The river is filling up and the rose bushes have started to bloom.
And this morning choppy waters at the dam.
A pile of rocks with grass and the lake beyond just when I thought there was nothing else to see.
After the walk at the dam, I stopped to see the builder. He told me it might be a good idea to put off the closing on my house here until the end of August. That gives him another month to make sure any complications with sub contractors can be solved. My realtor is fine with that and asked if I was still ready for the photo shoot in two days. Of course I am!
Today the ceiling fans were washed, porch cleaned several times to get all the collected pollen off the surfaces, cluttery bits stored away or just plain tossed. Some things are just easier to throw in the garbage bag than wonder where to put it. And to be honest I have never reached in the bag to retrieve anything I tossed there.
The grounds look really nice for photographing, and so does the living/dining/kitchen space. Bedrooms and den are okay. But boxes of cookbooks I am handing down to Amy and Patrick are piled in the laundry room. The studio books and some artwork and copious journals are packed up.
Packing books is back breaking work! But seeing the empty shelves makes me feel I am accomplishing something.
Books don’t look like much when they are lined up with others on a shelf. But when you separate them from one another, they put on weight and expand. And what is worse each one of them knows they are indispensable. All of those wooden shelf units have places in the new house. Shelves are like drawers…extremely important for settling into a space.
Tomorrow I will look over the apartment and shop to make sure it is looking presentable. But today I am exhausted with the cleaning, tossing out, blowing off the deck, getting cobwebs off very high light fixtures, washing fans, vacuuming and tossing things out. My favorite was dragging off a scrappy looking cat scratching post/bed/cat toy holder to the garage where the things too big for a garbage bag are being held til help comes.
The first of the artwork is coming off the walls. I started in the kitchen with photos of Lee cooking his favorite things (they are packed in a box for Patrick because so much of that was done together) and three small egg temperas I did that were near the knife block. Funny how empty the kitchen looks without those small pieces. I even cleaned out some kitchen drawers and ended up packing all my hot pads. Good thing I found something usable below the range because once a box is packed it is not to be opened til it arrives at the new destination.
I carry around my peanut butter jar of wall paint to brush over holes left behind where I pulled nails. Some will be dreadful to cover as when I needed to find a stud to support a heavier artwork, I just guessed and kept on banging a nail in til I found it! My rule was every half inch til you found it.
Yesterday friends took me out for Mother’s Day. A terrific brunch of shrimp and grits, Then we toured my new house and decided to spend the rest of the day sitting on my porch drinking bloody marys and talking. It was such a nice day!
Til later….