Until recently. Well, sort of.
The past two weeks/weekends I have been on a cleaning rampage. First of all, my allergies bother me when it's dusty. And second, I am notoriously ALWAYS MISSING SOMETHING. It drives me crazy. I still have bags packed from five vacations ago. I'm not joking. So I set out to pick apart every closet, drawer, pile of crap (not literally speaking), crevice, attic, etc. in this house. Fortunately for my sneezing and my sanity these efforts were not in vain. During my quest I found/accomplished the following:
My philosophy with organizing is that it has to get worse before it gets better. You've got to assess the infection before taking action.
For example, do you have millions of extra buttons lying around from pants, jackets, etc., and no idea what to do with them? I found that this Brighton tin works great! Maybe one day I'll do something cool with these buttons. Until then, this canister can be used as a/an annoying loud noise form of musical percussion.
And many times when cleaning you find fun things you may not remember you had. I put this little guy on Ryan's side of the bed...hahaha. Who knew they made a stuffed Ryan? : )
which sometimes leads to a detour.
You can walk around one of the attics now! Contrary to previous belief, it does indeed have a floor.
During my excursion I found no less than 150 AA batteries and also this remote, which I was so excited about.
We had been looking for this (or so I thought) for forever! This was the remote to the fan in the loft. Mind you, I fully realize that the light switch is about two feet from the chair, but few things make you feel pampered like controlling your fan with a remote.
I smugly burst in the room, interrupted Ryan's football reruns that he has seen at least 80 times, and proudly announced that I had a surprise for him and that he could thank me later. This proclamation was followed by me pointing to the fan and pushing the on/off button furiously to no avail.
"Katharine, that remote is for the Christmas tree."
Well thank you, Ryan, for bursting my bubble. Poor guy can hardly get a word in edge wise. I probably hadn't given him a chance to speak earlier.
The bottom of this baker's rack used to be chock-full of junk mail, newspapers, newsletters, expired juice coupons, and other useless paraphernalia. Now it is nice and clean (I am due to accept my Recycling Citizens Award next week).
Who knew that a necklace holder also does a good job with belts?
I had been searching for the perfect spot to put this awesome gift from Dorothy. It is a piece of molding with different knobs on it. I LOVE IT!!! Isn't it Pinteresting?
I have been missing it for years, and I mean YEARS. I bought it on a cruise with Ryan's family in my junior year of college. One of the last times I remember wearing it was in this picture in November 2006. You can barely see it on my left arm.
I have probably moved at least four or more times since then, and these poor little beads have been shuffled and shoved around like pinballs. Anyway, they were inside of a bag inside of a box. I gasped when I opened it. It was like Christmas!
Right behind telling Jay and me that she loves us, the absolute most common phrase my mother says is, "When you clean up, you find things." Although I hate to admit it sometimes, she's right.
Preach it, Mama Ann!!!
I also came across this next gem. Most people go to Cracker Barrel for something normal, like oh, I don't know, a meal perhaps? But during one trip in college I emerged from this restaurant with a fairy. Let's just say that my meal came with an extra side that evening. At least she looks really cool on the top of my piano, now. It gives my living room a Taylor Swift vibe that I'm liking.
Oh, Cracker Barrel, your store gets me every time...
The home organizing project is still in progress, but I've come a long way in just a couple of weeks!
In other news, Dorothy and I went to the Joseph Technicolor Dreamcoat play with some of her friends. It was incredibly well done (and this time I brought quieter candy wrappers!)
I also spent a fun Saturday afternoon with Megan which consisted of a delicious meal at San Jose', drooling over new products at Pier One (and discovering this must-have salt and pepper shaker), and seeing Disney's Brave.
The princess in Brave is pretty cool. She's a Katniss-from-the-Hunger-Games-meets-Lindsay-Lohan-and-they-get-electrocuted kind of character.
One of my all-time favorite Disney Princesses is Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. Since I was little I have always thought she was absolute, stunning perfection!
And she sings like an angel!
A couple of Sundays ago Jamie, Chris, and I spent the afternoon at the SC Museum's Titanic exhibit. I was so excited!!! You may remember an earlier post where I talked about my obsession with/love for the Titanic back in junior high.
We did a little sight seeing while waiting for the exhibit to open.
Any time is candy time!
Upon entering we were each assigned a ticket as if we were real passengers.
Each ticket told an actual story from someone who attended the ship. I was Eleanor Elkins, a first class passenger who was traveling from France and had boarded the ship to transport lots of new furniture for her house (I don't recall traveling through a time machine, but this description sounds eerily accurate).
This exhibit was no joke. Everything was real. In fact, all of the artifacts were barcoded with enough sensors to zap the nearest onlooker. Some of the items we saw were: combs, leather bags, brushers, port holes, chandeliers, real letters that you could actually read, post cards, menus, plates (that were still in perfect position from having been inside a cabinet for almost a century), pieces of the outside of the ship, jewelry, makeup and mirror cases, men's suits, etc. They also included many never before seen photos of engineers working on the ship's blueprints, details of the rooms, and tons of video footage on how they gathered the artifacts. Experts predict that the Titanic will implode on itself in a few more decades, because the iron is being continually eaten away. There was even an iceberg that you could touch and feel the temperature of the water in which so many lives were taken. It was amazing and yet heartbreaking at the same time. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. You are never promised tomorrow. Make sure that you have a relationship with the Lord.
At the end of the entire exhibit were lists of all the passengers- those who lived and those who did not. Eleanor survived.
On a completely different subject, I've been making lots of pasta dishes for Ryan lately so that I won't be tempted to eat them. See spaghetti below. Growing up my Dad would always keep the sauce and noodles separate, because I wouldn't eat the noodles, and Jay wouldn't eat the sauce.
Below is a pork tenderloin I made last week. You may notice that it looks a little funny, probably because I severed the thing in half so that we could get more meals out of it. It actually turned out really tasty!
Joy also came to see me last week! We had a great time catching up and went for a long walk in my neighborhood, just like old times. : )
Sometimes the little things in life can bring us such happiness, like this new gum I discovered:
I am OBSESSED with this gum! Something about the square shape makes it even better. If you haven't tried it, what on earth are you waiting for? It comes in all kinds of flavors, my favorites being: arctic grape, water melon, and pink bubble gum (this one tastes just like the old medicine I used to LOVE as a kid). I have raided the store that carries this gum at least three times in the past week. This gum isn't cheap, either, which brings me to another subject: BILLS.
I want to run to my room and hide, shivering and lifeless underneath the bed if I hear what remotely sounds like a mail truck headed our way. The bills have been UNENDING lately. First there is this miserably hot weather, which means that the AC is constantly running, a ton of car expenses, and then there was my colossal sprinkler mistake...
We've had many storms lately, so one day while it was raining Ryan asked me to go in the garage and shut off the sprinklers. Easy enough, right? Although the panel looked like a mini NASA cock-pit, I spotted an "off" button and pressed it. Done. Several days later Ryan realized that the sprinklers were still running, but we just thought, "Oh well. A little extra water never hurt anyone."
That was until the mail lady came trolling through the neighborhood in her truck of misfortune and doom, our water bill in tow.
I later learned (the hard way, as usual) that I simply turned that cycle off and inadvertently set the sprinklers to come on double the time that they normally do. While I'll keep the exact amount of that bill to myself, suffice it to say that the evil folks in the Columbia water department surely wondered what kind of operation we were running over here.
As a cost saving effort this is almost how we've been washing things.
This along with many other misfortunes have certainly taken their toll on our wallets lately. Here's hoping for no more expensive catastrophes!
Ryan's family came and stayed with us for part of last weekend. We did a lot of eating and shopping. I may or may not have bought a few things at the mall that I didn't need, but who's counting? Oh wait, Ryan is.
Sometimes during these spells I'll have equally terrible and bizarre nightmares. Two of which are:
- I was kidnapped by Gypsies and taken to Belk in Lumberton ??? This was a very vivid dream. I was even updating my Facebook status in the back of their van asking for help and saying that it was not a joke.
- Joy and I went for a run in Dillon at night, and a murderer started following us in his car. We ran as fast as we could to McDonald's, and when we finally got inside they had a reading/computer section (almost like Books-a-Million) that was so dim I actually told the cashier, "Listen, I appreciate the ambiance, but I can't see to poke a straw in my drink." ??? Who makes up these things???
My Mom swears by Melatonin, a natural sleep aid.
I finally went and bought some this week on the way home from a DELICIOUS meal at Nanny and Papa's. Her meatloaf and potatoes are so amazing!
Anyway, I did wake up once but went right back to sleep. Success! Hopefully this is the end of this no sleeping nonsense. The last thing I need to do is start buying ridiculous infomercial items.
I will leave you with this tidbit:
Jamie and I had lunch recently, and this was the "fortune" she received. Without hesitation she said, "Ahh! This could apply to so many people right now, and especially you because you're short."
But this phrase is SO true! We don't realize how many people are watching us. A couple of weeks ago I was buying some makeup in Belk, and the poor sales woman had just returned from lunch to find her counter jam packed with customers. She was hurriedly trying to help everyone, and I was already in my car leaving when I realized that she had accidentally put two $25 items in my bag instead of one. Back to Belk I went to return the extra makeup. Other shoppers were in complete disbelief. Has our world really gotten this way? I just wanted to do the right thing.
If I were in her shoes and had to calculate my sales at the end of the day, I wouldn't want to fall short. I hope that someone would do the same thing for me. My challenge this week is to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Treating others the way you want to be treated and showing His grace in your actions is an area where it is very easy to fall short. Heaven knows I mess up every day, but one day you just may do something small that could have a big impact on someone else.
"...love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these." Mark 12:31
Until next time, my friends!
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