Category Archives: family life this old house

>Trying unsuccessfully to avoid a crabby rant

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>I’m trying not to react poorly, get cranky, and crab about things I can’t control. It’s not working.

Yoda, I know, would say “Do or not do; there is no try.” Well, I’d say to Yoda, “Old man, walk a mile in my shoes, you should.”

Yoda didn’t have to deal with a lengthy remodeling project that displaced all of us for days and even weeks (La Petite) from our own bedrooms and beds. Yoda could have used a clean-up of his swamp home, perhaps, but that’s a different story.

Yoda didn’t have to deal with a nasty virus traveling through the family, sending three out of four of us coughing and honking and nearly collapsing from exhaustion.

Yoda would probably use the Force to figure out what is making my kitchen smell odd. I keep cleaning and cleaning and purging and cleaning some more, with limited success. If I don’t find it soon, we’ll be forced to move major appliances – without the Force to help us.

When I considered cooking supper on the grill between storms, I couldn’t reach the charcoal. See the lawnmower? Well, maybe you can’t. The charcoal is back there, on a shelf, behind the boards. Which boards, you ask? Never mind. Tip toe through the mess, I won’t. Cook supper in the oven, I must. On the positive side, I cleaned the grill before I realized this modus operandi would be inaccessible.

I can’t work in the garden, either. Can you see the pitchfork, the rake, the hoe, the shovels? No, neither can I. They’re behind the big sheets of plywood. Move them, I must, if I am to work in the tomatoes. Yoda, master Jedi that he was, could have moved them using the Force. I don’t believe it; and that, of course, is where I fail.

My inner Yoda keeps reminding me, “Daisy, you always say ‘Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can.’ ” while I’m tempted to tell my inner Yoda to go jump on a starship and get out of my galaxy, he reminds me to make something positive out of all this.

So while I cooked a boring and not-very-nutritious meal in the oven, I threw together a rhubarb upside down cake. Enjoy.

I’m at Green Spot-On today, talking a (again) about tomato supports.

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>Good reasons to postpons a rummage sale

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>We had in mind a June sale. Garage sale, tag sale, whatever your region calls it: in our neck of the woods we call it a rummage sale. With La Petite moving home for a while, we have no storage space, and our basement is overloaded. It’s time for another major purge. However… when I brought up to Chuck that this might not be the best time for a sale, he was easily convinced.

10. June is incredibly full. End of school, graduations, graduation parties, and more.
9. Amigo has a week of camp, including a drop-off and pick-up that need to get scheduled.
8. July is not a good month for sales locally. June and August tend to be better.
7. August is the month from you-know-where for Chuck’s work schedule.
6. Our remodeling isn’t done. The house is trashed. Truly appears trashed.
5. I still don’t have a working washer and dryer (see #6). It’s laundromat for the wash, and my old dryer after that.
4. If we wait a year, we’ll have more preparation time next spring – with no remodeling project taking our attention.
3. If we wait a year, La Petite will have a better idea how much she’ll really need of her apartment furniture, dishes, and other collections. We (she) can sell the rest.
2. If we wait a year, Amigo will have a better idea where he’s going with his life and (you guessed it) what he’ll need.
1. I’m tired. I’m simply too exhausted to prepare and staff and clean up a sale.

That’s it! Ten good reasons to wait a year. Now I just hope I can maneuver my way around the crowded basement until it happens!

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>Remodeling the old Homestead: when the trivial becomes overwhelming

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Coping has its limits. Sometimes, too much happens and something has to blow. What was the proverbial straw that broke our camel’s back? There are many; you choose.
The dust upstairs was so bad that we couldn’t sleep in our room. Chuck slept on the couch in the den, and I slept on La Petite’s futon, dragged into the living room. Why did we drag it out? Because I snore.

I was feeling under the weather (due to lost sleep perhaps?) with a bad summer cold, achiness, and all-over lousiness. I couldn’t find the Neti Pot because we have two bathrooms’ junk crowded into one vanity and medicine cabinet.
Chuck was feeling ill because of the dust. He took to wearing a surgical mask around the house to limit the amount of dust he inhaled. It did make a difference; he got better.

La Petite, after she finally moved back into her bedroom, couldn’t find anything. She emptied the laundry baskets and suitcases, put all of her clothing in her closet and dresser, and then nothing was where she thought it was.

Amigo tripped on a door and injured his right big toe. I think he caught it on the doorknob or the latch.

Huh? What? He tripped on a door? The doorknob or latch? That doesn’t make sense. Doorknobs and toes?

No, nothing makes sense right now unless you have it in context. All three bunnies live with us. Krumpet lives in Amigo’s room, Buttercup in the living room, and Sadie in the den. The den doesn’t have a door. The entrance is too large for a gate or standard door – at least a standard door in the standard position.

I hear you. “Ah, now it makes sense, Daisy. Why didn’t you start with that picture?” Honestly? I couldn’t find the camera. It was mixed up in the graduation party invitations. Does that make sense? No, don’t answer that.
We will love the results. However, we are so, so ready for this project to be done, done, done! I don’t know how much longer our collective sense of humor will drag us through.

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>Remodeling the old homestead: Before

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The hallway – well, it was a hallway.

The closet had two sides for hanging clothes, a set of shelves in the middle, and sliding mirror doors.


This closet was mine, all mine: just a place to hang things. No door, it had a curtain.

Do you wonder where everything is now? After all, the closets look empty.

Yes. You guessed it; everything is piled in the corner until the project is finished and we have closets again. Until then, I hope we don’t need clean sheets; they’re in the bottom bin.

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