I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

Just had an interesting conversation with a couple of women who knocked on my door claiming to be "theological students" "practising a presentation". I put those in quotes because I now think that they weren't... well, technically you could argue that they were, in the sense that all those who read the Bible are studying the Bible and thus are "students". Really, I think they were doing what Evangelicals call "witnessing": going up to random strangers and trying to persuade them to change their beliefs. The clincher for this was when they started trying to persuade me to come to their church (the church opposite the McDonalds on Blackburn Road, which I think they said was a "Church of Christ" but I'm not entirely sure). But that wasn't until later on in the conversation. Darn it, I just realised that I should have encouraged rather than discouraged them from coming back. Why? Because they need to be rescued from what sounds like (to me) a rather unhealthy church. Oh well. I guess all I can do now is pray for them, poor lambs.

( what they actually said )

I have STUFF. It accumulates. Being a frugal, responsible person, I kept a lot of it because "it might be useful" or "somebody else might find it useful" or "I could give it away on Freecycle" or "I could sell it on Ebay". And I did none of the above. None.

The effort and stress of listing something on Ebay has obviously been too great for me to summon up the energy to do. Likewise for Freecycle. This gives me much guilt, because putting things into landfill when they could be recycled is BAD. BAD KA! BAD BAD BAD! I have thus been caught between feeling guilty if I threw it away, and feeling stressed if I didn't. Because Stuff Taking Up Space is getting to really stressful levels for me. I have all these craft materials! I need to put them somewhere! I'm running out of space!

I have finally said "enough!" (or "too much", really). Forget Ebay. Forget Freecycle. Forget them all. One phone call, and I have booked a Hard Rubbish collection. My hope is that people round about will take at least some things off the pile before it gets collected by the Local Council. Shove my guilt, the stress has just gotten TOO MUCH. Stuff it!

So. Hard rubbish. Today I've been going around the house gathering stuff and clearing away stuff. Hopefully my nephew will help me tomorrow to put heavy things outside on the kerb.

( Read more... )

As I said in my previous entry, the possum has returned. When we last left our persistent possum, it was huddled inside the wardrobe of my study. Whenever I peeked in at it, it was not asleep. I'm not sure whether that was because my opening the door (squeaky hinges) woke it up, or because it was too uncomfortable and scared to relax enough to sleep. I'm fairly certain it didn't drink the water I left, because it appeared not to have moved. Perhaps it felt that its position on a half-fallen-over suitcase was too precarious for it to move.

I had, as I said, left a message with the possum man Frans, on his mobile. But I did not hear back from him. Fair enough, he could have been on holiday or out or something. The sun was going down, and I didn't want to leave the possum in the wardrobe overnight, for my sake, for its sake, and for the sake of the contents of the wardrobe. So I decided that if I hadn't heard from Frans by eight o'clock, I would have to evict the possum myself.

Eight o'clock rolled around. It was eviction time.

( eviction time )

I still have no idea how the possum got in.