Reclamation!

I’ve sat down and intended to write a post for days now. I even have pictures! And yet none of it made it to the blog.

I left work just before the early closure of the office on Thursday. (Wow. That seems a lifetime ago!) And thus began an odyssey that has had some very positive results. Instead of going straight home, I was awash in last-minute shoppers. Thankfully, I didn’t have a lot to get and most of the lines moved swiftly. Not long after I got home and got everything inside, the snow flurries started. Just a little here and there. Nothing accumulating.

Snow arrived with a vengeance on Friday so it was a good thing we didn’t have solid holiday plans. (We got somewhere between 3 and 4 inches.) Normally, we’d have been driving 40 miles each way to our celebration. Clearly, that was out. It just didn’t seem worth the risk.

We ate well on Christmas and while there was no tearing of wrapping paper, the mother and I – through the work she’d started a week or more ago and the dedicated efforts of both of us over three solid days – have reclaimed our house! Is it perfect? No. In fact, our respective rooms are a whole ‘nother story. But yes, Virginia, there IS a dining room in there! Who knew?! And the table is set with festive ware.

The livingroom, diningroom, kitchen and bath are livable again. Even the family room, still serving as the main storage area and dumping ground for supplies for all those as-yet unfinished projects, is clean and orderly. I steam-cleaned the kitchen and bath from top to bottom and other than a few debacles (like the dining room chandelier coming out of the ceiling and losing the ShopVac wand in the cold-air duct) I’d say all the efforts were worth it.

If you've ever lived in and done a renovation at a house simultaneously, one that seems to turn into months if not years, then you totally get this.

I’m tired and sore (mostly from the bruising of my left arm which got trapped while retrieving said wand from the cold-air duct) and it’s back to the grind today. But full days today and tomorrow, a shortened day on Thursday and then a three-day weekend. Aaah.

The house still has a looooong way to go, but just making it livable again has been the best present I can think of.