchmen, Finding Nemo and Over the Hedge.  NATM2 was good, some very funny bits in it!  Nightmare was very entertaining, an unusual story, and some WEIRD featurettes on the disk!  Excellently expressive characters, I loved the Skelington's face!  Watchmen was WEIRD.  Utterly bizarre... I guess I missed out on things not having read the comics, but it was still WEIRD.  And it had the most irrelevant sex scene in a movie!  G showed me the 'extent' of the scene in the comic book and it was about 5 frames.  Finding Nemo, I've seen before but G hadn't!  He hadn't seen the bit about the Squishy!!  So, now he's up to speed.  And Over the Hedge.  Very funny!  I loved Hammy.  Steve Carell was Hammy, and I could so picture him doing all those things too, having seen the bloopers and outtakes of other Steve Carell movies.  It was a very funny movie and fascinating to watch the featurettes (how they made the movie, etc).

This weekend, we made progress.  We dropped off teddies and clothes for donation to charity at Mom's and we had lunch with Mom + Sis.  I got some more photos to scan, yes, FINALLY, odds and ends from Mom to scan.  I now have horrendous allergies too.  There is just so much dust there.  The framed pics I brought home were coated in dust.  It was quite a struggle to get the pics out without getting dust everywhere.  

They got some replacement (to be-) built-in cupboards, which are being stored in my room until Mom's friend is able to do the installation.  But, they've been incorporated into the 'furniture' in my room, and are being used as storage for stuff she has to sort.  It's... so depressing.   As I was sitting in Mom's room with her as she found pics for me, she was telling me what certain things were.  There's just so much STUFF.  Indescribable, because of the quantity of unsorted items.

The most depressing part is the fact that if you suggest that she leave the garden/outdoor maintenance stuff and focus on clearing up inside so that she is able to move to a smaller place (so that she doesn't HAVE this problem - unmanageable outside maintenance issues), she just argues that no one would buy a house with a green pool/weeds/x/y/z problem.  I say to her that someone would, and they'd fix everything up (which I reckon someone would), or be able to afford garden-service, etc.  Or anything!  Regardless, it wouldn't be her problem anymore.  But no.  It doesn't compute.  I just don't see a way through.  There's just too much stuff.  I guess I'm destined to forever fret about her, still here in SA with all her stuff, in this unsafe country, when she COULD be with us, in Aus.  Living a free, uncomplicated life.  I worry enough as it is, living an hour's drive away.  It's going to make the whole move so difficult.

My 'chore-tasks' take so long.  Scanning papers I guess I should do now rather than carry on tackling that inbox (220 or so emails in that inbox).  The papers belong to Mom, so I want to finish them and give them back, and to scan them I have to sit at the desk, where with the rest of the 'chores' I can sit anywhere with my laptop, so I want to get it over and done with.  Oh and if I'm done scanning, I can put the scanner away and dig out Golden Ice.  Then, I can leisurely go through that inbox, backup my pc, go through my gmailbox, etc.  And after finishing that initial inbox, I can alternate between the gmailbox and FUN STUFF like stitching etc!

I can't believe I'm pretty much finished with the photos!!  7300+-.  I made a CD for G's parents, I've made a backup of all of it, I just have to make a CD for Aunt and for Cousins.  I don't think Mom has much left to give me, if anything.

34 working days left til I'm on leave, 192 til I'm done here.  It's nearly November already!!  Wow!