Around The House

In case you haven't picked up on this item about me, I am no exactly Suzi Homemaker. I won't go so far as to say I loathe, abhor and despise housework, but I will tell you this much, I am definitely not my Mother's -or my Grandmother's either -daughter/granddaughter where this stuff is concerned.

Add to that, the fact that I didn't realize it until I started feeling so much differently after beginning to take these antibiotics this week but apparently my general health had been keeping me from wanting to steer clear of any cleaning stuff all together too. Does that make sense? Probably not but it's like this -every day since Tuesday when I started taking these meds, my energy levels have been going up and up -for me, almost through the roof! (And baby, that's high, too!)

My daughter Mandy unfortunately has apparently inherited a lot of my genes when it comes to housekeeping too though. Poor kid! (Poor Bill is more the issue there! LOL) We both lean towards being packrats for one thing and we both keep waiting for that damned maid to show up and clean things up too. Then, when you add to this mix the fact there are two little people here -a messy 4 1/2 year old and an even more messy 2-year-old, plus a 16-year-old with no ambition either and this old house can really get trashed very quickly.

Today, I took it upon myself to start trying to get at least one little corner -the one that tends to be "My World" -a little bit under control. That would be the corner of the living room in which my desk, the computer and printer sit! I won't shock the pants off you by showing you a before picture -it was really gross -but here's what my desk area looks like right now, as I write this post.


I'm not gonna show you any of the other stuff I worked on this afternoon though cause it still is pretty rough around the edges in the rest of the living room but I did get the two great big boxes of old photographs from my late aunt's house sorted through and stored into a nice big hard plastic tote container so they can be safely stored someplace else in the house at least until early July. Why early July, you ask? Well, that's when my sweet, adorable little red-headed cousin who lives in Alabama -and her husband -will be coming north for a couple of days. The main reason they are coming up is, sadly, to hold a memorial service for the remains of her Mom -my Aunt Isabel - who died this past February but Red and I plan to go over the photo posterboards I did for our mutual aunt's viewing the end of April, plus go through all these other photos that had been in the old homestead and see which -if any -she would like to carry back to Alabammy with her then! There's still two more boxes of photos I need to sift through too -one is from the old homestead too and the other though is a mish-mash of pictures from family on my Mom's side, of my kids, friends, maybe even a few enemies too. Who knows! But I need to find a way to clean some of this crapola out of the living room and try to make it look a little bit presentable here that way.

Miss Maya and little Kurtis were here alone with old Gram all day as Mandy was up at the garage in Chester Hill, cleaning out her car so they can trade it with a grand prix -or maybe it's a grand AM (I dunno -a different car anyway) that Bill's boss has there on the lot. A vehicle that doesn't need a new engine or transmission is about all I really know about this new-to-us used-car unit they will be acquiring!

It was a fairly calm, quiet day for the most part with Maya. Kurtis was excellent company -very well behaved! My next-door-neighbor's 19-year-old son and going into his junior year come fall at Penn State son came over and installed my new printer/scanner/copier/fax machine toy in exchange for my old printe/scanner/copier. He also tweaked around with my computer -showed me a few things -most of which I have already forgotten though cause that's the way life is in the fast lane at age 63. Easy in, easy out! VERY easy out, let me attest to that!

While Dan was putzying around with the computer, Maya was pretty much almost hanging on his right arm -busy watching his every move -but at least not bugging him that much with her usual 40-60 questions routine. However, Dan isn't all that impressed with little kids -especially not in the range Maya and Kurt are in right now and at one point, I made the comment to her that, if Dan ever does decide he might want to consider becoming a parent, her actions today might be would probably serve as a very strong deterrant. Good exercise in birth control ideas perhaps? No, she wasn't THAT bad but he isn't all THAT hepped up on ever having children as it is ya know. (How many almost 20-year-old males are?)

When I started thinking about this post, I decided to show you a couple of other things here too. Like this thing -which I consider to be my NEMISIS! I hate this damnable thing. It is an abomination!

This lovely item above is in the not-being-used position here and like this, it doesn't bother me at all. But it is when that one white thing curling around to the right is looped through the right-hand side handle that I hate this sucker! Mandy got two of these and has them both looped -usually -around the handles of the cupboard doors of the island/storage area in the kitchen. The intent is to keep little fingers from getting into the cupboards. Great idea. But once they are set up, if you want to open the cupboard doors then you have to first press that yellow square button in the middle, then, while holding it down, you depress two little square buttons on each side of the white square (are you still with me here?) and then, you pull and the white curly thing will slide back and hang freely - as it is doing in this picture -and you can open the cupboards. I can't walk and chew gum at the same time and Mandy expects me to manipulate this freaking thing!!! She's crazy! Insane, I tell you -or maybe it is just that she is pure evil and loves to torment me too. I haven't figured it out yet. But trust me, ever damned time I go to cook something and need to get into those cupboards, if those little locks are in place, I have to get either Mandy or Bill (if he happens to be home at the time) to come out and pull the stupid thing free! Just makes me seethe and my blood boils over! Can you tell?

On a photographic roll then today, I went outside -stood in the nice gentle misting type rainfall we're having at the moment -and took these two pictures then of the flowers Mandy and Kate planted in the little old flower bed in front of the house -directly under the bow window in the living room. No -neither Kate nor Mandy will ever make horticulture a career choice and if by some chance of fate, my dear cousin Mike should ever stumble across my blog and see this, please Mike, don't drop dead of heart failure for these posies! (My cousin Mike is, you see, a bonafide horticulturist -with a B.S. in that major from good old Penn State University!) I do not share any of those type genes that he has in that respect either! I am the cousin with the "black" thumb; his is very, very "green." Gotta tell you this -he is fantastic about flowers, just fantastic! I swear he can grow anything! When I was a kid, he turned the back porch of his parents' home into his own little greenhouse and his specialty when he was around 14-15 years old was growing orchids! My Mom adored him! Flat out adored him because he could do all this stuff with flowers and she LOVED flowers and could grow them too, unlike me -I always manage to kill 'em.

Anyway -here are the pictures of the flowers in front of the house. Not many but then, to plant more would be cruel and unusual punishment to the botany world, to the flora community.



Ok, this display is pretty puny -really puny -by comparison to what kind of flowers my Grandpa would have had growing and blooming here from beginning of spring until fall every year. He loved flowers too, had a very good knack for getting them to grow, to position them just so too for the best effect when one looked at his handiwork as well. He also loved roses -his all time favorite flower (mine too -love yellow roses, truly I do) and when I was a kid, he even planted a yellow rose bush in the midst of his precious pinks and reds in the flower garden he had out in the front of the lot next door -which no longer is part of my property now. He planted that one little yellow rose bush just for me because I had told him I loved yellow roses! Yep! He was sweet, wasn't he, to do that just for little old me, his granddaughter with no natural ability whatsoever when it comes to gardening -flower or otherwise!

And finally, here some pictures of my experimental vegetable garden for this year! Here's the tomato, green pepper and cabbage plants I set out in the old flower beds alongside the house, just below my kitchen area. I know, I know I have probably broken every freaking cardinal rule of vegetable gardening by planting this many plants in this small a space, this close together, etc., etc., etc. But remember, my name is not "Ms. GreenJeans" either!




To be honest about my "experimental veggie garden" as shown above, I am ecstatic that these plants have survived there for all of two weeks so far! That's almost a record for a plant in my care to live THAT long! If they make it through the next two weeks, I think it might be safe to say then that they passed the acid test and who knows, they may even produce some goodies for us to munch on then! In the words of the comedienne, Judy Tenuto, "It could happen. It could happen!"

Now, after being so daring and brave as to show these "gardening" photos to you, I better cross my fingers and hope my cousin Ray doesn't come visiting my blog too. He's quite the master gardener -like our grandfather was -and this might just make Ray's toenails curl and send him into a mega tizzy too!

(A little explanation here too - my cousin Mike is the son of my dad's sister, Lizzie and my cousin Ray is the son of my Mom's brother, Bert -so two different sets of genes that are good with gardening there, ya know!)

Watch and see -I'll keep ya posted as to when the funeral will be if it fails!