I almost have the house straightened back up. I'm going to finish it today before I start wallpapering Maegan's room. I can't imagine how bad this place would be to try doing that on top of the mess from doing the flooring. Ugh! Anyway, it's almost done.
The kids want a television in the living room just for their play stations, the v-smile, nintendo or ever what that is that Lisa gave them to play with, that dance mat, the camera/karaoke machine. They have a lot of neat toys that hook to a television. I think I'll do that today too. I wonder if there's a gadget that lets you hook up umpteen things to one box, so they don't have to keep unhooking one to hook up another?
They're all over their strep, thank God, and are feeling better. Mik and Mal are in school again today, they got up happy little campers, so that was nice. Maegan's been in a wonderful mood for the past 2 days.. so loving! I can just walk down the hall, then come back into the room and she's all huggy-lovey-dovey.. big smile on her face.. she's so funny. :)
Mom has a birthday coming up on the 27th! Mom! How old will you be?
*wicked grin* I promise not to post it here if you tell me!
Dad's still in Florida. I hope he gets to come home for Mom's birthday. We'll see. The rascal calls here to tell me he's fixing to go into Bob Evans (I love that place and he knows it!) to eat.. or how warm it is.. or what time the tide's coming in.. or going out.. Argggg.. I would LOVE to be in Florida!
Papaw's doing fine, every day he's either on the phone, or has Mom call to ask me if I'll come over a while and bring the girls... but they were sick and I didn't want him catching that stuff.. maybe we can go today. Mik went yesterday for a while - Mom's helping her practice her reading. She's doing pretty dang good too. :)
Mom too has been doing some pre-spring cleaning. She said she just can't take any more clutter.. that her what nots and knick knacks had to go.. she was gonna box them up and have me and Lisa get them, go through the boxes, get out what we'd like to keep, then give Bonnie the boxes to go through. We all thought she was losing her mind, her knick knacks?! I thought maybe she was getting ready to move.. Nick asked her if she was dying.. but no, the simple truth is she's tired of dusting the blasted things.
So she cleaned out her closets, her cabinets, all the places you put knick knacks, and had Stan go pick them up. Lisa had already gone through them.
I called Bonnie, thinking to save some work.. told her.. come on over and go through these boxes with me, because that way what you don't want we can just give away from here and won't be double handling them. She came over an hour or so later.. and her jaw dropped seeing all the boxes and bags in the kitchen.
We started going through them, one by one.. the boxes first.. the huge box first. *laughs* On top was plastic bag, with a zipper.. the kind comforters and bed sets come in. Inside were old pieces of cardboard. Bonnie looked at me and deadpanned.. "You can have that, Mom." I just set it aside and kept looking.. next was a box.. yes, a box in the box.. I sat and opened it.. all excited.. what could it be? It was a plastic coated clump of styrofoam.. the kind used to protect glass in the mail.. and about 8 styrofoam peanuts. Again.. Bonnie deadpanned, "You can have that too, Mom." I just shot her a look and put that box of styrofoam to the side, then dug deeper in the big box.
My prizes were more empty boxes, full of other empty boxes. I just looked at Bonnie.. once in a while we pulled out some old tissue and more pieces of cardboard. I was puzzled, but then I'd find a little glass doll, or a crushed bowl, and I thought wow.. I'm not sure what these things meant, but they had to mean something to Mom for her to send them to me.
When Bonnie started to leave, I just muttered, still shaking my head.. "Gosh when I'm old, I sure hope I don't call you to come over to get some trinkets and then end up giving you styrofoam peanuts." She laughed at me and went on home.
I've heard of people going into their deceased Aunt's house.. the one who kept 9 or 10 cats, finding a 10 feet tall ball of string and crates full of styrofoam peanuts, and they spent a lot of time years later off and on, trying to figure out why Aunt Emma saved those things. I looked at the stuff and thought much the same thing. I kept the peanuts, I'm not sure why, but they have to mean something.. they just have to. Don't they?"
The next day I was talking to Mom on the phone.. she asked me how I liked the trinkets, and I stammered, "I.. they were.. wow, that was too cool, thank you so much!" She asked what we were doing, I said "Oh we're just taking the stuff we didn't want down to the bottom of the hill for the trash man..." "Oh yeah? There wasn't much for him was there?" Ohhh I wish she hadn't asked that.. I stammered some more.. "Oh no, not much, no, just a bit.. uh.. a few little things were broken and .." She interrupted me.."How did you like it? What did you keep?" Um.. Um.. I kept.. the .. uh.. Mom.. if I tell you I'm scared it'll hurt your feelings.. " "What?" I could tell she was puzzled. So.. I stepped out on a limb.. "Mom.. I have to know.. what were those styrofoam peanuts for?"
"WHAT?" She was more puzzled than I was. I explained what we'd found and she started laughing. I don't mean just a chuckle, I mean a belly laugh from here to China. She calmed down and asked what I'd found in the boxes and I stammered and just finally told her.. trash. More empty boxes.. torn tissue and cardboard.
Stan had brought home the boxes she'd had set aside to take out to her dumpster. I bet that's what Aunt Emma had meant to do too guys.. so you can stop wondering about it now!
On a more somber note, Doyle, the helicoptor Uncle from a few previous posts had a heart attack a couple of days ago. He got to go home from the hospital last night.. he's doing fine.. glad you're alright "Doyle-Jean" - Mallory was worried about you! :)
Jana, get well soon!!
Dede, I reply to your mail but it gets bounced back! I don't know what to do!
I think that's about all that's new in my world this week. Stay warm folks, it's snowing out there!
Posted by juel at January 25, 2007 10:01 AM