I Fed The Hole

So my folks are coming for a visit today. This marks the 2nd week of what is apparently to be a month long celebration of my 30th birthday. Apparently everyone wants to be part of my newly found decade - although to be honest, there are days I feel like I'm 75...and act like I'm 20. So bring on the celebrations - 30 is as good an excuse as any to see my family and enjoy a few nights of good food and good drinks.


Needless to say I spent all day yesterday cleaning the house top to bottom. I have discovered that the single life can turn a girl into your typical bachelor. Out went the empty bottles and pizza boxes, and in came scented candles and good yet affordable shiraz. And once the overflowing ashtrays were emptied and the dirty clothes (well...they weren't all dirty but had all certainly exceeded the 30 second rule by at least 2 weeks) were thrown in the washer, all I had left to do was the hard stuff. And by this I don't mean clean the washroom (yes, I did that too) or scrub the floors (yup, done as well). The hard stuff is picking up all the junk that invariably appears randomly all over the house. For some reason, I don't see it piling up until it's too late. And you wouldn't believe the stuff I found, or the places I found it at.


Like this thing, for example:





Yes, that's a braid of my hair. I know. Ew. It's one of three I kept over the years. Where was it? In the living room, sitting in the bookcase between the latest Stephen King and my very battered copy of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove (yeah, it fell in the bathub a couple of times). How fitting. Call and Augustus would be so proud of my hard-earned scalp...There IS no fitting place for this kind of thing though, so I did the best I could under the circumstances. I threw it in The Hole. The Hole, my upstairs third room closet, is quickly becoming a very convenient space for Things That Don't Belong. Like the boxes my ex has yet to pick up.


What else, what else...oh, THIS thingy:




I don't know what the hell that thing is. All I know is I remember it from when I was a kid and it somehow ended up with me. I can't remember ever using it and I have no idea why it's still kicking around. As you can plainly see by the amount of cat hair and dust on it, I found it behind the couch. Now being the packrat that I am, you know I didn't throw it out...I've kindof gotten used to finding it whenever I do The Major Cleanup. So in The Hole it went. Mind you, my folks will be here later today, so I might remember to ask them what it's for...and hey, mebby they'll even want it back. Bonus.


Now this next thing did not go in The Hole, I can tell you that much. It went in A hole, but it wasn't the closet:




This is a tin box. Inside the tin box was what was left of my sister's Christmas cookies. There wasn't much left, because my sister's cookies are to die for. Thankfully for me, those that WERE left in there were the biscotti. They keep for a loooong, long time. But they don't have to keep anymore. I ate them. Made sure to eat them before vaccuming, too. Those things leave crumbs. I must have lost sight of the box about the time the Christmas bills came in, because I found it under piles and piles of them. Reminded me I should take care of those, as well...I was tempted to throw THOSE into The Hole, but a little voice told me I might regret that decision later. Little voices bug me. So I threw the empty tin into The Hole, instead.


And of course, after finding all the fun stuff, you inevitably find the not so fun one. The one you can't just throw into The Hole, the one you never quite understand why you keep but can never quite bring yourself to get rid of. I mean this stuff:




Screws, hooks, IKEA 'special all purpose screwdrivers' that never work, paper clips...a USB clip, a leather tag from my new boots....Why the hell do I hang on to that stuff? Well, you know, because maybe I'll need screws at some point. And paper clips, well, they're kindof handy to close that bag of chips (didn't eat THOSE, because unfortunately I found the clip months after the chips were way passed stale). I don't know. I just kindof...hold on to them. But they're small and messy and so can't be thrown into The Hole, so I just found one of those convenient safe boxes (i.e. a tupperware container that has been forever parted from its lid years ago) and threw it all in there. Now I don't know what to do with the tupperware, so I just stuck it on a shelf in the office. Meh. At least the mess is contained.


For now.


So now the house is seemingly spic and span (The Hole is our little secret...), the scented candles will ensure it is breathable in here, and if all else fails, the wine will make everything look nicer...

I should really try to keep the house looking like this, I'm really enjoying having work surfaces and I had forgotten how nice the hue of my hard wood floors is. Then again, just in the time I wrote this post, I've managed to clutter my desk with the camera, 2 coffee cups and 3 ashtrays.


Go figure.