Had a great weekend. I've been trying to clean our place up, both the stuff and trash left behind by former renters and the usual housecleaning inside...but for the amount of time that I spend cleaning and throwing stuff away, it doesn't seem to show a whole lot of improvement. I have this theory though, that the level of cleaning has to reach a certain point before it starts to look considerably better, i.e. when an area is 50% cleaned up it still looks awful even though you are half way through. Inside, I would like not only for the place to look cleaner, but also to have things organized such that like items are all together and an item can be easily located. Anyway....

Went to...I guess it would be called an antique store even though not everything is vintage? A majority of the merchandise was antique and the items had been carefully selected so it wasn't a high end thrift store, therefore it must be an antique store. An awful lot of the stuff was very kitschy, just knickknacks and cutesy stuff. I was about halfway through the place before I found anything that was really appealing, and just as I remembered that this would be a great place to look for wool combs (not cards, combs!), they wanted to close up shop. They had an old, presumably still functional corn sheller, labeled as a corn husker. How on earth they thought that thing would remove husks is beyond me, but at any rate, I want it! It would be really useful for quickly removing the corn kernels from the cobs. If peak oil occurs, corn will not be cheap and readily available and neither will other grains. I don't know what organic corn for livestock costs, but it's easy enough to grow and our climate is such that pasturing poultry or livestock year round isn't possible. There was a lot of very useful stuff there for living off grid or farming. I've also been wondering what people used to make soap, since you must use a non-reactive container which can be heated. They didn't have pyrex or stainless steel, couldn't use iron or plain steel, wood and ceramic vessels aren't feasible for heating the fat/lye mixture....so I'm guessing that they used enamelware. What did people use before enamelware was manufactured?

Random tidbits from the day:

• Munched on some cereal with wheat in it this morning, got the itchy ear/throat reaction and then I crashed and actually slept for 2 hours in broad daylight. I am usually unable to sleep with lights on unless sick, very exhausted (the kind of exhausted where even thinking about anything at all is next to impossible) or just coming down from a major panic/meltdown. Every time I eat wheat, it's the same: tired, groggy, fatigued for no good reason. People used to call me lazy....maybe it was the wheat.
• Feeling all creative again and generating pottery ideas. I need to find a kiln, either my own or one which can be used. Also, I should start saving money for the spring ceramics class at college.
• I listed my truck for sale, but am now reconsidering. If I want to do any farming, a 4WD truck would be very useful to have. Discovering that Gertrude's inability to start is likely due to a very, very corroded battery cable also puts a different spin on things. She needs new battery cables, to have the gas hose leak fixed, her brakes bled...and then would be drivable again.
• Hmmmm. I'm at the laundromat and the worker here seems displeased that I'm online rather than folding the now dry laundry...ha.