Happy Not-So-New Year!

 Happy New Year! I guess we can all just rip off these masks and go back to life as normal now, right? RIGHT?

Oh, maybe not. Well, then, at least we have all that election stuff behind us, right? No more worrying about ballots or voter turnout or...

Oh, oh yes - Georgia. The fate of the nation turns on Georgia today. And tomorrow...well, never mind. Some day this will all be over. I would totally like to resume ignoring both my health and my government, thank you, like the good American I am. 

Remember Christmas? 

We had a lovely COVID Christmas, albeit a quiet one. The "kids" (as discussed previously) decided to spend the afternoon building candy houses and, as usual, spared no effort.

New Year's Eve was similarly quiet. Normally, we spend New Year's Eve cleaning up the house in preparation for our neighborhood's New Year's Day party, an event we have hosted since 2008. This year, however, the party was canceled due to COVID, with the upshot being our house risked remaining a mess until next New Year's. 

But Anna did return to Tunisia on Sunday, and Brian decided to move down to the guest bedroom in the basement that she had occupied for the last 9 months, so the result was that everything got a pretty good cleaning out anyway. Brian has definite ideas of what he will and will not live with, so the seashell lamp that Anna used on her desk all year was unceremoniously dumped outside his door.

"You don't want this?" I asked Brian.

"No," he said. "It's ugly. Do you like it?"

"Um, no, I guess not," I said. "But it was here when we moved in."

"Thirteen years ago," he said. 

So yeah, it takes me over a decade to realize I don't like a lamp.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Anna left me, and I am bereft. She's the only other one in the family who will actually plan a dinner. It was like she was another grown-up or something. Also, she was just fun to have around. Grown offspring are cool.

On the plus side? With Brian moving downstairs to her room, I HAVE MY OFFICE/YARN ROOM BACK. I don't know who is more excited, me or my long-suffering spouse who has tolerated for almost a year the numerous Rubbermaid bins full of yarn in our bedroom and the tangle of knitting needles hanging up in our closet. He'd also like our nightstands back, which Sarah and I commandeered back in May to build my makeshift desk.

The day Anna left, we took down the tree, packed up all the decorations, put the furniture back in place - you know, all those things you do that make you feel like you have a fresh start to the year, even if this year it is less of a fresh start and more of a retread. Still, we packed things up and realized that most of the items we actually use (aside from the lights) fit into these 2 small bins:

But -- and this just kills me -- we still had this REALLY LARGE bin more than half-filled with boxes containing I know not what:

"Let's chuck it," I suggested to Larry, who immediately got the panicked look on his face that appears whenever I suggest chucking anything, ever. You know, that "I might need it" look?

"We don't use it," I told him. "See?" I pointed to the two small bins. "That's the stuff we use. And that..." (here I pointed to the large bin) "...is the stuff we don't use."

Don't think for even a second that this line of reasoning worked. We're keeping everything, as usual. I just want the kids to know I tried, is all.