This weekend was a quiet one, with lots of spring cleaning and a heaping helping of household (and teardrop trailer) maintenance. What with the bereavement last month and then all the carpe diem-ing we’ve been doing since, our home and garden have been getting more and more grubby. When we gross out even ourselves, steps must be taken. So! Cue the spring cleaning music (lately, we clean tothe soundtrack of Guardians of the Galaxy).
And it’s spring, so all green things are growing like crazy, including all the weeds and the grass. We don’t have too much lawn, but we have enough weeds to make up for it. But wow, the payoff! We didn’t buy this house for the stunning and lovingly nurtured landscape, but I’m getting more pleasure out of our plants than I ever thought I would. This spring has been a wonderful journey of discovery, learning what blooms what color, and when. (Hint: everything, usually white, and all the time.)
We go on our first camping of the season in about a month, and the trailer needed some pretty significant maintenance before we could take it out. If you’re not familiar with our teardrop trailer, Tom built it with his own hands, from the axle up (with the help of some good friends on the interior woodwork). It gives us a watertight (now — good work, Tom!) spot to sleep when we camp, though it’s kind of claustrophobic in there with all 4 of us — this summer I think we’ll put the kids in the trailer and Tom and I will sleep in a tent nearby. The back hatch serves as a galley, and it’s nice to be able to lock all the food down, good and tight, now that we’re camping in Bear Country. (Is the coast still Bear Country? The raccoons are fierce enough, if not.)
We also did some springtime storm window shifting; the storm door in the front got a screen instead of glass, and I opened the storm windows in the bedrooms to expose the screens and allow us to get more of this gorgeous spring air in the house.
Then I washed a few windows and scrubbed down the railing on the back porch. It’s overhung by a very bloomy-polleny tree, and the mold/mildew/dirt on the weird coated wood was getting really bad. As you might spot, some moisture has penetrated the weird coating, and we’re going to have to replace at least the railings after this season, I think. But now I’ll have an even more idyllic place to work on sunny days, and there’s nothing wrong with THAT!
And of course on top of all that we had all the laundry and all the dishes and all the floors. I’m heading down to the basement in a few minutes to fold my way through a pile of laundry that registers on the Everest scale, as soon as I have confidence that the kids are closer to sleep. While Tom and I were busy with all of these chores, they either helped clean (their rooms and the toys in the basement) or played together, largely entertaining themselves. We’re ridiculously lucky to have two kids who enjoy each other so much. With chores done, sun setting, bread baking, and kids sleeping, I’m hyper-aware right now that some people are muchly much-much more unlucky than us. #seussblessed
The Thing With The Stuff 