Read What I Did!!

I wanted to write, "Look what I did!" but it's too dark to take photos and I don't have "before" photos to help you appreciate the current "after" state of things!

Thursday night, after being so sad all day, I got a second wind (a God wind, if you will). I listened to my music and Mia sent me links to amazingly silly YouTube clips. This one in particular made me laugh; God willing my sons will be more intelligent than the young man in this video. Maybe it's Darwinian that he may not be able to reproduce?

Friday, I was reborn. Robert and I are in the middle of trying to refinance the house. We're rolling all of my student loan debt (16k) and our credit card debt (again 16k, see the symmetry in this?) into our mortgage, lowering our interest rate and shortening the term of our mortgage. If everything goes through, we will have our house paid for 7 years earlier than originally planned. YEA!! So, I have made all the phone calls, discussed all the terms and am now trying to get the paperwork signed and the appraiser out to give us a value for our home. (If you knew all my phone anxieties, you would understand what an accomplishment this is!) The impending arrival of an appraiser has lit a fire under our respective tushes. Robert's sister keeps telling us that we shouldn't worry so much and that the appraiser won't care about many of the items we are concerned about. I don't care. I'm just happy that things are getting done.

Friday, I cleaned our hallway from the kitchen to the laundry area. I moved filing cabinets, packed all those plastic grocery bags into one big kitchen garbage bag. I put my ironing table in a great storage area from which (added bonus) it will be difficult to retrieve. I rearranged items so that the bins would actually close, allowing neater stacking and and thus neater closet arrangement. I sorted and packed away all the clothes that my children need to grow into (sometimes accepting charity can be a burden) and sorted and donated the clothes my children have grown out of. The trash can and the 44 lb bag of dog food are tucked neatly in the bottom of our pantry. Now, we can actually walk down the space without twisting our hips around in a Latin dance type fashion. Now someone can sit at the computer and someone else can walk behind them without necessitating anyone getting a tummy tuck. So. nice. My husband was shocked.

I cut down old raspberry canes. I mowed the lawn (even emptied the bag of clippings of few times). I weeded. I hate to weed. I studiously avoid weeding (even my beloved roses). But I weeded nonetheless.

Saturday, April 12th was the final day of Christmas 2007 at our house! Liz and Mia expressed incredulity that such decorations were still up. Myself, I had begun to think that they would still be up come October 2008, at which point I would decide, "Eh, Christmas will be here soon, why bother?" All the nativities are filed away in their appropriate boxes. The snowmen and nutcrackers and lollipop tree, sans lollies, have been lovingly wrapped away and are now sleeping in the attic. *Sigh* Done. at. last.

I weeded some more. (I also had a brief moment of rage when I saw that Robert ended up rototilling a section of garden that I had spent 1.5 hours weeding.) I pressure-washed two sides of our house, our chimney and our entire two car garage driveway. By myself. Thank you very much!

I even had time to read a short story.

So, the purpose of this post? A completely narcissistic, "YEA ME!!"