I have very little time to blog on this cold but beautiful Wednesday. The reason has nothing to do with me being so busy, instead it related to my caveman existence in my almost-but-not-quite-yet refurbished house which we have now moved back into. The state of it is such that there is no internet connected, neither is the dishwasher, the ovens or the range, the washing machine or more than half of the lights inside. We have no doors inside either and our bedspread is construction plastic to ward off the dust that accumulates during the day. I refuse to discuss the outside of the house.
So we now cohabit with 2 carpenters, 2 painters, an electrician, a plumber and a tiler. This we can live with. I can also abide having to wear strange clothing that went out of style a long ago due to not being able to wash my regular stuff. I am also OK with eating instant noodles for dinner every night because these are the only thing you can cook using an electric steam kettle.
What annoys me most is going through the boxes that we need to try and cut down in number as storage space is tight. This is incredibly tedious while at the same time it is quite interesting how much stuff one manages to amass. We have so many boxes of all sorts of useless things that I become depressed just typing this. While going throught them I came to the realization that you only need about 7% of what you aquire through life. Which would not be a problem if getting rid of the other 93% was easy. But it isn't.
For example, why would I keep a box of dominos? Nobody in my family has ever and never will play dominos. But when holding the box and seeing it hovering over the trash bag I get second thoughts. It would be nice to play dominos with my grandson and he could do with some number lessons. Me and Óli might even play a round one of these days, or our daughter with her teenage friends might become bored with facebook and want to play, or perhaps the electrician would like to play a round with the plumber when they are on a break. So of course I end up putting them back into the box. And there they will stay and no one will play dominos.
Our childrens' school stuff is another example. I have actually tried to throw most of this out but my husband stopped me. His reason was that he thinks he might enjoy looking at their handwriting and their homework and notes through their years of schooling when he gets old. Apparently he has many misconceptions about old age that need to be changed but this will have to wait and the notebooks went back into the box. He himself took a masters degree in finance a few years ago and over his school debris I was adamant. This we had to throw out immediately before it aquired sentimental value. He agreed in most part. But did it happen? No. Apparently there were some notes that he wanted to keep, he intends to go through this later and sort the keep-worthy from the crap later on. So into the box it went again, never to be sorted.
I am even worse. One glove I will not throw out because I know if I throw it the other one will magically appear and this would get on my nerves. No matter that the glove is neon pink from the 80s. Who knows - maybe I will find one ski glove from the 70s and together these could be used for gardening. But with my luck they will both be for the left hand. But even then I won't throw the mix-matched pair out, the odds being in favour of the third such azygous glove being right handed.
I hope that by next Wednesday I will have internet again. But something tells me I won't. Who knows, with no TV, no radio, no internet and so on for weeks on end, maybe me and Óli will take up dominos. Each wearing one glove even.
Yrsa - Wednesday
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I don't have all of my kids' schoolwork although I did keep their creative writing things.
ReplyDeleteI do have most of their artwork and I have all of the decorations they made for the Christmas tree. For the past 30 years, beginning when the oldest was in nursery school, I have amassed enough ornaments that our tree was the only one of its kind. No one else has a decoration that is a picture of my daughter, taken in her Halloween costume, and pasted to a strip of leather. It was nursery school and she was a scarecrow.
Last year they staged a mutiny. They wanted a grown-up tree. No more of their artwork. But all the ornaments were given to me as gifts (their father stayed out of the discussion) and they don't live here anymore. They refused to continue their humiliation.
So the tree had lights and a star. They deemed it minimalist and were pleased. I still have their ornaments. If any of them every have children, they will be a source of great amusement for the next generation.
My sister discovered, after about twenty-five year, that an ornament that she belived was made by her son actually had another child's name on the back. She still hangs it because the tree would look wrong without it.
I lived through an addition and a renovation but it wasn't nearly as overwhelming as your's. Walk around the house mumbling, "It will be perfect. Someday it will be perfect." Your children will become convinced that you have finally lost your mind and they will become helpful and cooperative.
My sympathies.
Beth
You frighten me, Yrsa. I just closed on a new apartment and renovations are about to begin. I dare not think of what horrors await me in those drawers.
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