A widow winds up buying some strange things. Here are some of the items I have purchased in the last three years, since my husband’s death.

1. A snow thrower. My son urged me to buy one three months after Bill’s death. I used it the first winter, but the last two winters we had very little snow. I can start it and run it, though it takes some muscle to turn it around. And my son has to do the annual maintenance. This was an expensive purchase.
2. A hand-cranked drain auger, or snake. So far I have cleaned out one clogged drain with this handy gadget, but it works well and is worth the money.
3. A Black & Decker screwdriver, battery powered. OK, this one is still in the packaging, but I have a plan to use it very soon! The battery powered drills that Bill used are just too heavy and bulky for my hand.
4. An electric pressure washer for patios. This works very well. The trick is getting a location to plug it in (extension cords don’t work) plus a water source with a long enough hose.  I wrote about this pressure washer in another posting, “Nothing Is Ever Easy.”
5. An electric leaf shredder by Worx. This product is easy to set up and shreds dry leaves quickly. It is dirty, dusty, and noisy work, but produces good leaf mulch for my flower beds.
6. An onboard fully automatic battery charger. I bought this for the old pick-up truck, at my son’s suggestion. He hooked it up to the truck battery, and I keep the charger plugged into household current. This was the solution to the dead battery problems, because I don’t drive the truck very often or very far. When people comment on the plug hanging out of the truck’s grill, I tell them it is an electric truck.
7. A Black & Decker cordless electric sweeper for exterior hard surfaces. Lightweight and easy to use, I can clean off three patios in ten minutes.

And my favorite is? I think it is a tie between the battery charger for the pick-up truck (it is so nice not to deal with a dead battery!) and the electric sweeper. The sweeper has a slight edge because the patios need to be swept frequently, and this handy tool actually makes the job fun.

Here is the ironic part of this story:  for my 30^th birthday, Bill gave me an electric blanket with dual controls. “Look!” said two and a half year old David, “an eyectic ba-ba!” I had given birth to our daughter two weeks earlier just before Christmas, and I really wanted something soft and feminine. I was not thrilled with an electric blanket, dual control or not.  I told Bill never to get me anything that plugged in unless I specifically asked for it.

Look at that list above. Six out of seven of these items plugs in.