A Room of One's Own

...two and a half years later.....

Since last I posted, I went back to work in corporate America, something that I once swore I would never do; Future Vet finished his undergraduate degree, got accepted to vet school, and moved to Cornutopia; and Sports Nut finished his degree and has (so far) failed to find paying work.

There have been a lot of comings and goings and just moving people around to better fit their lives now into the spaces in our house. Which has led to major chaos because the offspring who moved out had STUFF they didn't want to take with them, and the offspring who stayed have STUFF they don't particularly want or need in their new rooms. So all this STUFF got piled up in the living room, which had been my office, and I became a floater. Have laptop, will travel from dining room to family room to bedroom.

I decided I wanted some space of my own again. So this weekend we cleared everything out of the living room.

Except the books, two cat trees, and the printer table.

I won't bother to illustrate the current state of the family room or dining room (or hallways, for that matter) because anyone who has followed this blog or been in our house can picture all too well the piles of boxes and other STUFF.

To summarize, I am back to decrapification. Once a week, probably on Sunday, I will share my progress and the strange and wonderful things I find while going through this latest round of boxes and piles. I already have four big garbage bags full of what seems to be twin-size bedding. We haven't owned a twin-size bed since before we moved to Dodge. (Though, to be fair, most of this was purchased for dormitory beds.) I think we can dispense with the twin bedding at this point.

The short-term goal is to gain a space that, if not exactly private, at least will be my own. The long-term goal is still to get the hell out of Dodge.

Call Me Sisyphus

So many people have hit me upside the head and told me to resume this blog that I guess I'd better....

When last I posted, we were about done with the painting and stuff upstairs and the Wizard and I were about to move back up to our original bedroom. Part of fixing the upstairs bedroom for occupation was doing some tile work in the bathroom. As long as the tile guys were in the house, we thought it might finally be time to install a backsplash in the kitchen. After all, we replaced the kitchen in 2008, before I started this blog. Here's a before picture:

And after:

You'll notice that we had to change the cat to match the new decor. And apparently these two cats have different tastes in liquor. Harley likes a nice white wine (moscato, if I'm not mistaken); Canti goes for the hard stuff -- rum. And maybe a little Sabra.


I also set up the former middle bedroom downstairs as an office. Or as an animal amusement room. It is a room with a view of a bird feeder.

And a comfy couch for watching television or just, y'know, hanging out with friends.

I have to give up this space whenever Future Vet comes in for a visit, but it's still nice to have a room of my own with a door that slams shuts, for a change. Other winter projects were the inevitable New Year's Day spread:

And cloning black cats:

Okay, okay. I know that these two cats are not identical. Puck -- on the left -- has a pointier face and a longer tail. Moony -- on the right -- is a tad more compact as well as having a rounder face. But it's uncanny how much Moony has grown to look like Puck. In some respects, they even behave in a similar way. But if a black cat comes up to sit on my chest and nuzzle my hair, it's always Puck. If a black cat takes one look at a human and runs in the other direction, it's usually Moony.


We also undertook one much less pleasant enterprise. We fostered another litter of kittens and lost them all to the horrible disease of panleukopenia. We loved you for the short time we had you Chaos, Havoc, Mayhem, and Gennie (aka Intransigence) -- the Four Kittens of the Apocalypse.

And now it's back to the grind. I went out to the garage and up to the Wizard's office yesterday and took some pictures.

I feel like I've been here before. Multiple times. I repeat, call me Sisyphus.

For the past week or so, I've been going through boxes and boxes of old snap shots. Looking at pictures taken in our previous house (when the offspring were younger), I am convinced that our decorating style was Early, Middle, and Late Clutter. Except for one rather astonishing picture of the garage at our previous house, in which the garage is neatly arranged and a vast expanse of floor is visible. I'll scan it in and upload it ... just as soon as I find it again ... I know it's here somewhere....

I've been pulling empty cardboard boxes and empty Tidy-Cat litter buckets out of the garage all morning. The Tidy-Cat buckets were listed on Freecycle and will be picked up over the next couple of days. The boxes will be collapsed and either stored or recycled.

And we're back.

Step One Completed, I Guess

This morning the Wizard flew off to do wizardly things, but the Drama Queen and Media Guy didn't have to go in to work today. So I put them to work at home instead. And here's what we did:

We repaired and cleaned bookcases, rolled out the rug, brought in the television set that's been out on the balcony during the wind and rain -- and made sure it worked, brought in the chairs that had also been out on the balcony during the wind and rain and covered them with freshly-washed (and only mildly stained) slipcovers, and so on and so forth. Obviously those bookcases are still missing a few shelves -- not to mention books and other stuff -- but this at least feels like progress.

Another view, with cats:

The cats have been very interested in this entire process, especially now that furniture has made a reappearance. We had 7 or 8 bookcases strewn about the room and the cats decided they were a maze for them to attack each other -- and us -- in and around. The screen behind the chairs has been knocked over several times by curious cats. If that doesn't stop, we may have to rethink the room divider.

The lighting inspectors also made a thorough examination:

The Work Continues

Sports Nut and I are almost done painting upstairs. This is a Good Thing because the Wizard returns home tomorrow night and has expressed a desire an interest in painting the trim. Better him than me, that's all I can say. We've done one round of touch-up and I'll do another tonight. Tomorrow will be devoted to clean-up so that the Wizard can work over the weekend. Also so that my brother, who thoughtfully called me today to remind me that he's going to spend some time with us this weekend since he's in Dodge for a conference, will have a place to sleep.

So here's the state of things as of the end of the day yesterday. It doesn't look significantly different today, so why bother with two sets of shots?

View 1 -- The closet doors, seen lying on the floor and leaning against a door, are also painted.

View 2 -- More of the same.

View 3 -- Nothing much to see, apart from the tail end of a cat.

View 4 -- Sports Nuts paints inside the closet.

And today, a bonus view!

The bathroom painting in progress.

Thanks to the painting project, little else has happened this week. Though an odd thing did take place the other night while I was watching television.

Yuki decided to join Hershey in his bed. As you can see, Hershey wasn't too sure about this. Not that sharing the dog beds isn't a common occurrence in this household.

Kaylee and Harley sharing Yuki's old bed.

Canti and Sweet-pea sharing Hershey's old bed.

The cats also like to consider the dog crates their territory.

Occasionally, they do share with the dogs.

But the dogs sharing a crate or a bed is pretty unusual. Looking around the living room, we quickly discovered the cause.

As the cat showed no inclination to cede Yuki's bed to her, Yuki decided to join Hershey in his big new bed. Despite Hershey's initial reluctance, the two of them eventually settled down.

Though it looks like Yuki, who is about half Hershey's size, is taking up way more than her fair share of Hershey's bed.

Something to Fill The Time

So much has happened since I was keeping up with this blog more regularly. First, Media Guy graduated from college and moved back into the house. Then the young friend for whom I made the Chocolate Dinner because she was Moving to Delaware (and thus getting out of Dodge), decided to move back to Dodge and needed a temporary place to stay -- as did her guy, her daughter, their cats, their dogs, and their ferret. So all of them moved into the house. Then Future Vet rescued a litter of feral kittens and couldn't keep them in the house he is renting while at school, so -- of course -- they moved into the house.Trust me, you do NOT want to know what the creature count was in our house over the summer.

Considering that the Wizard has been spending most of his time on the road and that my knees have been hurting quite a lot and that there is a lot more room in the master bedroom upstairs, we did a room shuffle which put the Wizard and me into the downstairs master bedroom and our house guests (family of 3 and assorted beasties) into the master bedroom upstairs. Now that our guests have found employment and moved into a house of their own, we had to make a decision about moving back upstairs.

As usual, I was happy with the idea of another round of Musical Bedrooms and staying downstairs. We would have gained the small bedroom that connects to the downstairs master, but ended up with considerably less space overall. So I agreed to move back upstairs.

After three months of occupancy by 3 people, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and a ferret, the upstairs master needed some major cleaning. And once we moved everything out of the room so that we could clean the carpet, we took a good look at the walls and decided that maybe we should paint them. And while we were doing that, we could finally paint the upstairs bathroom that we had redone in oh, 2009.

Today we got started on the painting. Four views, before and after:

Well, no, we aren't done yet. But we got a fair amount of painting done today and since Sports Nuts is out of school this semester, we have lots of time this week to finish up. We're painting the walls green because green is the Wizard's favorite color. But he's not here to make a decision on the bathroom colors, so I can go wild there.

We stopped and cleaned up because tonight is Halloween and Sports Nut and I decided that we would turn off the outside lights and hide in the back of the house tonight.

Twenty Months

The Wizard is still commuting to the Sunshine State every week -- and while we're at it, how does Florida rate the moniker "Sunshine State" when the National Solar Observatory (supposedly the sunniest place on earth) is in the same state as Dodge? But I digress....Although the Wizard is commuting, he was home for four whole consecutive days this weekend and we had a chance to talk about -- you guessed it! -- getting out of Dodge.

We think we have come up with a solution that involves spending approximately 20 more months here in Dodge. That will give Sports Nut time to finish his degree at Yet Another University (don't ask) and will also coincide with the time that Future Vet should finish his undergraduate studies. In other words, May 2013 or thereabouts.

It's good to have an end point. Now all I need to do is figure out how to fill those 20 months.

Time to Stop Sulking?

It's been about 3 months now since the Wizard and I found out that we would lose a significant amount of money if we sell our house. And the Wizard is on yet another long-term gig that involves flying to the East Coast each week. He's exhausted from the travel. I'm somewhat lonely, despite having a house chock-full of young adults and animals (and one 3-year-old).

We are thinking that we may just have to bite the bullet and move anyway.

Over the next week or so, I plan to figure out what getting out of Dodge will mean. In the meantime, Future Vet brought home three feral kittens who are coming along nicely.

More on all of this later today. Or tomorrow.

This May Be The End

The whole purpose of this blog was to document our efforts to get STUFF out of the house, fix up the house, and put it on the market so that we could, y'know, get the hell out of Dodge. About a month ago, I thought we had gotten to a place where we could have a realtor come in and start the process of selling. So.... we invited one over.

When we received the appraisal for the house -- what this realtor thought we could sell for -- we had to make a change in our thinking. The price he suggested was less than we paid for the house in the first place. And we have spent thousands of dollars on improvements like the kitchen and the bathrooms. Plus less noticeable things like plumbing, electricity, and flooring.

Due to a road trip to La-La Land for Media Guy's graduation from college, and the Wizard's work schedule, which has him in Florida for the summer (not my idea of a summer vacation spot!), we haven't really had time or energy to figure out what to do next. Suffice it to say that our plans to get out of Dodge are currently on hold.

And I have to figure out a way to maintain my sanity if we stay here much longer. If I liked booze more, I could become a drunk. That would definitely take the edge off. Other suggestions that have been put forward are going back to school (online, not on the ground in Dodge), homesteading (chickens, goats, more produce!), getting a real job, and embracing insanity. If you have other suggestions, feel free to put them forward in the comments.

In the meantime, if you know of anyone who wants to buy a nice house in Dodge, let me know.

It even comes with bunnies!

All for Nothing (Two Weeks Later)

That's what the garage has looked like for the past week. All that work we did two Sundays ago to clear it out was totally undone within an afternoon. Ah, well, I enjoyed the open space in the garage for a week. And I took advantage of the access to get rid of lots of stuff through Freecycle.

All of that, plus this 7-foot by 3-foot Thule box that's been in the back yard for a while:

But what, you may ask, happened in the garage? That I can answer in a single word: Pesach. The vast majority of what got loaded into the garage is empty boxes from our Passover dishes and utensils. Additionally, all our regular dishes were moved out there, along with any food we sold to use after the holiday is over.

The shelves to the left nearest the garage door are full of dishes and other stuff from the kitchen, while those bins on the right of the narrow path that allows us access to the recycling bins are full of food. (Yes, there are some Girl Scout cookies in the top bin.)

And while the men in the family -- who moved all this stuff out to the garage -- left me a path of sorts to the dog food and second refrigerator:

Access to those shelves on the back wall -- the shelves that the original clearing out of the garage was all about -- is totally denied:

Pesach ends Tuesday night. Once we get everything packed up and back to the shed where we store it, maybe I can get back to going through stuff in the garage.

You Can Do a Lot in Two Hours

Although today was the Wizard's birthday, I asked him to please help me in the garage. It turned out we didn't need the whole day -- we got everything I wanted done completed in about two hours.

We started at 8:30, after we'd had a chance to digest a bit of breakfast. The view from the house door into the garage at that time:

As you can see, there's just STUFF all over the place -- cans of paint, that backstop I uncovered last week, an old rocking chair, some boxes, extension cords. The real problem is toward the back, though -- there are several pieces of furniture from my grandmother's house that are just too big and heavy for me to move by myself. And they are blocking access to the shelves along the back (right-hand) wall.

By 9:00 we had made significant progress.

Trash bags are being filled with trash. A vacuum cleaner was brought out to pick up some of the dust. Cans of paint have been moved to the shelves on the left-hand side of the garage. The right-hand shelves, however, are still blocked by furniture.

So we kept at it. We kept pulling things out of the garage to list on Freecycle or give to people we know can use them. And amid all the STUFF, we found a bag that held all the pieces of that backstop once it was taken apart. And directions for putting it back together again. Wonders never cease.

By 9:30, we wanted a quick bathroom and water break, and more progress was evident.

That right-hand wall is, of course, still totally inaccessible.

Oh, look at that -- two long boxes just chock full of comic books belonging to Future Vet. And now conveniently located in Future Vet's bedroom.

By 10:00 a.m., we were ready for Sports Nuts to lend a hand in moving the furniture into the space we had cleared.

Because, you know, I still couldn't reach those shelves.

With the help of Sports Nut, we finished up within the next 30 minutes. Here's the more-or-less final product, circa 10:30 a.m.

I can now reach everything on the shelves along the left-hand wall.

And the shelves on the right-hand wall are crammed full of stuff that is almost accessible.

The shelves nearest the garage door have Passover items on them, so during this coming week they will be emptied and our regular dishes will be moved out here.

Also, some time much later in the day, I moved all the empty collapsed boxes off of Future Vet's bed and onto the top of one of the chests out in the garage. I counted 108 boxes and rather more box lids. Some boxes went out of the house with things in them; others were too damaged to re-use and were recycled. Considering all of those boxes had STUFF in them not too long ago, I guess we truly are making some progress here.

Some of the Crap

That title feels like it ought to have more. Some of the crap some of the time, maybe?

I am not going to post a picture of what the garage looks like right now because it doesn't look significantly different than it did yesterday. Today was grocery-shopping day and laundry day and having people pick up Freecycle stuff day and, as a consequence, I didn't take a whole lot out of the garage. But I did find some interesting things, which I have decided to share with all my loyal readers.

There was a definite sports theme among today's finds. For example, a back stop.

Our Pesach groceries can be seen hiding discreetly behind the mesh. No doubt they are unaware that the mesh allows them to be clearly seen. No doubt.

In keeping with the baseball motif, there were no less than three (count 'em -- 3!) baseball equipment bags out there. In the event of a zombie invasion, we have enough baseball bats to equip a small army.

The next item I located deserves a little bit of explanation. One of our kittens is a thief. All is well; she is named after the thief Parker, who is played by the delightful Beth Reisgraf in the television show Leverage. Our Parker was actually named after the other Parker before we realized she was a thief. Life imitates art, as they say.

Anyway, our Parker has been going out to the garage for months and coming back in with marbles. One at a time, she has transferred an impressive number of marbles into the house, which we try to collect and put into this pitcher before anyone has a chance to slip and fall on a marble.

We sort of knew that there was a bag in the garage containing the Wizard's marbles. (No, the Wizard has not lost his marbles; they have been in the garage all this time.) We figured that Parker had found the Secret Stash of Marbles. And within the last week, we finally managed to get to the back wall of the garage and uncover Parker's marble warehouse. And some baseball gloves (the sports them was not yet done).

We brought the marble bag into the house briefly, but then we realized that we were spoiling Parker's fun. So the bag is back out on the shelf and Parker is once again bringing in marbles one at a time. We figure when the pitcher is full and the bag is empty, we can transfer the marbles back to the bag and let her start all over again.

I mentioned that Sports Nut and I had been bringing stuff in from the garage. Today I took a good look at the pile of stuff we had brought in. These items will form the next round of Freecycle offers.

Super Soakers! A lamp! A lap desk! Light bulbs! I can't stop to think about it because the variety and number of things out there is just too overwhelming.

And here's another item I found in the garage today. I set it up and immediately had an opponent.

Puck has decided to take the white pieces and is contemplating his opening gambit. Meanwhile I am wondering where and when we acquired this chess set. Not to mention why. Maybe it was a gift. Now I have to decide whether to keep this chess set or the wooden set we've had for years. Decisions, decisions.

I mentioned that it was laundry day. Among other things, I stripped everything off the bed and remade it. It's a good thing, though, that we have two complete sets of bedding. I had planned to wash the mattress pad from the bed, but every time I thought about putting into the washer, it was in use.

This was the only time all five kittens were on top of the mattress cover. Most of the day there had been at least one kitten underneath or inside. Mighty battles were fought. Now that all the kittens are shut up upstairs waiting for their dinner, I'm contemplating tossing the mattress cover into the washer. By the way, Parker is the all-gray kitten in the upper left.

Last, but not least, the remainder of the 20 or so boxes of homeschooling materials that I still had in the house left today. Most went to a couple of homeschooling coops that run resource centers. May they all use them in good health. And I'll enjoy the empty space where they used to be.