Today's Project

Growing up, my father kept his guns in the utility closet. He was a soldier and a hunter. He always had guns in the closet. He taught us to consider any gun as loaded. So we were never to go into the closet. We were not to touch the closet, or even look at it. As a result, I grew up with an abnormal fear of the utility closet. 

The utility closet in my apartment is located in a very prominent place; in the dining area, just outside the kitchen. And it is somewhat of an eyesore. I bought some wall stickers trying to improve the look of it. It does not distract from the fact that it is the utility closet. And it isn't exactly the look I was looking for. It reminds me of something you might put up as a backdrop for a dessert table at a home bridal shower. I am trying to decide if I want to keep it for a while.

Speaking about tables. I think I may have found one. I found it on FB Marketplace. It is located a couple of miles from here. And it is solid wood for the price that I would have paid for a plastic folding table and a few chairs. Tim and I will be going to pick it up tomorrow afternoon. I hope this will work out. 

Clean Enough for an Irish Housewife

 I woke up this morning and cleaned my entire apartment, top to bottom. I wiped everything down, cleaned the windowsills and baseboards. I scrubbed the bathtub and toilet. I dusted, swept, vacuumed, and mopped. It all took me about an hour and a half to accomplish. I wasn't in any hurry.  And when I had finished, I heard my mother speaking in my head saying, "It's clean enough for an Irish housewife, I suppose." 

It wasn't a compliment. My mother used to say it after we'd all finished our chores. And what she meant by it was that it was clean, but you could still tell that someone actually lived in the house we had just cleaned. Then she'd go back through and by some trick I could never figure out, turn the space we'd just cleaned into a room that was good enough to be in a museum. Why she thought that a house inhabited by six children should ever look as if nobody lived there is well beyond me. 

I heard my aunts and grandmother use the same term, so I think it must have come from my great-grandmother, and who knows who before her. The cultural derision is still apparent, though no one in my family is ashamed of having Irish descent. It was just a term that was used.

I looked around after my imagined critique from my dear departed mother and decided that clean enough for an Irish housewife was plenty good enough for me today. The king isn't coming to tea, after all. I don't need my home to look as if nobody lives here to be comfortable in it. I enjoy clean. But clean enough is enough.

Time

 The first day of the year has quietly slipped into the second. I am awake, as always, in the wee hours of the morning. 

I had plans to start the new year off doing traditional things, like making the peas and greens etc. Instead, I spent the day writing letters to those who were kind enough to send me Christmas cards. I could have gotten cards out, and it would have been a good time to do it. But to be honest, I just didn't think about it until I started receiving cards. The letters were brief, just an acknowledgement of receiving the cards, and explanation that I had moved and an invitation to visit me anytime. I included the new address. I have six of them stamped and ready to go into the mail. 

Where the rest of the day went, I could not tell. As my grandmother would have said, I piddled. I got a few small things accomplished. I read a few pages of The Hobbit. Mostly I looked around and made plans. Or to be more accurate, I remade plans. I have been planning to get a full-sized bed for the main bedroom. But I have queen-sized sheets and blankets and comforters. And if couples come to stay, as I have invited six so far, having a queen-sized bed would be much more comfortable. The room is big enough to handle a queen. My main objection is that I can't manhandle a queen-sized mattress by myself. But the truth is that I doubt I'd be able to manhandle a full-sized one either. When I need to flip it around, I'd still need to have my son come over to help me do it.

After piddling my day away and remaking decisions that I thought I'd already settled, I looked at the can of peas and the can of greens and just couldn't bring myself to want to eat them. I took them out to the small sharing shelf near the mailboxes and left them there. Someone had left two televisions there. I brought one in to see if it worked, and it did. But it isn't a smart TV and will need an interface to hook up to wi-fi. I decided that televisions are the only thing that are still cheap enough and decided that I didn't want to mess with that one. I took it back.

When I got back inside, I took all of the leftover snacks and treats from the holidays out of the refrigerator and made myself a charcuterie meal. I may have no luck or money for the whole year, but I did not have to eat those peas and greens. I hope someone else will enjoy them for me.

And now it's the early morning hours of the second day of the year and I'm still piddling. But that's okay. 

It Was Christmas

Brrr...It's cold, even this far south. Twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, and I choose this morning to take the empty cardboard boxes out to the dumpster. I am down to four now. And I realized that until I'm ready to buy a full-size bed frame and mattress and a dresser for the room they are in, there is no rush to unpack them. Even they are mostly unpacked. I am down to the minutiae. Most of it I am unsure why I even packed it. Most of it will be tossed after I have gone through it to make sure there isn't something left that I want to keep or need to keep. 

Christmas came and went, even though I was mostly unprepared for it until the last minute. But it was a nice Christmas this year. Tim and Jack came over on Christmas Eve for snacks and to open presents. I saved the presents that Mollie and Chris sent for Christmas morning. I thought that I would feel sad if I didn't have something to open then, but I really think I would have been fine opening them anytime. Christmas day was spent with Emily and her family. It was a nice time, but I was happy when I got back home. 

The apartment is coming together. It still feels a bit empty and stiff, It's not that cozy feeling that as a child I called "homey home" but have now embraced as the idea of hygge. Getting my things out has helped, but the apartment is a lot more space than I have had in eleven years. And in those years, I have pared down to practically nothing three times. 

 

There are still things that I am missing. The furniture for one of the bedrooms that I mentioned is most of it. But I am looking for a dining table on FB Marketplace and the local swap sites. I haven't started looking in the thrift shops yet. Tim tells me that the thrift shops aren't all that great here. I will take a look around If I can't find anything acceptable soon. But again, there really is no hurry. I'm hoping to be rewarded for my patience. Who knows, maybe the republicans will throw some money at us hoping to buy our votes in November. It could happen. Mostly, I am looking for chairs. The patio furniture helps with seating, but it just doesn't have the feel that I want to live with. I am torn between a mid-century modern reading chair and something I have come across called a lazy chair. Both are light weight and easy to move around as I desire. But the lazy chair can be taken apart and washed in the washer. That has an enormous appeal to me right now. I actually need three chairs, one for the living room and one for each of the bedrooms. So, I might just get one of each and decide which needs to go where. That is how I have been making my decisions. I place things around and rearrange them until it tells me it is where it needs to be. It's working better than anything else.

So now it's New Years Eve. I have no plans for tonight except to finish off the treats from Christmas and read The Hobbit. As unexciting as that sounds, it is actually a grand site better than last year. I was very sick on a train heading for Seattle. If anything has taught me that life changes on a dime, it's been this past year. I don't want to make any prediction about what the new year will hold. And I don't want to place any expectations on it either. So, I won't be making any resolutions to change my life. My life does that well enough on it's own. But I hope to find the furniture that I am looking for and maybe find a community in this town. And maybe I will finish the afghan that I started, 

I wish you the best in the New Year. 

I'm Home

The couch is coming on Thursday. The rest of the furniture still needs to be built. We were supposed to get everything out of storage today, but I am too sore and exhausted to get it. It doesn't really matter; I have plenty here to keep me busy for a while. It will possibly stay there until the weekend. But the kitchen and bathroom are sorted. And the tree is up, Or, at least what I have the bandwidth to do this year. 

I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed. Good night.

 

All My Bags Are Packed

The big day is tomorrow. I'll be moving into my own place. I'll have my own kitchen for the first time in years. I can make popcorn in the middle of the night without disturbing anyone. I will have control over the HVAC unit. No one turning up the heat to tropical levels while I'm trying to sleep. My bathroom is small, but it's mine, all to myself.  No more waking up to holding it while someone else is taking a leisurely shower. I can take that leisurely shower whenever I choose. The cabinets, and closets and pantry are mine as well. I will have room to spread my things out. I can play the music that I want to hear without considering anyone else's tastes. 

I'm giving myself a week to get my things sorted. It will probably take a month. But I envision myself cooking in a kitchen where the utensils are in a drawer by the stove and the cups and glasses are in a cabinet by the sink. I want the chaos of packing gone as soon as I can make it happen. And Christmas is coming. I don't want to be living out of cardboard boxes for the holiday. 

Tomorrow night I will sleep in a bed that I bought for myself, on sheets that I chose. All of the things that I packed eight months ago, not knowing it would be so long before I enjoyed them again, will be around me.

I ordered the groceries on Monday of last week. I hope that they will arrive as planned. It's almost $400 of groceries. I gasped when I saw the total. But there are very few splurges with them. And the splurges tend to be things like apples and oranges, and natural katsup and peanut butter rather than the kind that uses HFCS.

My internet will be one of the no contract, pay by the month set-ups. I hope it will be okay. 

I hope this all will be okay. I have such high hopes for it. I really don't want to be disappointed.

Thankful

 The bird is there, in the freezer keeping the dinner rolls and frozen corn company. The cranberries and pineapple are in the fridge with the celery. The onion and potatoes are waiting in the bin on the counter. And the green beans and soups are in the pantry. Everything to bake the pies is here, ready to go. 

I told Aunt Joan not to worry about it. I would bring the food and prepare it. Her daughters were going to help me. Her son was going to bring the paper plates and the drinks. I learned to cook the Thanksgiving feast in that kitchen, watching my mother, grandmother and aunts. I was looking forward to doing it again. My cousin says they don't feel up to celebrating this year. I can understand that. They say maybe we can all get together next year. But the house will be sold by then. Or at least, for my cousin's sake I would hope so. For the very first time since the house was built in 1941 another family will live there. They will cook in that kitchen and never know that is where the core of my memories was built. It won't be the same.

My son will be working on Thanksgiving and then spending the evening with his fiancé and her family. I was invited, but he works in Georgia and they live there. It would be inconvenient to come back here after work to get me. I could drive there by myself, but I don't really want to. Jack will spend the day with his mother and her family so there is nothing really compelling me to do it.

I think I'm going to box the food up and take it to a food pantry, see if they know of someone needing a volunteer to serve potatoes and gravy at a community meal. If not, I will bake myself a pot pie and watch the parade and Christmas movies on TV. I like pot pies, and I make a really good one. Besides, I have a lot to pack up for my move the following Monday. 

I knew this was going to be a hard Thanksgiving. But I have a lot to look forward too. I'm not going to throw a pity party. Even if I'm doing it alone, I'll be doing things that I enjoy. And I'm almost done with the afghan that I've been knitting. Maybe I can finish it. It would be nice to have it complete for my new home.

Good things will happen in December. I just have to get through the rest of this month.

Dilemma

So, I have a dilemma. We are boycotting the Christmas rush this year. It's a really important event. No Kings rallies are great and well attended. But they don't do any real harm. Being loud and in your face is fine but if the other side has no shame and doesn't care, what good's it going to do ya? So the next big protest hits the only thing they care about and that is their pocketbooks. We are closing down the economy on the biggest money-making week of the year. No last-minute Thanksgiving. No Black Friday weekend. No Cyber Monday. I'm not sure why they are detonating Giving Tuesday, but it's on the list. We will not be spending money that week. 

It's not like I really have a ton of money to spend. So far I've spent around 3K getting into the apartment, considering the furnishings and goods I need to live alone, the fees and deposits etc. I still have another grand that I will need to pay on the first in rent and deposits. And then I will need to stock the larder. And that is my dilemma. I will need to buy groceries, and quite a lot of them even for just the basics.

The rules call for spending at local businesses. But the only grocery stores in the area are big box, Publix, Target, Aldi, Walmart, Kroger etc. If there is a mom and pop in the area, I don't know about it. And the amount that I need to purchase is staggering. Just basics to get set-up is coming out to be in the $300 range. How do I do this. My options feel like cheating. I can place an order on the 24th to be delivered on the first. But I've never had that much of a spread in the time between placing the order and having it delivered. And it really isn't the impact that the organizers are going for. I can purchase a few basics and frozen pizzas to get me through the couple of days. But that order is going to need to be placed. And breaking it up is adding a complication that I don't need. 

I'm open to suggestions. What would you do?

Homeward Bound

Once again, it's been a while. And a lot has happened since we last spoke. Thank all of you who reached out to your higher powers on my behalf. I am happy to say that I am officially no longer homeless. While the home I have found looks nothing like the picture to the left, it may well have been built in the same era. I will be moving into my own apartment on December 1. And I am almost shocked at how easy the process was in relation to my fear of it. The last time I lived in a commercial residential property was in 1987. Since then, I have lived in private lease situations with the exception of about a decade where I owned my own home. So, I was expecting some push back, if not hairy side eyes at my lease application. It was accepted within an hour of my submitting it.

The apartment is two bedrooms, which is more than I really need. And larger than the house that I shared in Washington and larger than the apartment that I am in right now. It really is much more space than I need. But I will try to adjust, wink-wink.  It is across the street from the post office and senior citizen center, And it is only a few blocks away from the university and all the surrounding shopping and community/campus life. From what I am told, my neighbors will be mostly college students. I don't expect it will be quiet.

There are things that I have missed about having my own place. I look forward to having a kitchen and bathroom all to myself. I will be able to pop popcorn at 3am if I so please. I won't go into the gruesome details of why I am excited to have a bathroom to myself. I'm sure you can imagine why. Let's suffice it to say that for the first time since I left Georgia, I will have a towel bar in the bathroom. That shouldn't be as exciting as it is. 

I left almost all of my belongings in Georgia when I left. And when we left Washington, again household items were left behind. It is far easier, and cheaper to replace items than to move them three thousand miles across the country. I have been busy the over the last six weeks gathering all the things that I will need to function in my own home. I haven't gotten the best of anything by a far shot. Mostly, it has been what is affordable, functional and light enough that I can dismantle it and move it myself should I ever desire to do so again. But I am getting excited about making a home out of the things I have bought. My new dishes are beautiful, and I have spent a good deal of the last few weeks daydreaming about serving myself a meal on them. This isn't the exact set I purchased. But it's pretty close and mine are all packed away waiting for the move.

I've signed the lease, have the utilities set up, and now I'm just waiting for the first of the month. Waiting is always the hard part for me. Patience isn't my strong point. 

In sadder news, my Aunt Joan died. She and my mother were exceptionally close. And she was the mother of my favorite cousin, a second mother to me. It hit me very hard. My cousins are having a very hard time with it too. Lots of tears have been shed over the last couple of weeks. 

She died in the early morning hours of November 1st. Almost as if she had been waiting for the veil between worlds to thin out so she could cross quickly over. She was the last of that generation for that family. And that fact alone struck us very hard. We are the elders now, I guess. 

I had hoped to visit her for Thanksgiving this year. I offered to cook the feast for her. I already have the turkey in the freezer. I will have to make other plans now. With the upcoming move it's probably better, but Thanksgiving will be a heavy day. But I will have the move to keep me busy and that is good. 

 

I Just Can't Even...

It's been a while again. I don't plan these absences. They just come. Mostly they are coming because I am so totally overwhelmed with the things I should be talking about. 

Every day is more insanity. The King Fool had bulldozed the White House. There are masked men masquerading as police kidnapping people off the streets. And the police are providing cover for them while the governors of the states they are in pretend that they are getting tough on the masked intruders. Congress men and women say, "Just you wait, justice is coming." But we all know that there will be no justice to come. They had their chance to bring justice and wrang their hands and clutched their pearls instead. 

And still there are people who bow down to the King Fool. Like the sheep in Animal Farm, the baa out "Blue hat bad, Red hat good" I had one tell me that the Fool had lowered their taxes. I wanted to ask just how much pension a retired cop gets, but I'm too polite for that. And I will be expected to spend Thanksgiving and probably Christmas too with these people. I just can't. 

I am trying to find an apartment for myself. I hope that I will be in one for the holidays. I'm knitting myself a blanket to make the living room feel homey to me. I'm pretty sure that once I find a place, I will hole down and spend a lot of time making it a home.

This post sounds hopeless. Sometimes that is how I feel the situation is.