Watch-out! Suzy Homemaker is back in town. Woo hoo!

Yes, after five-and-a-half weeks, Tom has returned to work. Light duty, desk work, yes, but he's there at the plant again and I am here at home alone with Lennon and McCartney The Cats as Big Band Era music blares in celebration while I write to you.

And plans! My, do I have plans for today. Painting and gardening and laundry and cleaning and doing all those tasks left undone, those staring at me, while Tom was home resting his shoulder. Maybe I'll even stroll down to our tiny market or a bit farther to the town library. Who knows? I can do whatever I want today for however long I wish. (Well, I can't drive anywhere since Tom has taken the car, but who needs to drive on a lovely springtime Monday?)

And even though many people 'out there' are bummed that it's Monday and some are home dreading tackling the tasks staring at them, well, as for me and my house, we'll spend the day together, rejoicing that normality, all smiley and glad, has returned.


************



A HUGE thank-you to NancyR for recommending the book, Fifty Acres and a Poodle. It arrived last week and I read it in one (one!) day. A lovely, funny book which I could not put down. You can read about this fun book here and buy it for just three pennies(!), though with cheaper shipping prices and totals at abebooks.com.

Thanks again, Nancy!

Seeking The Fun of Housekeeping

I find myself in the middle of four Gladys Taber books. Four! *

So this morning I discovered this passage which spoke exactly what's in my heart, but stated it better than I ever could. So here you go:

"But housekeeping is fun, and I think the women who hate it lack imagination. It is one joy where you enjoy the results right along as you work. You may work all day washing and ironing, but at night you have the delicious feeling of sunny clean sheets and airy pillows to lie on. If you clean, you sit down at nightfall with the house shining and smelling faintly of wax, all yours to enjoy right then and there.

And if you cook--ah, if you cook--that creation you lift from the oven goes right to the table.

One way to look at it, of course, is that women's work is never ended, and I have heard housekeepers say they hate to make cakes because they get eaten right up anyway. You can make it drudgery if you want to, but it isn't. And it is not monotonous either, for no day is ever really the same. Lucky the woman who has a home and can live in what she is creating!"


From Stillmeadow Seasons by Gladys Taber



********




* Jodi asked which four books I'm reading:

The Stillmeadow Road
Stillmeadow Seasons
One Dozen and One
Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge

Plus, I occasionally peek into Stillmeadow Album for photos of the rooms and things Gladys described in her books. I am always so inspired by her photo album.



******

If You Buy Groceries This Might Interest You

Wow. Have you checked out Alice.com?

You can buy groceries there online.

And if there's a coupon 'out there' anywhere for the products you buy, Alice will automatically apply that coupon toward your purchase. No need to clip anything or use a discount code.

Alice will mail you your groceries for free. No shipping charges! And you'll receive your order in only 2 - 3 business days.

And Alice will remind you when you are running out of your groceries so you can order more. Plus, she'll place little pictures of what you order on your main page so next time you can simply slide them over to your cart, rather than search for what you need on the appropriate page.

And that's just the half of it. Even the prices for most things are good, especially when you factor in the gas you would have spent as well as the value of your time (and your sanity).

Today I received my first order from Alice and as I unloaded my box I thought, "Wow. This could get addictive." Just think! When we're surrounded by snow and treacherous ice this winter, not only will Bob the Milkman bring groceries right to my back door, but so will Alice.

Happy sigh.

Go see Alice for yourself. She might just be right for you, too. :)


(We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.)


*****


Update: No longer is there an Alice.com, but oh, I still get as excited over ordering groceries online from Walmart and Target.   ツ



******

A Clothesline of My Own

Oh happy, happy day.


The last time I had my very own outdoor clothesline was in California way back in 1988(!) I remember being a young mom and hanging clothes in the backyard, stopping suddenly while geese flew and honked overhead, watching them and feeling enchanted all the rest of the afternoon. And even without the geese, I've always found hanging laundry outside a very dreamy, retro sort of thing.


At our last house, I had access to a clothesline, though, in our neighbor's yard from 1993 to around 2002. Nancy loved for me to use hers, even to the point of being a little hurt if I didn't. But sometimes she wanted to hang her clothes or our neighbor on the other side did, so the clothesline could become a rather crowded place and you had to choose your wash times wisely.


And yes, our own yard was so minuscule that there was no room for a clothesline. Trust me, I tried for 15 years to find space for one. We have no dryer, by choice, so I've always hung clothes inside the house, though a few times I lugged our wooden dryer rack outside, usually to have the clothes blow away or the rack fell down. (Are you getting why I'm so excited today?)


And technically, remember our little apartment where we lived for 6 months last year? Well, there was a clothesline just outside our kitchen window, one which I shared with our neighbor upstairs, always wondering if my clothes were in her way, etc.


Oh but now, after all these 21 years, I have a clothesline of my very own. Now I can be like all the other homemakers on the block.


And I'm hoping the geese will fly joyfully overhead soon.

*****************************


Being a celebrator of just about everything, I especially loved Kim's post today.

So. For nearly 30 years I've stocked-up on groceries and supplies each autumn. We've always lived in snow/ice/blizzard country and I've always hated risking my life just for a sack of groceries, so hence, the stocking-up.

This was the first autumn where I didn't do my huge Organizing Of The Pantry Supply yet this was the autumn I needed to the most because 1.) We now live in the center of, well, Nowheresville, ten miles from the nearest real supermarket (ten miles is a lot when you're talking snowy roads), and 2.) We have only one car (is that inconvenient at times? You betcha. But it saves us tons of money) and Tom drives that aforementioned car to work. Now, when he works night-shift he sleeps during the day so technically I have access to the car. Alas.

Anyway, I have my excuses as to why I skipped the stocking-up thing, but I'll spare you my whining. Yet here's why I'm most regretting my lack of foresight--always before Tom drives home from work he'll phone and ask me if I need anything from the store and sometimes I'll foolishly say that --yes--I need eggs. Or cat food. Or oatmeal.

Why is that a reckless thing to do? Because Tom will then arrive home with the eggs--and a cherry pie. He'll walk in the door with the cat food--and Hostess cupcakes and a tub of sherbet. He'll come in with the oatmeal--and two candy bars, one box of chocolate truffles, four ding dongs, a bag of Doritos and six Hershey kisses he grabbed from the bowl at work.

*&(^%&**$#@

For the record, I have no willpower. God created me without one ounce. And so all winter I've been getting rounder and I now resemble one of those nesting dolls, minus the scarf over my head. And those tv doctors and fitness trainers may quip all they want about how it's our own fault that we're fat, but that's not true in my case. Nope. In my case, it's Tom's fault.

シ

Well, I was growing tired of waking up nights feeling all guilty. I was sick of pleading with Tom not to bring home any snacks. I've tried everything over the years,I've had him sign contracts, I've threatened to throw away what he brings home (but even he knows I don't believe in throwing away non-moldy food).

But finally I came upon a plan. I decided to appeal to his spirit of competition and propose that we have a race to see who can lose five pounds first. He liked that idea. Only problem is, we can't decide on what the prize will be. Tom suggested that the winner gets to choose the next four movies we get from Netflix, but I told him, "Hey. If I'm gonna try losing five pounds, the prize had better be something more substantial than that." 

So we're still mulling that over.

And you know? Already it's made a difference. Tom called the other night and said he got his yearly bonus and didn't I want to celebrate with some sherbet or something? (Our problem for years has been that we celebrate with food and with our happy kind of life there is always something to celebrate.) But I told him, "No thanks. Go ahead and get some for yourself, but bring nothing home for me." And that's what he did--he got a little container of sherbet for himself. Ah, all those extra calories on his side of the scale, not mine!

The miracle? I wasn't even tempted this time. 

I think it was my making a Life Decision. And maybe because I'm gonna need to be in great shape to dig my Secret Garden this year or that I'm turning 50 next month. But mostly? I think it's because God is here with Grace to help me lose the weight for such a time as this.

I'm cooperating and leaning on both of them like crazy. Cooperation with God and Grace is a whole lot easier than going it alone.


*****

And yes, if you're wondering, I do need to lose more than five pounds. But I'm thinking that aiming for just five would be a terrific way to start losing possibly more.


******

Victim or Victor?

Yesterday I watched my favorite sort of Oprah rerun, a show about how to declutter your entire house in 6 months. But what I appreciated most was a certain thought they shared, one which for eons I've reminded myself:

You may not be able to control the chaos which is going on outside your home, but you can control most of the chaos on the inside.

For me, those words spell encouragement and hope. I may not be out there making huge changes in the world, but I am in here, inside my house, making small changes which make me feel better, calmer and more in control of my life.

I'm rearranging my pantry, making more space for the items I am stocking-up. The more food and etcetera I tuck inside there, the more efficient and prepared I feel for emergencies. I'm giving away clothing and clutter in order to help others feel more cared for (and so I'll feel less crowded). I'm painting walls and furniture to feel more at home within this new home of mine and we are better insulating it so to feel warmer and save money while using less energy.

You know, that sort of thing.

We can deplete our personal energy complaining about the Times in which we live, or we can aim that strength toward making changes. 

Always, there will be changes we can make within our own homes. We need not feel helpless or hopeless there.




******


"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23 (Don't allow a bunch of fear, hopelessness and worry to get in there!)

Just because the world is falling apart, doesn't mean I must.


******

Yesterday, as you know, was Monday. Some people hate Mondays, but I'm not one of them. I do the major portion of cleaning my house on Mondays and I know some people hate cleaning house.

I'm not one of them, either.

My secret? Well, I have a few. Like, play Beat The Clock. Set a timer for twenty minutes (or s0) and see how much you can accomplish before the bell rings. I love this game and have been playing since I was a teenager, in fact, at 14 I used to babysit and the kids actually loved putting their toys away before bedtime if I told them we were playing Beat The Clock.

Another idea? Buy (or keep) only those dishes or glasses or pieces of furniture (etc.) which you enjoy caring for. Get rid of what you consider ugly, useless and that which has the appearance of clutter. I have some jade-ite dishes and even my mom said she enjoyed washing those. It really is true that it's a delight to care for the things you love.

Flip on some music which gives your cleaning time the perfect ambiance.

Don't allow yourself to get far behind in your cleaning. If you keep up with it then it will never become a huge, overwhelming, dreaded project. And delegate! One person should not be in charge of cleaning and keeping a house organized. Everyone should have a part. (Here's a hint: different people usually prefer--and are good at--different tasks. Try to match up the people in your home with the tasks they mind the least.)

Reward yourself. Do some housework then give yourself some computer time. You've earned it. Or watch a tv show or eat a snack or take a walk or read a chapter from the current book you're reading.

Keep yourself inspired to have a nice house. Visit blogs which show rooms you love or look through decorating magazines or watch HGTV, etc.

Be creative in your home. Decorate with imagination. It will be more fun cleaning rooms you enjoy spending time in.


***********
Want to be inspired to save money at your house? Brenda is currently writing a series outlining her favorite money-saving hints. Check out her posts here.

You've read them, I know you have. 

You know, those 'forwards' with stories, poems about how the author has finally learned that it's the simple things in life which mean the most. How her family comes first now so she'll be doing less dusting, cleaning in order to spend time with her children. Nice, sweet lessons for us all.

Man, those things irk me.

I mean, why can't we have time to clean and time to spend with our children? Why do the only alternatives appear to be obsessive dusting or not dusting at all? How is it better to live inside a dirty house as long as you're spending quality time with your kids?

???

This is what Debra has said for years: The key will always be balance.

There's a time for cleaning and there's a time to spend playing with your family. There's even a time to spend cleaning house with your family. For isn't it also our responsibility, as parents, to raise our children to know how to care for their future homes so they'll live responsibly within their own four walls?

It was in the 1980's that all this "play, don't clean" stuff began. I know--I was there. 

I read all the magazines and saw it over and over. And look where it's gotten us! TV shows like Clean House, Clean Sweep and Life Laundry are huge ratings grabbers--people everywhere long to learn how to dig themselves out from beneath their clutter-piled homes. They're gasping for air, some limits and common sense, as well.

And yes, often all that is a result of the 'me first, I deserve to buy everything I want' mentality saturating our nation. Yet, I believe messy homes also happen because of the thinking, "It's beneath me to clean--wasn't that what those sad, un-liberated June Cleaver types did in the 50's? Clean house? Me do something so trivial?"

Alas, cleaning is no small thing. 

Just ask those folks with dust allergies or those living in so much clutter that they struggle every morning to find their keys, wallets, purses, permission slips, books, sweaters--- Items they bought and know they have--somewhere--but now they must go spend money to buy another one.

Oh blessed balance!

Spend time with your children, play with them, but have them help you clean the home you all share, too. Do it together and it'll become a habit, something you do with barely a thought (or a complaint). 

Who knows? You just might find yourself dusting the coffee table one day, automatically, without realizing you're doing so. And not minding one bit.

And what a pleasant day that will be.

********

"Teach your children well..."

(Speaking of which, here was something fun for old times' sake.)


***

This week I smiled at something. After six months, my house and I are becoming better, calmer friends.

Maybe you've read between my lines here. Perhaps you have surmised that we, my old farmhouse and I, have had our uncomfortable moments. For yes, we've peered askance at each other on afternoons and pondered if --truly--we were meant for each other after all.

All the money we have poured into her! Too many days I've written too many checks to too many workers who spent too much time updating this place. And too many days I just wanted those guys to go away so I could pull weeds in my garden or dream in our meadow without being watched. Yet winter and snow and cold has halted all that and the peace! The quiet soothes and tells me all will be ok. Now.

And I'm not even mentioning Tom's buying all these tractors (he has three--I hadn't told you yet), nor my turning corners and discovering him--ack!-- up on a ladder (he's the last person who should be up on one) or lifting the heavy things his doctor says not to.

And being a typical first-born, I can get a tad obsessive about being organized and so, move me into an old farmhouse with few luxuries like drawers and hooks and shelves and then add the truth that we got too ruthless while packing and gave away too many dressers and desks and then add our hundred poorly marked boxes-- and well, my sanity has tip-toed to various brinks. Especially distressing? My books--dearest treasures of all--were inside boxes, outside of boxes, upstairs in piles on the floor and downstairs in cupboards, in hutches under dishes and stacked inside the grandfather clock. But now, thankfully, I have my little blue library at the top of the stairs and a couple extra dressers, too, both from yard sales.

And give me an electric cooking stove when I've always used gas (except in our temporary apartment before we moved here) and I can become cranky when reaching for the wrong dial (over and over) for the wrong burner or burning things or taking forever to heat them up. After nearly a year of cooking on electric stoves I am finally getting used to it, though, alas, this morning I did burn my French toast. sigh

All summer we stored our take-to-the-curb trash cans out in the barn and I'd been attempting not to dread crawling through snowdrifts just to empty the trash all this upcoming winter. But hooray! An amazing idea popped into my head: why not keep our trash cans in the basement, instead? I'd stay dry when emptying the trash and only five steps lead up out of there so I can easily pull the cans up on trash day and take them to the curb (often it's only one trash can anyway). So far so good... so far, so better than good, actually.

And this house's heater--egads! Finally--finally!--the heater has stopped turning itself on when it gets cold. Not when we were cold, nor the house, but the heater. Beyond annoying, that was. And its indecipherable instruction booklet, one written obviously by a nuclear physicist, was no help.

Oh, it takes time to form a new relationship, even one with an old house. Or perhaps especially one with an old house, Time is required to discover a new rhythm--one to swing and dance with. And here I'd thought I moved to the beat of my own drummer... that I moved at a more serene pace... that I was different than the rest of the 'instant everything' world.

So I guess, really, I should thank this old house for humbling me... for sticking the flashing neon Impatient Person sign before my eyes... and for being patient with me while we're still learning to not only co-exist, but thrive. Together.

***

Sunday morning--outside our kitchen window. Seventeen degrees F. Ah, more early winter.... and he is here to stay for months.

Of Grace Piles

So what exactly is a Grace Pile?

Here are a few examples of the ones in my house:

And our latest one as of yesterday:

See, I've always been somewhat of a neat-freak. Oh, not the clean-it-with-soap-and-water-constantly kind, but rather the keep-things-straightened type.

Hi. My name is Debra. (Hi Debra.) I'm a straightener. I love to straighten things.

But alas, I did not marry a straightener. No, thirty years ago I married a man whose largest weakness is his lack of organizational skills. I believe he wasn't born with a single one. heh.

So--as you probably figured--it's been interesting. 

But guess what? Years ago I finally got the idea of praying for Grace over various piles of junk. I prayed that I'd be given Divine patience, tolerance and that I'd not even notice Tom's messes (or even my own occasional clutter, as in the first photo). And it worked! Well, usually.

It's amazing, but now I can step right past these various Grace Piles and not shudder/grimace/complain or even run to Tom and nag. 

Instead, I can just smile now and gaze at the remainder of the house which, usually, (unless I'm ill or mad at the whole world) is mostly straightened.

Grace Piles. Gotta love them.




******

Down a country road from us there's a mobile home park, perhaps the loveliest one Tom and I have ever seen. (And trust me, back East here, we've seen some of the most abominable ones.) But in this park, people have huge yards with sprawling green lawns and tall, ancient trees (forests, some of them) and white picket fences around flower gardens. They have patios with bistro tables and chairs and some yards have sunflowers, colorful birdhouses on posts, and most all these well-maintained homes have a full-size, attached garage. Almost no yard is 'overdone' and nearly all resemble miniature countrysides.

Tom and I love that place and we drive it's quiet little lanes often, usually while discussing how simple, picturesque and serene it appears and wouldn't it be peaceful to live there someday?

I know, I know. What are we thinking? We just moved to our tiny farm this summer.

I guess what we're thinking is ahead. Especially since we discovered this week from Tom's friend at work that--at that mobile home park--you must be over 50 to live there. Hmm. Interesting.

Something else. In our area of New York, this summer we attended a few House Sales, as they are called. House Sales are like Estate Sales except that no one has passed away, but rather, a couple (or family) has chosen to sell the vast majority of their home's contents for a myriad of reasons, either out of necessity or a desire to start all over in a new place. So they allow whole crowds to go traipsing through their house buying anything with a price tag stuck to it.

Love that. Why? For eons I've wished to be present at my own in-the-future Estate Sale, for I'd love to hear people's comments about what I'd collected over my lifetime.

"Gee, how old were these people anyway? They have stuff from every single decade since 1900 and it's hard to tell..."

"Why would anyone hold onto this stuff? Must have been penny-pinchers."

"Oh, she must have been a kindred spirit. I have so many of the same books, dishes and linens."

"Oh, she had such lovely things."

"Oh, she had such dreadful things."

heh. But at an estate sale, well, generally you are dead, so that would complicate the whole hearing comments thing. :)

But at one House Sale, we listened to the owner tell about her new home and she sounded excited. Her kitchen, this one she would soon leave, was stuffed with red and white enamelware for sale and the cutest hutches, but my covertly-listening ears recognized that glee at beginning all over again...the challenge and wonder of it. It's a feeling I've had, myself, but have never followed through on a bold, grand scale.

But someday, yes! Already Tom and I have discussed our own House Sale and how we'll hire someone to manage the money table so we can wander around pretending we're purchasers when actually, we're eavesdropping.

And following the sale perhaps we'll move into that lovely old mobile home park with the sprawling yards and attached garages and we'll have that 'playing house' feeling which we had in our apartment earlier this year. Frankly? Sometimes we miss that apartment and its true simplicity. Maybe we didn't live there long enough to tire of it (though we did tire of the outside noise). But how pleasant to live with only half our possessions and not even miss the other half. How fun and nostalgic to feel as we did thirty years ago when we first married and owned, well, nothing much, and felt free and lighter, less bogged-down.

My point? I'm just grateful that both Tom and I respect the seasons of Life. We are not dreading the future and we're not grasping onto this new farmhouse and land with a choke hold, a fierce allegiance to it for the remainder of our lives. We know people who swear they will never leave their present home, even should they grow too sick or old to care for it, yet that's not who we are.

No, we try to hold onto our possessions--and our very lives--with a wide, open hand. There is an ebb and flow to life and we wish to live in the center of that. True, there's a whole lot of change happening there, but there's also a whole lot of freedom and trust and faith there, as well. And it's pretty exciting to live in any place where you must trust that God knows best and that to follow His timing is the only real way to go.


***

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven... a time to be born, and a time to die..."

And then there are wonderful days like this one.

Tom and I were due, at noon, to meet our real estate lady for a final inspection out at our new house. I woke him up and said, "Hey! How about if we get out to the house early, way before Cher does, so we can walk through the places in the barn which we haven't even seen yet. And we can walk out a ways on the property, too."

Tom thought that a good idea. So we drove out there beneath the most blue skies and pulled into the gravel driveway of this soon-to-be-ours house and hardly before Tom shut off the engine I'd leaped outside of the car and began my own inspection. 

I ran to the huge garden and looked it (and its weeds) over. I gazed to my left and told Tom (who'd finally caught up), to look! And there was a second orchard which we'd not even seen before because the trees are all babies. But they are trees (Update: grape vines.).

Then we examined the barn board by board, including the chicken coop which we never did see before and a room off of it which will be a perfect place to lock-up Tom's tools until we enclose the carport on the side of the barn. We found a bird nest in the rafters complete with baby robins and we discovered lots of wood pieces which we'll be able to burn when we get a woodstove.

Then we walked around our green, pretty property and noted trees and tall grasses which need to be mowed. And beyond a grove of small trees I pictured a picnic place. Tom (the extreme nature lover) kept pointing out all the birds in the trees, but I was like, "Yeah, yeah birds. I know. We can see those anywhere. But can you believe all the trees there are back here?" 

The sense of discovery, the delight of all outdoors, well, we both felt like children again.

Then Tom and I discovered that the house was unlocked and though he was all nervous about our actually going inside, I burst right in, laughed at his nervousness and breezed through all the sunny rooms and talked to myself, too, as I checked details I'd forgotten to check before. Eventually, I talked Tom into the house ("What is anyone gonna do? Sue us for walking into this empty, unlocked house which is more ours at this moment than the previous owners?"). 

So I checked out all the rooms again, with Tom this time, then we went and picked up hamburgers down the street at the little everything-in-one-place corner market. We brought back the burgers and sat in the car before the barn (not having any insect repellent to ward off insects) and dreamed and planned some more.

Oh, we have two-hundred plans for Healing Acres. And on Friday afternoon we will begin the doing of those plans.

I simply cannot wait.



******

For many years this is what I've thought, "For us homemakers, in some future year, our day will come. Something will happen which will make people seek our advice about how we can afford to stay home, without real jobs, and save money."

I think That Day just may be here.

You know, with the price of gas and groceries zooming ever upward, each day now I see money-saving advice from 'experts' on tv, online and magazines. Everyone, everywhere, is moaning about the high price of gas and food and how they must cut back in other areas in order to afford to drive and even, to eat.

Actually, as I see it? Cutting back can be an amazingly good thing. It reminds us of what truly matters and what we actually need.

Do we really need the high priced cable tv package? Or the house which, technically, could accommodate 12 people?  The gym membership, the trips to fast food places (or restaurants), the designer clothes, designer shoes, designer purses?

Well, do we? :)

I'll let you answer that for yourself. But as for me and my hubby, we will ask ourselves questions before we buy things. Questions like, "Could this wait until we can pay cash? Could we buy it used, instead? Do we already have something around the house we could use? Could we make/create/build one, ourselves?" Etc.

Well, you get the idea. Tom and I have gotten rid of much of the "fluff" of our lives, the extra stuff. I would say we've tossed the "luxury items", but you know? I believe the real luxury is living within our means and being wonderfully creative with our necessities.

Discovering how little it takes to live comfortably (as opposed to how much).

As they say, "Necessity is the mother of all invention." And to me, that is one awesome invitation to a fun, imaginative life.

******

"She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy.
She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come." ... Proverbs 31:20,25


******

Finally our old house is no longer ours. No more treks over there by foot through 12 degree temperatures or snow storms to meet inspectors or the buyer or to clean rooms and box or trash paraphernalia lurking in deep, dark corners.

Finally the house where I lived longer than any other (nearly 15 years) is mine no more to step into and walk through its rooms.

Hallelujah! It is so time to move on. To remember the myriad special times, but to move on, nonetheless, and prepare for great times in our new tiny place and all the places to come.

Tom and I love our little cottage house. Life feels simpler there. Comforting. Easy, cozy and sweet.

But what concerns me? The way we're utterly content living with only one-third of our possessions. Hmm... definitely a lesson there. I hope I will remember it.

I watch the show, Clean House, everyday (I'm so addicted) and I see people cry when they release their possessions in order to make paths for newer, more organized rooms. I watch the pain-filled tugging inside them when part of them wants to let go but another part is afraid, especially when the items are gifts from family. And well, I would sit before the screen and giggle, "What a bunch of obsessive loonies," except that I experienced the same struggles last year. So I sit and understand and empathize, crying with them, instead.

Stuff... too much stuff. What a curse when we cannot let go. And how sad when the table dear ol' Great Aunt Mary gave us somehow has become Great Aunt Mary. Because really, that table is not her. An inanimate object is not a living, breathing person--and never will be.

A table is a table and even the torn, faded quilt Grandmother made is still, well, a quilt. It is we who attach all sorts of mystical feelings to stuff. And somewhere in the middle, we lose sight of what's alive and what's going to Heaven with us. And what is not.

And Grandmother becomes her torn and faded quilt. And to let go of the quilt is to let go of Grandma and see her die all over again. Hence, the pain.

Well, anyway, these are my thoughts lately while I recuperate from a year of purging our belongings and while I watch others purge their stuff on Clean House. Oh the angst and suffering--but the joy at the sight of clean, organized rooms! Rather like the joy which comes on sunny mornings after weeks of dark clouds and much rain.


***

Does anyone else watch Clean House? Niecy Nash is my new favorite person! I'd love to have her come to my tiny cottage and talk, simply just talk while I would sit, listening to her. Niecy is so very different from me and she makes me laugh aloud. I welcome anyone into my life who can do that.

We needed to get rid of our large roll-top desk and our black antique bookcase with glass doors. There comes a time to let go of everything in our lives, and well, that time had come for those rather large pieces of furniture still sitting there all lonely inside our nearly-empty old house.

Well, we gave selling them a half-hearted attempt in the midst of all those myriad other details one must attend to when one is moving.

No go. Still they sat there in that cold house five blocks away, waiting for a new home. Our buyer didn't want them--though she is buying our Craftsman table and chairs and sideboard from us, so those pieces are still there, too.

Finally (finally) I had an Aha! Moment.........Give them away through our local Freecycle!

So I used my Buffalo Freecycle Yahoo group for the first time and oh my. What an amazing thing. Within five minutes my email box was full of people with raised hands, saying, "I'll take the desk!," "I'll take the bookcase! Choose me! Choose Me!"

And now the roll-top desk we'd had twenty years and the bookcase we had for 14 have gone to new homes. I told both families, "I hope you'll enjoy the furniture," and while closing the door, I wished both pieces well inside their new homes with their new people.

And this is the way I want to live... able to hold everything with an open hand and never, never stopping the flow of giving which is such a vital part of Life. Of sharing. And of moving-on.

So here I am at the library where I walked to for the first time from our apartment. Probably a one mile walk, or so, and it's amazing how much you miss while driving through the same ol' neighborhoods.

Rather like Life, I think. Race through Life staring only straight ahead, (expecting to see only what you saw before) and well, you'll miss the serendipitous surprises everywhere along the side of the road.

I now recommend tiny one-bedroom houses to all you empty-nesters. It's like playing house everyday and being ten-years-old again, using your once-neglected imagination so you can make four rooms feel like six, so you can, like a puzzle, fit all your pieces into closets and make all furniture pull double-duty.

And for me, it's like being a 1940's newlywed while I play my Benny Goodman Big Band music and do bouncy little dances down the hall with an apron tied around my waist. Oh how young I feel at those times--so of course--I avoid any mirrors in those moments lest they jerk me back to my nearly-fifty present and all this grey hair at my temples.

I remind myself that I am on vacation this month, keep telling myself it's ok to rest and do nothing or to watch my new favorite Style Network shows, Clean House and Dress My Nest. Tom and I now have broadcast cable--only $8.95 per month and around ten more stations than we picked up with our antenna at the old house. We chose broadcast to save money, which is rather ludicrous when you consider that last week Tom bought an LCD tv (at around half-off, he'd be quick to add). For me, our old tv was fine and I still lug our portable between the bedroom and the kitchen, but Tom had wanted an LCD for ages so it came from money out of the sale of our house.

I'm not sure why our house hasn't closed yet, but I'm thankful, for I'm still cleaning it out and sorting through the stuff and junk and nonsense left upon the shelves. And it's all taking more time than I thought, but then, we were more entrenched than I thought, too. Entrenched. 

It's lovely to savor this time and say good-bye slowly. I remember, feel and appreciate all things more which I watch while slowing down.

And in this case, a slow good-bye feels just right.



******

Spring Cleaning In Mayberry

Many women in my town still do a big spring cleaning. 

You drive past their old two or three-story homes and spy them standing in their yards in their aqua dusters with their hair wrapped in scarves. They beat rugs, hang wet laundry, sweep sidewalks and repaint the porch furniture. You can drive by my house and see me adding to the local color, also, for I like to do my share in keeping the old ways alive.

Lately I'm carrying boxes from my old office in our basement all the way up to the second floor where I spend my days now in my two new, Naomi-less rooms. While watching The Andy Griffith Show or The Dick Van Dyke Show, I sit on the floor picking through those boxes, sorting through junk and old memories.

And too, I've spent hours tearing pages from decorating magazines, keeping only the pictures of cozy rooms I love. Then I slip those into plastic sleeves, place them in three-ring binders then out on my porch for the hours I loll around out there.

I love Spring cleaning after a long winter. The air holds so much promise of good times and weather for the year's remainder. The promise is so thick, in fact, that it carries me along until the job is finished.

I like the old ways, well, many of them, Spring Cleaning being one. Where's the burden in caring for what God has given me? I mean, who comes up with this stuff?--



So, like, what? It's the sign of a well-spent life to live in a dirty house?

I think not.

There is a balance to life. If only we would all find it.

Some people say the Good Old Days are gone. Well, it's still the Good Old Days around my house. No one can take them away from me--unless I give them away.



***

The Name of a House

My house has a name. Does yours?

I think it's important to name your home. To give it a title of what you envision it becoming.

Some people wait to choose their home's name. They wait until it is all fixed-up, repaired and decorated.Not me. I gave my house a name a few years ago.

You can tell a lot about a house by its name. I named ours Autumn Cottage.

And it's been that name which has guided all my decisions concerning the repairing, refurbishing and redecorating of my house. I love Autumn and I love cottages and that title has become my goal. My dream.

My dream is to have Autumn year-around inside my house.

Names are important for people, too. It matters what you call yourself. It's important to give yourself a name which is something good to live up to.

But many people call themselves terrible names and they live up to those.

I hope the names you give yourself are good ones. You can tell a lot about a person by the names which he calls himself.

And really, I would love to know the name of your house if you have given it one. If you haven't, today would be a wonderful time in which to do so.

I'd love to see a long, long list of names of homes in my comment box...

***

Summer Evening in an Old House

It is a wonderful life, you know.

This early evening, Tom puttered around in the basement, as he is wont to do. Naomi cleaned her two rooms upstairs for pending company and let her cats run around with ours on the middle floor, where I sat soaking up another summer sunset.

I dialed the radio to Big Band era music and it played as did the cats, one of them meowing over and over because of the toy mouse she'd captured (and still held) in her mouth. I sat, reading, in our sunroom with all the windows opened wide. Who can ever get enough of a deepening summer breeze? Beneath a pool of light, I sat at the 1940's metal table with a book from the same era, occasionally flicking away a tail on the page from another of the cats. 

And at the low window sill just in front of me, sat yet another cat watching the neighbors come and go.

I, too, watched the neighbors walk past, and then I thought of Mrs. Murphy. She and her husband built our house nearly 70 years ago--she outlived Mr. Murphy and remained in this home for 50 years, total. I wondered if she, also, used to sit here in the sunroom reading and listening to Bing Crosby and Glenn Miller. I looked around at these walls and thought, " Which colors did Mrs. Murphy choose to paint them? Did she and I ever use the same ones?"

When we first moved here, it was easy to imagine Mr. and Mrs. Murphy having lived within these rooms, because even though the house had one other owner 9 years in between, it still felt like the Murphys' house. Mr. Murphy built this Craftsman bungalow for his wife and then they moved here from Canada. I could see them sitting in here on pre-war furniture, both reading newspapers beneath floor lamps. Or I could imagine Mr. Murphy building things in the basement while his wife folded clothes farther down near the laundry chute. And clearly I saw the widowed Mrs. Murphy, years later, sitting on the front porch handing out candy to the neighborhood children on summer evenings just like this one (this story from my neighbor who knew the Mrs. Murphy).

But as the years pass, she becomes foggier to me because somewhere in the midst of painting all the walls, hanging homemade curtains and rearranging furniture, this became our house. It no longer feels like the Murphy's house, because it isn't. We've made it ours.

Oh, the Murphys will always be a vital part of this house's history. But right now, tonight? Tom, Naomi and I still live here with beating hearts. And though I imagine Mrs. Murphy sitting in this sunroom on a quiet summer night just as I am, she will always belong to another time. 

It's our turn now to live in this enchanted cottage. And as Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote, "...now is now. It can never be a long time ago."


*****