Beloved Hubby and I both wish my stash was that small !

Whoof. I’m exhausted. I’m hoping that, by busting my big ole butt this week getting the house reset to our still-messy-but-much-loved Chez Insanity instead of the wreck it’s been since August, I’ll have time for fun next week. So I picked a truly boring week to restart this – sorry ! 

Put away six loads of laundry that have been sitting around for weeks, as now I have a place to put everything. Our clothes have been in bags since the ILs moved into our bedroom and redid everything, even removing Dearest Son’s and Beloved Hubby’s framed art from the walls. I still don’t know why they did that, it’s not like they had framed masterpieces of their own, the walls remained blank the whole of their stay. I think that added to my turmoil, living like an extra in Americathon, when it’s our darn house ! At least it’s over now, and I will NOT let it happen again. 

Truly the laundry wasn’t that complicated, and normally I’d feel embarrassed, bags or no bags, for not seeing to it earlier. But our bedroom is once again upstairs, and there was a lotta stuff that had to go up today. Thank Everything Dearest helped ! Still, I was up and down a dozen times when before, I’d gone up maybe once every other day. But it’s about time I got back on the Original Stairmaster ! 

I also put away the non-perishable groceries abandoned in the garage, although what I’m gonna do with three cans of pumpkin and four of peas (no one here likes ‘em) escapes me – at least ‘til the next canned food drive. Hope it’s soon. 

Also left behind was a Jo-Ann’s shopping tote – the kind they sell – that had ripped down one seam. I fussed with it until it looked untouched from its original state. You’d have to look close to see my repair, I was really quite proud of it. MIL made such a fuss about needing it for the trip. Yet there it sits. (sigh) 

Got rid of the floor clothes – nearly ankle deep ! – and other miscellaneous stuff from the clutter-corners of the living room. Things sure do pile up if I’m not right there on ‘em. I keep telling my guys that the development of the Roomba doesn’t mean robot maids are close at hand – not even close enough yet for them to dump stuff on the floor. Even if ‘Rosie’ was available next week, we sure couldn’t afford her ! 

I think tomorrow, I’ll take Dearest to Dollar Tree, see what’s new and exciting since last week. (grin) I’ve discovered that an intense day of housework, like today, followed by a light one then another big one gets the most done without injury or other problems. And seeing so much improved is a big impetus to keep it going. Gonna store my books from where they got tossed down the length of the hallway (sigh) and catch up on dishes. Then, by Wednesday, I can tackle the not-cleaned-once-in-four-months upstairs bathroom. Heck, I’ll deserve a new doll for all that ! Too bad I can’t think of any I want. . .

Missed you more than Dory - 'cause I remembered you every day !

Okay. . . one more try. (sigh) Vanished again, sorry, I think having long-term houseguests kind of depressed me more than I thought. Yes, my ILs extended their stay past the agreed on departure date of ‘before Halloween’. They left yesterday. I wrote every day for weeks, so I’m in practice, but you don’t want to read a word of it. It’s petty and vindictive and hateful and even I don’t like to remember how small I get when they’re around, but it happens every time. It sounds terrible, I know, but I’m just not m’self around them, and I’ve felt so much more ‘me’ today that I decided to go ahead and try yet another restart. Thanks for your patience.

Health-wise, I’ve been OK. Still tired a lot, and yeah, too depressed to do much, so I haven’t sewn or plotted or really much of anything besides enough to get us by. I started back with my bad eating habits and just now got those back in line a few days ago. Gained 10 pounds. We’re slowly returning Chez Insanity to our place, which is hard. The ILs hopped from ‘truck trailing car we gave them’ to ‘just car’ to ‘car towing small trailer’ for their move, often changing their minds daily, so you can imagine what got left behind. A small amount of it is useful to us, a smaller amount was ours (not given to them, they just somehow have it), the rest of it is useless dollar store / thrift shop junk. Including all the patterns and fabric I bought her, plus yet another sewing machine. I have five, maybe six, now. The garage is stuffed full, to the point where Beloved Hubby can’t move in there and can barely store tools anymore, so we’re trying to clean it out as quick as possible. He has a just-divorced co-worker, I think he’ll ‘inherit’ more than we did !

I’m just glad things are moving back to normal. For us, anyway. All the digs on Facebook, the food hiding and disappearances, silent treatments. . . all gone. They’re BIL’s responsibility soon, and I hope they’ll be happier with them than they evidently were with us.

Beloved and Dearest Son rented Finding Dory tonight – how thoughtful ! Believe it or not, I haven’t seen it, mostly due to the theme and my challenges with my own parents. Man, I can’t get along with anybody, can I ? :)

Looking forward to reclaiming more of Chez Insanity tomorrow – hope your first December weekend was amazing !

I shoulda cleaned this image up a bit, but. . . well, you know.

Hafta catch up with you crazy cats tomorrow – laundry day was exhausting (ha-ha) and I’m not done yet. So here’s a laugh, courtesy of a repost from Beloved Hubby on FBook.

Hope your Tuesday was tasty, and your Wednesday is a wow !

Belle in Mattel !

Now that I’m approaching normal (for me, anyway) mentally and physically again, I can’t help but take stock of all the changes that have flowed past me this summer. I won’t be able to drift through Hancock Fabrics anymore – I kept planning on going over, but was never healthy enough to do so. And now it’s shuttered forever. Same for a favored local thrift. Drove past, hoping to catch the hours, but it’s gone, too. JoAnn’s is a bit of a drive away, so I don’t go often, same for Hobby Lobby, a store I have issues with anyway. This may be the year I actually use more of what I got than more of what I just bought !

That said, I have five Barbie-size outfits I haven’t put on dolls yet, all from Mal-Wart. Hoping for a good day to hit TRU soon ! Haven’t been there in months. Snagged one official Mattel dress, four Sparkle Girlz, during the month. What can I say, if I buy doll clothes instead of stitching ‘em m’self, I want ‘em to be just a buck or two. And Dollar Tree hasn’t had much of late. Strapless bodices sewn to garbage Velcro ™ and unevenly gathered skirts I can sew blindfolded anytime, and that’s all DTree’s current dolls wear. Not to mention I hate buying a doll because I like her star-print dress, especially when I know how poorly made both doll and dress are.

So I dressed the ‘vintage’ (lol, 1991) Disney Belle I claimed from eBay just before I got sick in the pretty green slip dress from Mattel. At $2.44 from Mal-Wart, it was just the dress, no accessories. But I like the packaging – I can see if it’s a ‘front only’ print, or wiggle it a little bit in the plastic baggie to see the asymmetrical hem. It’s super tight, so that it barely closes at the top. But it’s cute on her, and the Sparkle Girlz silver slides go well with it, too. One outfit on a pretty doll, four to go ! 

Beloved Hubby has promised to move the hard drive in my toasted desktop over to his working one sometime this week, so I can retrieve all my files – embroidery designs, new photos, writings, etc. I miss them all, although I couldn’t tell ya what I don’t have right now. 

I was busy today, too. Got a good chunk of the mess in the living room sorted out, the clutter was giving us walk-paths instead of living room. Left Beloved Hubby’s desk space alone – that’s his mess to sort through. Hoping to make sense out of the clean (?) laundry piles tomorrow. After I do a bit of shopping, we’re out of laundry detergent, and even if only half these clothes are dirty, there’s a huge pile of it waiting for me.

If lazy were an Olympic sport. . .

Let’s try this again ! I am sooo out of practice, and I grew to flippin’ hate Open Office in the past month. I got to where I dreaded typing anything, because of all the weird formatting and strange hoops OOffice and I had to leap through to get my ramblings to look right. Stuff MS Office just did, no fuss. So the silver lining to the dark cloud of my computer going out during a power outage / surge Thursday was that I got to return to my old HP laptop, complete with Office 2000. I’d traded it to Beloved Hubby to use for a work image catalog, and took over one of Dearest Son’s old desktops. He ended up not using the HP, so it’s mine again, complete with Office2K. Whew !

Haven’t returned to the VA, except for follow-up appointments. I rejoiced daily for weeks over not having a drain bulb anymore, and darn near celebrated when I took the last of the nausea-causing antibiotics a couple weeks back. Everything’s fine, and on Friday, my wound care / surgery teams even said they didn’t want to see me anymore ! Most of my appointments from here on are the ones I had ongoing before this wretched Summer of 2016, which I will probably refuse to speak of as soon as next year.

Caught cold last week, and I’m just kicking the last of it out of my system. So today, I went after a few tasks that have been waiting for me. Had to redo my desk for the computer change, and tidy up that space. I can finally get to my sewing machines again, which has made me so happy, along with exhausted. Had to lie down after moving all that misplaced stuff. Then I had to shuffle stuff in the living room – a lot of ours is displaced for F & MIL’s things.

(sigh) Their stuff,  which we discovered two weeks ago, is probably not going with them. The original plan was that they’d rent a ya’ll haul truck and trail the car (we gave them) behind. That was why they moved in with us, to save up for the truck for their move to BIL’s. They haven’t saved a dime (we’ll probably have to fund them to leave), and have decided to take what fits in the car and drive it to BIL’s. Yup. A sedan old enough to drink, piled high with clothes, memorabilia, and three cats, is gonna get them nearly 2000 miles away safely. We’re supposed to have a yard sale together next weekend, but I haven’t seen anything happening, and at this point, they have nearly as much crap here as we do. Including furniture.

My plan is, anything that doesn’t go with them gets sold in our yard sale before we move. My sales tend to go to a ‘Everything’s 25¢ Each’ clear-out on the last day. Which may be the first day. Beloved’s completely with me. Some of that stuff is BIL’s too. I’ve asked, since they know the address where they’re going, if they’re gonna mail stuff (especially the 12 boxes of BIL’s paperback sci-fi novels), but they don’t want to. Ah, well.

Wonder what I’m gonna sew next week. . .