Suzy Says

The day after I moved, there was The Mess to contend with. I kept fretting over where on earth I would put everything, even though I had given and thrown away tons of things and stuff.

The cats woke me up at 2:30 am one Sunday night, or early one Monday morning, depending on how you look at it, breaking a glass I had unwisely left on the bathroom counter. I discovered this by stepping on broken glass in bare feet. After I pulled the glass out, applied the non fun kind of alcohol to the wound, cleaned up the breakage without benefit of broom and dust pan, which were still at the old house, I tried to go back to sleep. You will be unsurprised to learn that this did not work. I decided to just get up and attack the reason I couldn’t sleep.

Thinking that I might just unpack a few boxes and then go back to bed, I started to work without benefit of caffeine, putting away the kitchen things first. It was nice to see my Dean & Deluca spice containers again, and the peppercorns my good friend Alice sends me when she goes to Cambodia and Thailand. Also the little ceramic blueberry jam jar I bought in Maine as a kid. These are the kinds of things that make a girl feel like she’s home.

Pretty soon I was stashing the 200 year old Wedgwood carefully in an appropriately wedge shaped cabinet and the familiar canteens of Grammie’s ivory handled silver above the cabinets. I had found a place for all the kitchen pots, pans, and et ceteras! There were quite a few et ceteras. I will probably have to tweak it as I use it and figure out what works and what doesn’t, but it looked a little better after my late night adventure:

Note the curious Dodge surveying the new improvements.

Encouraged by this success (though daunted by the rapidly accumulating pile of empty boxes), I started stowing food in the closet under the stairs. This space has some storage, room to hang coats and the washer and dryer, as well as a shelf which is now stacked with cans and dry goods:

Given the limitations of storage space, I should try to be more minimalist and less survivalist when it comes to stockpiling pasta, rice, coffee, tea, and canned goods.

By this time, the sun was up and the cats were interested in breakfast. I made a well-deserved cup of coffee and started going through the boxes of books. The only place I have to put them is Rob’s beautiful book shelf, so I sacrificed still more books – another 6 boxes. All my Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Evelyn Waugh…everything I can get from the library if I want to re-read it. I kept some sentimental favorites, my Dad’s books, and some cookbooks along with a coffee table book or two.

While difficult on the emotions, it did make an even more serious dent in The Mess:

Once the boys have time to set up the grandfather clock and switch its location with the book shelf, the room will be mostly done and I will finished with most of the boxes. I am hoping that we can unearth the old cherry table we used to have in our dining room when we were kids. It might need some work from Rob, and it will certainly need chairs, but it would be nice to use it again.

All in all, a lot of progress in just two days!

A YEAR AGO: Some delightful discoveries in the Village.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Rob’s amazing bathroom makeover (supervised by Clyde, of course).

TEN YEARS AGO: Wonderful in white.