Snapping out of Lethargy

The imminent arrival of house guests finally did the trick. Matthew Hoffman and friend Bree are on a "See America" tour, on their way to the west coast. The fact that they would need a clean place to sleep and un-dog-haired surfaces to walk on got me moving on getting the house in shape at last.

I love a clean house--I just don't want to be the one to do the cleaning! Bill and I are both packrats and clutter-hounds, and when he is home for a long stretch, every horizontal surface is covered with books, papers, old mail, hobbies, tools, packets of hardware, hats, glasses, pens, business cards, lists of things to do (CLEAN HOUSE! is always on the list), etc.

I've been on an organizational kick for the past year, buying bins and storage containers, trying to put things in a logical place after use, but Bill doesn't even make an effort to keep track of his stuff, he just sifts through piles and asks me if I've seen such-and-such. At 5 am on the morning he left, he climbed into the car and asked "Have you seen my Cabela's hat and my little CD wallet?" Neither made it with him on the plane, and I didn't see them yesterday when I swamped out either. They have apparently fallen into the abyss.

When I do clean up while he's home, I watch my efforts constantly destroyed. The vast space of empty on the coffee table (here) that took me three days, fills back up with astonishing speed. The de-cluttered bar top gets dusted and polished and then becomes buried under detritus in the blink of an eye. So I've just stopped worrying about it while he's home. When he leaves, I eventually get things to a moderately uncluttered state (sometimes just by throwing all of Bill's stuff in his closet and shutting the door) and then try to live like that until he comes home again. Sometimes it even works.

So yesterday was the day to clear off kitchen counters, vacuum and make up guest beds. Matt and Bree made a few wrong turns in the dark and ended up in Morristown before I caught them by cell phone, got them turned around and headed back to Rogersville around 11 pm. And being kids, they didn't even notice I had cleaned up. But I knew, and I was pleased.

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Update on past stuff: Mr. Turtle is now happily living under my summer squash, and helping himself to an occasional tomato. The rain barrels are working! I watered the garden with stored rain water yesterday while I picked beans (again!). Bean beetles have finally discovered my patch, so perhaps the tyranny of the beans is almost at an end. The tyranny of the blackberries continues however, and I am running out of freezer space. It might be time to consider making jam.

There is a curious snap in the air this morning, as if summer might be hinting that it's starting to wind down. Summer is not my favorite time of year here. It's too hot and humid and buggy, and I only exist within a very narrow temperature range, being from California. But two months of oppressive heat is a small price to pay for 10 months of otherwise glorious weather the rest of the year.

Matt and Bree are going to the Smokies today, and that bastion of retailism, Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg (see prior discussion here). I don't know what their plans are after that, but I'm thankful their arrival finally got me off my duff, and made me get my house in order.