my bad.........

For all the wonderful people that have stopped over in the past month, I hang my head in shame for not reciprocating to your comments on my last post. You have all been true friends for sending e-mails or calling to see if I were still alive....... and I am here to report that dire news of my demise is greatly exaggerated .

The truth is, I was abducted by the HGTV muses of home improvement. Since my original project was to JUST DO THE KITCHEN, I had a little attack of OCDitis when the paint cans got opened. Suddenly I realized I liked the color SO much, I had to paint a wall in my bedroom a matching shade. Wouldn't my beautiful wrought iron headboard look grand against a nice background of light mint? Yes, since the headboard is white with scrolls, and now pops against the wall. Well...... you just can't do one wall in a bedroom without doing the other three, right? So my bedroom got a makeover as well. And by makeover, I mean the works. I have this theory that includes the thought that once you pull something away from a wall, you MUST dust and vacuum before you return the object to it's place. The dustbunnies are true to their form for rabbits..... they DO multiply..... many colonists of them. Many people think I'm nuts.... too clean, perhaps; but I do have people who've told me it makes perfect sense to do so........... so I'm not obsessive compulsive, just thorough. It's clean gene I was born with, so it's mostly genetic. My Mother and Grandmother were the same way.

When one proceeds to empty a room, it can be amazing to see the pile it creates in another area. In my case, the kitchen ended up in the livingroom, and has finally been put back into place this week. The floor is down, and most of the work is finished. A few more brushes of paint to the doors, and trim pieces tapped in..... and voila! The kitchen will be done. I am in love with it already, and only too happy to be rid of the 70's look. But the best part...... I unloaded 5 boxes of stupid and unnecessary items I didn't even know I had. How does one collect so much? How did I become like my Mother????? (Oh, and Karl...... if you read this, I didn't get rid of anything that belonged to Mom.) I did purge though, and got everything else back into the kitchen without it looking so filled. It's still a little busy looking, but that's because I haven't painted the cabinet doors to put them back up. I know I'll be on it soon though.

My bedroom was pushed to one side each time I approached a wall to paint. Pictures had to come down, along with my many other foolish stuff on the walls. I actually slept partway into my closet for a while. Gets you a little disorientated when you first wake up, but you get used to it after a week. Luckily my room is not so big..... I've seen closets bigger..... so the task of painting didn't take long considering I was working full time (and more) throughout the projects.

There were many days when I was tied to the business phone till 7pm, after starting at 6 am, so I had no desire to do anything but put myself to bed. With a wedding for 175 to organize, and a birthday party for 75 (that turned into 200), I had my hands full with catering. Never mind the regular luncheon customers that called at 5pm for the next days lunch. I blame myself for that little faux pas, as I've trained the people to call orders in at the last minute just by always accepting them. Since we are not fast food, we do need a little notice in order to line up deliverers..... and a few days notice is always appreciated.

And then I did a silly thing....... I would like to report that I was hammering away when SMASH, the hammer landed on my finger. But no, I have to admit, I was downed a bit by a hangnail. Stupid me for such bad habits! My little injury caught a nice infection. Stupid infection! I ended up on some kind of superbug killer meds, as the doctor wanted to treat the infection from the inside out. Since I've read about the over-medication of penicillin, I questioned the decision, but was assured it was what I had to do. The first one made me a little queasy.... no, a lot queasy..... but I continue taking them. The finger is tender, but healing nicely, so I really can't say: stupid meds...... but I felt that way the first day.

I am relieved to have accomplished so much in a month, and happy with the results. Even though I have a lot more to go, I consider this the downhill part of my journey in reconstruction projects for the year. And the best part of my journey so far? I lost 25 pounds in the process. Woohoo for great results!

As for blogging.... it really had to take a back seat to everything else. Priorities are hard to pick and choose sometimes, depending if you are listening to the angel and devil on your shoulders. In many cases, I swat them both away, and take charge without the guilt of thinking: am I forgetting, hurting, shunning someone without intent. Am I so focused on my task, that I appear to be stuck-up and uncaring? Well, in the case of everything BUT blogging, no. At one point I did leave a nice long comment to everyone from my last post..... but blogger ate it. (I swear. And aren't you glad I didn't blame it on the dog?) All I could leave was a blanket explanation weeks later.... with the hope that I would make it over to some of my favorite links...... plus to that nice Carmi who stopped by to say hello for the first time.

Since my upbringing included training in the magic words: thank you, I have much catching up to do to thank all who have e-mailed or called me during my absence. I finally had some help getting google blogger right, and now I can post again. I only hope you will continue to stop by and say hello whenever you're by the garden. My absences are because my life is very full at times, but I would feel a bigger void to lose my blog friends.