I feel like I’m in the eye of the storm right now. The last few days have been a little nuts…the house in total chaos as Sherry and I painted, decluttered, and drank wine (I also worked – not while drinking wine!). Ben’s aunt Aisha has been here for most of the week and she never stops cleaning. I can see my reflection in the cooking pots. Our contractor, Marcos, was here over the weekend working to repair the water damage from last winter, so the family room is all askew. We went for a quick run to the Brimfield Antique Show yesterday, followed by a spontaneous dinner party for 15. It has been a great combination of distractions, fun, and forward progress.
Right now I am home alone, sitting in front of the fan and soaking up the sudden calm after the storm. Everything that is going to be spackled and painted before our departure has been spackled and painted. Some friends unexpectedly offered to have Norah visit them in Maine from today until Thursday, and another friend invited Aliya to sleep over from Tuesday to Thursday. I’m looking at my list for the week, and although there’s a lot on it, I think it might be doable if I don’t sleep. There’s a moms’ movie night, a birthday dinner with a friend, two “hasta luego” get-togethers, a birthday lunch, and a trip to the aquarium on the calendar for this week, and I’m going to enjoy every one of these events and not worry about what’s left to do.
But if I’m in the eye of the storm, that means there’s more storminess to come. When the plasterer was here today looking at the very minor water-damage plastering job, I was asking him about covering our old horsehair plaster with blueboard and skim-coating it. In my mind, this was something we would consider doing at a much later date…I was just curious about how much it would cost per room. While we were chatting, Ben decided that the day after the kids and I leave for Mexico would be a great time for the plasterer and Marcos to address the cracks in the living room and dining room walls and ceilings – remove all furniture, take down all trim, install blueboard, skim coat, extend the jambs and reinstall the trim, paint it all, and put back all of the furniture, curtains, etc.
Considering that I just painted an area of wall that Ben ripped wallpaper off of two years ago, I’m thinking this might be a bit ambitious, especially since it needs to be done before Ben’s sister and her family arrive from Morocco to live in our house. On the bright side, I won’t be here to witness this particular storm. I’m not going to worry about it…I’m not even going to think about it. I’m going to pack my bags and make my escape.
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Besides kettle korn and pilgrim sandwiches, this is my only purchase from Brimfield, but it makes me so happy! I’ve been looking for a shelf to mount on the wall as a nightstand, because Norah’s bed has drawers under it so we can’t use a table beside the bed. I saw this old spoon rack at one of the first booths, turned it upside-down and thought it might work. After looking around at all of the other options with no luck, I bought this for ten bucks, painted it, and I think it will be perfect for a small lamp and an alarm clock.
