Nesting & purging

The weekend before Hallowe'en Matt and I did a purge. We rediscovered the floor in our second bedroom, found that the top of Matt's dresser is made of wood, not fashioned from a mountain of unfolded clothes waiting to be ironed, mended, or hung up in the closet. We also found a pillowcase I have been looking for since September, and had assumed to be eaten by the washing machine. A slightly less pleasant discovery was that somebody had peed on the big cushions atop my blanket box. Since it wasn't me or Matt, it had to be one of the cats, unless our friends have taken to sneaking off and scent marking random places in our bedroom during a party. Our cats have been feeling territorially threatened by a stray who hangs out by our windows and taunts them. It has not been a pleasant month to be carpet in our condo. Thank Petsmart for Nature's Miracle, which has saved us from living in That House. You know the one I mean, the one that reeks of kitty effluvia. We still have unusually hairy lampshades and white fluff on our burgundy sofa, there is no question that long haired cats inhabit our flat, but at least we are wining the battle against catstink.

Anyway, back to the purge.

By about 3pm we had a 6'x4' area of our living room taken up by a 5' tall stack of stuff to donate. Two G3 macs, a box of books and software to go with them, two plastic lawn chairs, a queen bedspread, a king duvet, two superficially destinked giant cushions, two boxes of clothes (how did we manage to find 2 boxes to discard? We already did a clearout 3 months ago!) a small lamp, my stereo from university (sniff, farewell little blue Sony, you served me well) two window box-fans, a ridiculously large and cavernous motorcycle rucksack, a vase, and, the star item: an iRobot Roomba automatic vacuum cleaner robot thingy, complete with remote control. We inherited the robot from our neighbors, it couldn't hack their cat hair (hur hur), and it did no better with ours. Off to the charity shop it goes, I'll take my tax deduction thank you. When we loaded all of this into the SUV it was FULL. We don't even fill it when we go camping for four days and take lots of firewood.

We still need to complete the autumn cleaning by tidying and sorting the desks and book cases, maybe I can find some kitchen stuff to donate, but I doubt it, I use all my kitchen stuff. I'm already realizing I could have offloaded my wedding shoes and some sneakers I never wear, which would free up slots in the closet for a pair or two of new shoes I have been eyeing on zappos. Anybody want a pair of size 10W winter white leather pumps with a 1" heel? Pristine condition? Lovely ballet-slipper styling your mother would approve of...no? OK.

It felt very good to clear out some junk that had been cluttering up our home for far too long. We capped off the weekend by going to Home Depot and buying knobs and drawer handles for the previously plain kitchen and bathroom cabinets, they look very spiffy.

Once I finish my statistics class at the end of this month, we are going to install an arch in the entrance to our hallway, and put molding sills on our windows. We have already allocated any Christmas money to the painting fund. Farewell rental-reminiscent white, hello taupe and linen to compliment the carnelian wall in the living room, teal wall in the kitchen (sounds weird but we love it), and sapphire & ice blue in the bedroom. This time next year the poor long suffering ugly-ass carpet will be ripped out and replaced with tile and hardwood. Oh, and we are now debating replacing the ugly plastic bathtub with an better enammeled model and tiled walls. Happy evil nesting plotting has been going on apace. We might even need to start taking notes of what we agree on so we don't forget any fun.