Spinning Plates

Remember the guy on the Ed Sullivan show who would come out and start spinning plates on wooden poles?  He would start one, then one more, then one more - and then run back to the first and give it a push, then run to start one more and went back and forth spinning and pushing until you were dizzy from watching him and panicked that one would fall and break?

My life is like that these days.  

The past few months have been a 90 mile-an-hour whirlwind and it doesn't show any sign of slowing down. Between 3 part-time jobs (four if you count working at my husband's store in ever increasing increments) and guests arriving here in 48 hours, I am a mess.  The approach of house guests sends me in to a tizzy. I am blessed and cursed with a large house  - so large there is is a lot of room to put stuff and never trip over it or see it again.

For some reason I decided this would be a good time to move my office (in the big bedroom) to my sewing room  (the small bedroom) and the sewing room to the big bedroom.  I knew I would need some professional help so I call the producers of Hoarding: Buried Alive and asked them to come take a look. They did, and told me it was obviously faked because NO ONE has that much crap.  When I say "no one" I mean "my husband". Okay, some of the crap  is mine - but I don't have files, tax returns, checks, paid bills and school papers dating back to 1965.  I am not making that up.  He even has the original Pittsburgh Paint Interior Colors brochure with the paint colors marked from when he built the house in 1975.  Oh the horror.

The move was ponderous.  I went through crates of files, boxes of old checks, every cardboard tube of blueprints -  and created the great wall of recycling in my upstairs hallway. Two great hunky bunky friends moved it all downstairs and out to the garage for recycling pickup. I threw out a ton of stuff, took one car load to Goodwill and have a good start on the next load to find a good home. It was days of work, hard on my already messed up body, but incredibly satisfying. I love my new office - it looks and feels and acts like a proper workspace. I'm much more organized.  I love my new sewing room, especially the old armchair in the corner where I sit and meditate or read or hand sew. It is my sanctuary.

Joe's cousins arrive in 48 hours and I think we're ready. We still have the main floor to clean and vacuum and some upstairs paint touch up, but luckily I can walk in to the hardware store with my circa 1975 Pittsburgh Paints Interior Colors brochure and get exactly the right shades for the bedrooms. (They have been repainted over the years, but the same color since 1975.  He gets to pick the upstairs paint, I get to pick the main floor.)  Now if only that ugly stairway chandelier would come crashing down and shatter into a thousand pieces. I climb up into the attic and loosen the bolt a tiny bit every day.....

I've also added to my co-worker collection. (Hey, it gets lonely here.) In addition to Helen (the chicken), Commando Joe (the army man),   Rob and Roy (the little dinosaurs) and Bart (the penguin) I now have three little turtles.  They need names.  Any suggestions?
PS - that fabulous box they live on?  I made that. Oh snap!