Snapshots: Highly Domestic

For unknown reasons, I was apparently struck by the Fall Cleaning urge this week. When such an urge strikes, I take advantage.

Thus, I finally took all the haphazardly folded, unorganized, and perpetually falling linens off the high shelf in Poppy's bedroom closet, sorted them, and put them in these under-bed storage things I bought, um, two months ago.

They are now under one of the boys' beds, where they will definitely not fall down.

Later in the week, since I had cleaned out Poppy's closet and her floor was relatively clear, I decided to clean under her bed. She has a bunk bed with a bunch of under-bed storage bags, too, with extra clothing, blankets, etc., so I have to haul everything out to reach the back under there by the wall. She also has a very small, dark room, which makes it hard to work in there. 

I did it anyway, though. There were quite a few small things--socks, pajamas, toys, etc.--that had fallen through the sides of her bed around the walls that I couldn't quite reach with my hand. So I used a rake.

 A different kind of fall raking.

And then I had to commando-crawl all the way under the bed to reach with the vacuum attachment so I could get the thick layer of dust that had accumulated against the walls. 

A reminder of why I don't do this very often. It was no fun. But it's done now!

AND THEN.

Chaos in the living room.

My sister had an extra Oriental rug that she didn't need. She brought it with her when she moved from Florida to Colorado and delivered it to our house like two years ago. You can see that the closer rug in the above photo is totally worn out--that's why it looks sort of white--so the plan was to use my sister's rug to cover over the threadbare rug. 

However, on that side of the living room were a wooden bench, a computer desk, and two bookcases full of books. I was daunted by moving all of that, and so the rug has been sitting in A.'s office all this time, awaiting my inspiration.

On Thursday I had a rare day on which I was not doing laundry or cooking, and it was sort of rainy so I wasn't going outside. Thus, I seized the day.

Our living room is narrow and long, as you can see. And we have too many books, as you can also see by the books piled on the edge of the big bookcase to the left.

This took me about five hours. The new rug had a pretty big hole cut out of it in an awkward place. I knew this ahead of time, although I couldn't visualize exactly where it was on the rug until I had laid it out. In the end, I had to lay the rug horizontally across the room and put the bench against the same wall as the couch to cover the hole. This necessitated rearranging all the furniture in that half of the living room. I still can't decide if I like it better this way, but I'm going to live with it for awhile and see how I feel about it.

In any event, this allowed me to clean everything in the living room. Those bookcases literally never get moved, so it was particularly satisfying to clean behind and under where they had been.

Poppy turned eight years old yesterday, and on Friday we had a pre-birthday tea party with her friend who goes to a different school and has never been to our house. (We mostly see her at church or sporting events.)

Making place cards.

Tea for two. (And me. Mine was the third place set, but I didn't get a place card.)

And last, flowers!

Cosmos on the table.

Randomness on the bookcase.

And for the church altar . . .

I do believe these are the very last sunflowers of the year.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.