I WANT MY MOMMIE

These suckers haven't looked like this in fifteen years.

(And based on the amount of dust I am now hacking up, they apparently haven't seen this side of a good cleaning either!)

I did cull quite a few to be donated.  I suspect that they will end up in the Better World Books bin over by the Martin's, but first I need to figure out how to get them into Limbo. (That would be the name of my vee-hickle, thankyouverymuch.)

These are my "go bag" and my "comfort bag".  One has my checkbooks and iPad and medical stuff and the other is full of stitching:

Here's all of the "decor" aka crap sitting around the house that serves no purpose whatsoever but makes me happy just to look at it. (So I suppose that it does have a purpose after all.):

I taped the last box shut and patted myself on the back that Book Packing Day was finally over, and as I headed to the shower...

Fiddlesticks and fudgesicles.

I just don't have it in me to do any more tonight.  I am freshly showered and in clean jammies in the Happy Chair, and methinks packing over 1,000 books is enough for one day.  Tomorrow I will grab another few boxes and finish this up and get started on the Art/Wall and Decor Packing Day extravaganza. But first I need to make a quick trip to the Targets to pick up a prescription and some hand soap and Swiffer dusters (because I used a whole darn box on all of the above!) and I'm going to try to get laundry done also.

(Are you as tired of hearing me talk about that damn laundry as I am over writing about it?)

I'm thinking a lot about my mom these last several days.  My dad worked for Westinghouse, and we moved around a lot.  In all those moves, I can honestly tell you that I never remember my mom being stressed or the house in utter chaos.  She must have had a really good system for moving, because I don't remember ever wondering if I would ever find my underpants or favorite toy.  

Chrissy and I used to joke that whenever we'd move someplace new the moving van would pull up, we would go to school, and by the time we came home the moving van was gone, the boxes were unpacked, pictures were hung on the walls, and dinner would be in the oven.

When dad retired, they moved from El Paso to Phoenix, and the day the moving van arrived was the day that she went into the hospital and was diagnosed with colon cancer.  She had emergency surgery and I flew home from school to help out.  My dad was hell bent to get that house unpacked and everything put away before she came home from the hospital, and I can tell you that he and my sister and I just about killed ourselves (and each other) in the process of doing so.  How the heck one tiny little  woman wearing Mom jeans (with panty hose underneath), sensible loafers, and red lipstick did it as many times as she did and as effortlessly as she did is completely and totally beyond me.

I wish you all could have known my mom.  She would have really loved getting to know you, and I would imagine that even with all of the advancement in needlepoint, she would have continued to work her canvases in exactly the same manner...on Penelope canvas, in hand, with long lengths of wool, and most amazingly, using the sewing method straight up a column.  She mostly worked florals that had the design pre-worked and she added the backgrounds, but we do have a few with different designs.  

Total tangent, I know, but it is so lovely to think about her and to daydream about what it would have been like to still have her here.  She must be close, though, since every time I hit a snag with this move I can hear her advice in my head and it's crystal clear.

TGIF, kids!  Hope your week was wonderful and that your weekend is even better!  Do something fun and come tell me all about it!