Baby Steps

I would never make it in the 442nd, the "Go For Broke" company.  I tend to approach a project slowly and only after exhausting all available excuses to procrastinate or not do it at all.  It is the time of year when the house gets its semiannual major cleaning in prep for the holidays.  (The other is in spring after the house has been closed up for the winter.)  Being blessed with selective vision, I am able to ignore dust and cobwebby corners by simply not seeing them most of the time.  Taking off those blinders, my initial foray was to heartlessly send an army of homeless spiders out into the streets.  Wiping down their webs was enough for the first day, the "toe in the water," as it were.  It seems I am constitutionally unable to throw away plastic jars, sour cream containers, or bags.  I might have been a hoarder in another life.  One never knows when one of those items might be just the thing in which to save three leftover peas in the refrigerator or line a wastebasket, but even I recognize when enough is too much.  Yesterday I girded my loins (I'll figure out what that means one of these days) and ruthlessly attacked the small mountain of accumulated empty jars and bottles, winnowing out the truly useful from those just taking up space.  Tomorrow is trash day and I'll bet I win Trash Guy's Award of the Week for my contribution.  The plan for the next several days is to make inroads on washing the collection of tchotchkes (namely, pigs of every size, shape, and description) that covers every flat surface in the house.  I'm not joking; there are probably 500 pigs and their piglets on shelves, walls, and floor in every room.  The stone, crystal, ceramic, wood, and metal pigs will get washed and the innumerable stuffed pigs get thrown into the dryer to be humanely dusted off, better than beating them with a stick.  This not a one-day job, but it's a step in the right direction.

Pearl did not get the word that we were supposed to get an extra hour of sleep with the time change.