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Choose your own adventure
On this last Sunday of February, I can’t help but think about the coming of warmer weather. And, with warmer weather approaching, I start to ponder all of the outdoor projects on my list. Projects like moving the raised garden I foolishly put too close to the crabapple tree. (The squirrels used the tree as a launch pad/drive-thru to get the tomatoes and peppers.) Another potential project would be to expand the patio by the kitchen door so more than two people can sit out and enjoy warm-weather coffees. “The barn”, aka the backyard basement, needs a lot of work, and the longer I leave that project the more it’s going to cost. Then there’s the front porch, which needs to be painted—again. I have lots of great ideas, but I still have winter projects.
Since Christmas, I’ve been decluttering inside and found if I tackled one room at a time I could get the job done. The problem was while tackling the first room (the main bathroom) I realized I might be a person who is easily distracted. I seem to be an “Oh, look! Sparkles!” kinda gal. I’m sure there’s a label for my type of distraction. I don’t really care what the label is. I don’t need another label, but as I proceeded with the decluttering of the upstairs bathroom I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d deal with the grandkids’ playroom—that kind of distraction. And as I emptied the massive linen closet, my mind wandered to the guest bedroom and back to the playroom and across the hall to the room I refer to as “my studio”. It was a lesson in learning how to focus on one decluttering project at a time. I’ve never been good at focusing, and the act of sifting through linens and pillows and comforters found me wondering if I should keep the headless Barbies, the armless Star Wars characters and the completely coloured colouring books. The main bathroom took almost a week to sort, with a few side trips to ponder the possibilities in other upstairs rooms. By the end of the bathroom project there were six bags of bedding and towels to donate, and one bag of “things” to be recycled. It wasn’t easy, but who needs eleven pillows, four sets of unused bed linens, tatty bath towels from the 70s and eighteen c o m f o r t e r s ? Whew! And then?
Well, and then I needed to take a few days to recover from tidying that room. After all of the keen focusing and calming down, I started to map my next attack. The grandkids’ playroom was begging for my attention, but I had much bigger ideas. What if I got rid of the headless Barbies, the armless Star Wars characters and the completely coloured colouring books then moved the playroom stuff into “my studio”? Mostly the grandkids liked to hang out with me in my creative space, so it made sense. The GKs could play, read, paint and create while I did the same—but they’d be with me, in my room. This was going to be an intense shuffling of stuff, and LOML kinda, sorta, warned me not to try to move the big stuff without his help. Big stuff included a queen sized futon and frame, cubbies for toys and books, a loungy rocking chair thingy and a pile of markers, crayons, paint, puzzles and Matchbox cars. Three days of thinking about what was going where, and I could wait no longer. Toys, books, craft paper, crayons, markers, Lego, games and Barbies with heads, along with the shelves and bins were shuffled across the hall to their new place. The futon then had to be disassembled and dragged to the former playroom. And then?
Well, and then I probably should have waited for LOML to help me move the queen sized futon and its frame to its new location across the hall. But I didn’t. The trip from my creative space to what was to become the new second “guest room” was like a Looney Tunes misadventure— think Wile E. Coyote. Dragging a queen size futon, which refused to remain rolled-up and bound by bungee cords, was beyond entertaining— although there wasn’t anyone around to appreciate the spectacle, or cheer me on. It really needed an audience. Let’s not even talk about how the futon frame decided to open/unfold in the doorway as I manoeuvred it from one room to the next. Where’s the CCTV when you need it?
Yep, out-of-doors projects are on my radar. What could possibly go wrong with me moving eighty pound patio stones, wielding a shovel and wearing my old, green Crocs? What can I say? I’m a choose your own adventure kinda gal.
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