We’ve had a lot of rain lately and considering that it was in the 80′s about 10 days ago, the weather change feels a bit drastic…. But tonight, we’re expecting lows in the 20′s. Time to change the sheets. I absolutely love my flannel sheets, but of course, I’m always cold. Leroy tolerates them to keep me happy. They are not his favorite.
This is one of those events that really marks the change of the season and the welcome of the holidays for me. A red-letter day.
We’ve discovered that we are pretty well outfitted for the rain that is so common and frequent in Oregon. What we didn’t expect was the torrential downpour that awaited us when we landed in Sacramento this afternoon. It rained, hard… all the way from Sacramento Airport until we hit Manteca. Leroy even reported a couple incidences of hydro-planing. (I was asleep, fortunately.)
The good news is that the flowers that I planted last week might have a chance at life. I’m not very good at watering. Good thing Mother Nature is taking care of that for me.
There are lots of good things about an Empty Nest, but one of the greatest is the dramatic decrease in laundry. I really could get by with doing laundry only once a week but I do it on Mondays and Thursdays. Even on those days, sometimes I have to throw a towel or two in just to make a full load. When football season is over (and Leroy doesn’t have to go to practice) I will probably go to once a week… or at least I’ll give it a shot.
Wednesday is yard day at our house. We are fortunate to have a service do the maintenance. The lawn gets mowed every week but the bushes only get trimmed once in a while. The Boxwoods always look so nice right after they’ve been trimmed. In a couple of days, some of them will brown (where they were cut) and they won’t look so good for a couple of days… but for right now, they look great.
I love/hate having a guest room. I love the fact that I have a place where a guest can have his (or her) own bed even when everyone is home. I love to entertain and having the guest room makes it easy to go the extra mile when we have friends over. I hate the fact that the guest room is usually the “catch all” for stuff that doesn’t really have a place to go. Steel was the best for this. If he got tired of looking at something in his room, he’d set it in the guest room just to get it out of the way.
Today, I spent cleaning out the guest room. I reorganized the stuff that I store in there, washed the sheets and tossed a bunch of crap I want to get rid of. There are a couple of tables that I’m going to give away too just to make a little more room. Baby steps. I know I won’t get the house cleaned out in a week, but if I do a little each day… I’ll be making progress.
I have collected (well, I was for a while) Disney themed snow globes. I would pick one up on each of our trips to Disneyland. I tried to get the ones that I really liked, or had special meaning to me. I’ve always loved snow globes just because they are so simple, and yet seem so magical.
My sister-in-law Anne, has also collected them along the way and she is in the process of moving. She did not have her globes displayed in the current house she lives in and as she started to pack to move she decided that it would be better just to get rid of them all together and asked if I would like them. Being in my current mood of “de-cluttering” my immediate reaction was no, but I hated to see all of her beautiful globes go, so I agreed. Sierra brought them all home this weekend and left them on the dining room table for me. Today, I unwrapped them all. It was like Christmas. Each one made me smile. I re-arranged the ones I had on the book shelf and put what I could fit next to mine. The others are on top of the bookshelf until I can get rid of some books (another project) to make room to display them properly. I had a couple of duplicates, but not many. Her collection has blended very nicely with my own… and doubled quantity. I was with Anne on many of the trips when she purchased these globes, so they hold memories for me as well. So now, we will share them… the memories and the globes.
I got up early to water the tomatoes (which are looking fabulous, by the way) and zucchini this morning before I went to work to avoid the heat. I noticed this beautiful spider web as I was waiting for the pots to fill. I didn’t get too close, because I didn’t really want to see the occupant, but I couldn’t help but appreciate his handiwork.
I slept in and was very lazy in the morning… on purpose. Why? Because I could. I did finally get up, showered and put on my shoes(thanks FlyLady) and got to work on the laundry and a little housework. While I was working in the house, Leroy ran to the grocery store to get a few things. I got everything done that I had listed and even caught up on a few episodes of the shows on hoarding that I seem to be addicted to. In the afternoon, while I was reflecting on what a great day it had been, I tried to remember the last time I stayed home all day. I couldn’t remember the last time that I went all day without leaving the house. Finally, I pulled out my journal and realized that it was March 28th…. 4 WEEKS AGO! Holy crow! That’s awful! I know there are some of you out there who can’t stand to be home all day, but for me it is paradise… and going 4 weeks in between is not healthy for me. This whole situation is very upsetting to me. I’ve written about how chaotic my life is right now and I don’t have a lot of control over it. With Steel’s high school years coming to a rapid end, the events are piling up…. But I need to pay closer attention and schedule the down, quiet, home time I desperately need, or I’m not going to be any good to any one.
