Last night we were lying around like slugs, I on the computer and he watching some trainwreck on TV. Oh, it was a tattoo show; he is horrified by tattoos and watches it by switching it off and on like there are snakes on it. When Kat comes on he lets out a stifled, "Ugh". There was a particularly unusual setup and I "heard" him consider something very un-p.c. in his thoughts. So I peered around the computer and repeated it. He allowed as that wasn't nice to say. I allowed as how I hadn't thought of it, just repeating it. He grunted in assent and laughed at himself for being so rude, even inside his head. The thing I like about it is, it didn't weird him out at all. The tattoos did.
I enjoyed the hard work of setting up my kid's apartment even though it involved constant cleaning; it all seemed to make something good happen. I have been working on my house since I got home and every day it gets harder. The front rooms looked better, at first. Now they are starting to fill up with crap for the yard sale I have promised myself. I have worked on the bedrooms for days and they still don't look much better unless you check closely for dust. Every day I attack another closet, bookcase, box of abandoned stuff my kid wanted to keep but not sort, or desk drawer. My eyes and lips burn but thanks to the big allergy workup, I now know that it's a form of angioedema that won't kill me so I can just suffer and power through it. But it's really upsetting me in a cumulative way; I spend a couple of hours every day searching vainly or applying vainly for local jobs. I am waiting for my drug-screen to come back so I can get a start date from the guys down South. When that happens, I will have to negotiate a relocation allowance just to get down there, and then the real madness will start. When I got sick it crept up on me; my feet filled up with bone spurs while I worked 270-hour months, half of them on the road, and never sorted the chemicals and baskets in the laundry room, the clothes I got too fat for, the junk that filled the drawers. Once I was felled and couldn't stand or bend over without fainting, the place turned into a bonafide Hoarders site; if it got in here, I had to get someone else to remove it or it didn't leave. It's truly scary what three years of that will do to your home after fifteen years of having someone keep it tidy for you. I found a lot of unorganized photos and sorted them out of the sleeves, and the ones of the house just killed me, it used to look so much nicer. I got this huge, wistful, sad nostalgia for my housekeeper, my health, my ability to bounce between jobs, my stamina to keep the yard up, and it slams me every time my nose starts to itch while cleaning out a cabinet. Cleaning gives me the blues on a good day but cleaning without visible progress while on hold for my life is sending me around the bend.
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I came back from North Carolina to a trashed house. The dishwasher was running, but about another half dishwasher load was rinsed and stacked on the counter. The dining table covered with flotsam and jetsam. The dog was embarrassed, kept walking around, picking up stray cat food pellets and giving me sidelong glances. Had to go right out in less than an hour to an award ceremony where Ray was recognized.
ReplyDeleteOn a table next to the patio doors, there is a stack of odds and ends that Ray wouldn't let me throw away, but he won't take them out to the storage shed. If it's not too hot tomorrow I will have to do it. Otherwise, "Hoarders" here we come. I have only had housekeepers for fits and starts so have been working with the frustration ever since Steph started being such a slob. Seems like it was easier before she was born. I had time to work in the yard, take on projects then.
Yard sales will never repay you for the work you put into them. We had one before moving away from Missouri, but the only real cash came from the baby furniture bought by the lady across the street who ran a daycare. Most stuff didn't sell, was a Goodwill run. If you have anything good, small enough to ship or mail, sell it on ebay.
It's so hot that the turnout for garage sales is terrible right now. Your only hope is to go in on a yard sale with someone who has a shady carport or yard, on a through street.
Do I need to come up there?
We don't do Goodwill runs; there is a treasure collector guy who makes a Sunday afternoon run down OaA#2's street so we have the sales there with the neighbors and whatever doesn't sell goes on the street. It's gone before city trash comes on Monday. He came and got my dead fridge last week.
ReplyDeleteYou have your own stuff but if I get backed into a corner for New Orleans I may give out a scream. I can't climb up and down a ladder enough to do the laundry room alone and OaA#2 has overcommitted to jobs since his looks like it's going to turn out the lights soon.