Bob As Motivator -- From The Other Side

So, the other afternoon, on Bob's stroke anniversary, I got a telephone call from my dear friend in Oklahoma. She immediately tells me that she's busy, can't talk long, but she has a message for me from Bob.

And I'm thinking, Huh?

Then she proceeds to tell me that she was trying to work and Bob kept interrupting her thoughts. He told her that Diane was miserable and she needed to call me because I had to do some things for him, and this would help me feel better.

And I'm thinking, oh-kay....

So, she tells me that Bob says I need to "start making our house a home" and there are some boxes (which I'd forgot about) with things we'd collected that "need to be displayed" and I need to open these boxes and put these things on display.

And also, he tells her, there are things that need hung on the walls. Like pictures, artwork, etc.

And it's time to make this house "our house" and fill it with "our things" and make it a sort of "Bob and Diane museum"...

And then my friend says she has to go, because she's got a ton of work to finish, but she had to call me and get this message to me so that Bob would leave her alone!

I hung up the phone rather perplexed. And I know there are some boxes in the closets, and in the back bedroom, and some in the garage that I had not gotten around to unpacking, but I really didn't think anything was that important... and that night, I called my friend back and asked her if she was serious about this message from Bob.

And she said it was really weird, but she kept having "Bob thoughts" while she was trying to do her inventory and the "Bob thoughts" kept interrupting her calculations, etc., and it was like she kept trying to push these "Bob thoughts" away but he kept at her, saying "excuse me, I need your help".

How weird is that?

So today, I went through the closets and found two boxes of collectibles that I had not put out "on display". One being Bob's antique thermometers (how did I forget about them? They are really cool!) and the other being his antique (mostly art deco) lighter collection.  Then I found a box of stuff for our porch that I had forgotten about.

I unpacked the boxes and found places to display everything (some of the thermometers I had to hang on walls), then I went into the garage and decided it was time to put up our big floral painting that used to hang on the front porch of our old house, and I hung it on the back porch. Then I put our whirligig together and got that in the back yard. And I can't remember when I last felt so motivated to do things around here....

And it does feel a little more like home. And I do feel a bit better.