Sunday, October 29, 2017

Anything-But-Lazy Sunday

Today was Sunday, and instead of having fun hanging out with my knitting friends, I spent the afternoon in the basement with Larry, trying to finish up the Great Clean-Out of 2017 before his sisters visit and before I totally lose my shit about all the crap we have accumulated.

That was only one sentence, but I'm tired. New paragraph!

So, yes, Larry and I stood down there and discussed what to do with boxes of books (GET THEM OUT) and Whiffleball bats and soccer cones and DVD's; I rifled through my oldest's "Collect All The State Quarters" book, removed the coins, and threw the pages out (sorry, Theo!); I dumped old binders and file folders relentlessly in the giveaway bin. We hauled some bookshelves and cabinets over to a neighbor's house (that was emotional for me - we bought those faithful HUSAR cabinets at IKEA 20 years ago and they've served our family well).


Looks almost as good as my cleared-out family room

In the middle of all this, I managed to bake up a batch of the no-knead bread I've raved about in posts past. Seriously, eating slabs of that slathered with butter was the only bright spot in the day. Well, that and standing in the almost-cleared basement around 4 PM and realizing with relief that I could actually bear being down there.

Recalcitrant cowl
My stupid cold is still here, today in the shape of a sore throat that just won't quit. My new knitting project refused to cooperate with me this morning and is lying in a confusing heap on the sofa. We have Halloween bearing down on us in only two days and I FORGOT TO BUY A PUMPKIN. My neighbor has informed me that the stores are all out of them. 

I haven't told Susie yet.

AND I have a high school senior. Yes, that's right, Brian has a college application due in a couple of days. Even for me, the polar opposite of a helicopter parent, this is stressful. The thought of having a disgruntled high school graduate stuck at home next year because we somehow messed up these applications? Well, it gives me nightmares, to tell you the truth. And not just because I've got plans to commandeer his bedroom closet for yarn storage purposes...

12 comments:

  1. Bravo on doing the clean-out and the bread! I badly need to engage in a Great Clean-out in every single room in the house. I'll give you my pumpkin. Despite have no children in the house, I bought one, with lavish dreams of carving it elaborately and roasting the seeds. It just ain't happening.

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  2. Front royal walmart and aldi's still had pumpkins earlier today.

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  3. Still with the cold? Still in peace talks over the rug? Poor you! However bread like that seriously helps. I thought I would lose my marbles completely with the last high school senior I had. I have a new one next year and I shudder thinking about it. ACT for her this weekend. It felt like I took it too.

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  4. You could always try the tried-and-true method of buying a non-returnable rug....I kid. Mostly. We've had 2 college students, and are currently halfway through our 3 year grace period before we do it again. I'm not looking forward to it - I had one who couldn't wait to get out and one who didn't really want to leave, so really don't know what to expect with #3.

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  5. You already have plans for your son's closet! I did the same thing. My husband says our daughter wasn't even a mile down the road on her way to college before I had the paint and painting supplies out!

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  6. Look at you being all productive while being sick! Is that recipe this one? https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread I've made that a couple of times and it's divine.

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  7. I had to move EVERYTHING into the family room from the first floor to have our floors refinished. Well technically Coach moved furniture (which took about an hour - so let's give credit where credit is due). Meanwhile, I spent weeks packing china and emptying the closet in the study and relocating stuff from end tables and computer armoire, etc. Oh, the crap I stumbled upon. I've decided that when we are allowed back in our home (currently at my folks around the corner), it is time to reclaim the house from the clutter. I can't bring myself to put all that junk back where I found it. The fact that my parents' house is in perfect order is making our disaster of a house even harder to return to. We definitely need several not so lazy Sundays to get our situation under control.

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  8. His college application, his responsibility, surely?

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