Project Round-Up

Wow, all that light coming in through the window highlights every little thing that needs finishing around here. I have a list, however, and we have A Plan. So, on we go!

There's a cabinet/bookshelf that's been languishing in the dining room for years. It held the printer and ALL the paper I didn't know what to do with, but couldn't part with, either. As of today, it's out of there, and we have room to put a coat rack by that door. It's going to be swanky and practical. I'm so excited. Overall, this is a win. However, turns out we never put baseboard behind it. I think Zorak built the cabinet shortly after we put the flooring in, and the baseboards came a year or so after that, so... we blew it off. Well, no longer! The house now has a contiguous line of baseboard around all the walls in all the rooms. It's almost like living with grown ups.

And, the cabinet is empty. That, in itself, was a project. All the paper hoarding tendencies got dealt with head-on this week. Ouch. There's a therapeutic glass of wine waiting at the end of one of these projects, I hope. I'm going to savor the living daylights out of it, if there is.

We started the late-winter limb debridement, as well. Mother Nature tends to the most urgent limbs for us, but she's pretty bad about just dropping them anywhere. I like to think they're good to have around - they're natural, and composty, and provide a sense of wild adornment. Zorak insists they give the place a neglected, mildly haunted look that's unappealing to all except the least desirable visitors (namely field mice and squatters). OK, that's a fairly compelling argument. He wins. We'll pick up. I'm hoping to visit the landscape guy this week. We have friends who visited him and followed his advice, and their front yard went from Random Woodsy Front Yard to Lovely Rural Garden Vista in a weekend. I want that. Of course, we're slower than they are, and not nearly as motivated, so I'll be happy if we do in a year what they did in a weekend. As long as it gets done, there will be fistbumps. Maybe even high fives, if I'm feeling particularly geeky.

The basement, ever a source of manual labor requirements and probably the biggest reason Z and I avoid making eye contact from time to time, is also in our sights. Cull, clear, clean, burn, donate, give away, sell, burn a little more (the burn barrel is *right there*. No excuse, really.) You'd think that we would eventually have an empty, open space we could let out for dances and weddings, but so far, it's not looking like that's going to happen. Someone is sneaking stuff in there. I don't know who, or what, exactly, but... it's uncanny how much stuff is still there after several years of culling, burning, and giving away. We're blessed, that's for sure, but we need to be blessing others a little more fervently, I think.

That, school, and playing in the freak snow we got this week have pretty much been all we're up to. Hard to make that interesting, so it's easier to skip. There's a lot going on, but I'm not ready to spill it here yet. And of course, the minute someone says, "Don't think about the Stay-puff Marshmallow Man," that's all you can think of. It's funny to be human. We're so weird.

Tomorrow, it's back to the basement. I think we've got some bathroom vents to do maintenance on, as well. But I promise that if I do blog, it won't be the equivalent of a checked off to-do list, like this one was. If you're here, and you're reading, you deserve better than that. Or at least more effort. No guarantees that the quality will be much better, regardless.

Kiss those babies, always,

Dy