The weather has just been horrible. Snow then slush, then frozen slick ice, then snow then slush, etc. With the wind chill factor, it was supposed to be -25F in some areas today. I believe it. It was bitter when we went out shopping this afternoon.
As I mentioned earlier, our landlord put some new windows in last week. That has kept us busier than we planned to be. Once we moved all the furniture out of the way to accommodate the window installation, and cleaned up the resulting mess, we had the urge to re-arrange all the furniture.
If you had ever been here, you would understand what a daunting task this is. We are collectors, and we own a lot of stuff. Stuff is our downfall; sometimes, literally, when I trip over it, as happens more and more these days. I sometimes wonder if I may have an issue with my peripheral vision but, more likely, I just have too much stuff. I’m pretty sure my death will involve me tripping over something, falling and then being buried among my stuff until my body disintegrates and becomes one with the stuff. One of my fears is that, at any moment in my attempts at stuff acquisition, I may cross the line to become one of those people who needs an Oprah intervention.
Have I used the word stuff way too many times in that last paragraph? Yes. Why? Way too much stuff.
Anyhow, we wanted to grab this opportunity free up some space, especially since the holidays are here, and people will be coming over. More accurately, I had the urge to re-arrange, but C. went along with it in good humor.
We have two desks.
One is huge. An old bankers desk, which has belonged to C. since before I met him long ago. He spent many hours refinishing and restoring it, so I’ve understood his reluctance to sell it, even though it is way too big for the space it occupies. It’s always been his desk which he has been unwilling to share all these years. So we’ve always had another shared desk where the home computer sits. This new opportunity to rearrange became a real milestone, since he actually agreed that we really only need to own one desk, and he was pretty sure that he could adjust to letting me share the big desk.
In fact, he even cleaned a drawer out for me.
So we got rid of the other desk and a table, and managed to open up an area at one end of the room, which can be used as an additional sitting area when people visit.
Of course, I got carried away and also started moving other stuff and cleaning up a lot of other little areas which needed attention, as well. It really turned into a much bigger job than we had in mind, originally. We’ve discovered that, at 64 and 67, it takes a whole lot longer to move furniture than it used to
We had to fit all this in, in between work, which has been unusually busy this year. I’ve been pushing myself to keep up with making things and shipping them quickly. This new busy-ness makes me remember why I hated having a store. When you sell jewelry, you never have time for your own Christmas.
Somehow, though, we managed to do it all as we had the time and energy to work on it. It looks pretty nice, actually, and it will definitely be less crowded in here when the family gathers.
Of course, the best thing about all of this is really that we are very, very grateful to have the new windows, especially with the weather as it is today. The other windows were so loose and leaky that it would have been impossible for me to sit in here today without freezing. We would probably have had to huddle under our down comforter in the bed with the cat.
Now that I’ve written that, I’m thinking maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad way to spend the day at all. Possibly better than furniture re-arrangeing.
On the other hand, I am now officially part owner of the desk. Took me 31 years.