Mood:  lyrical

I guess writing in a blog is no easier than writing in a daily journal.

At least not for me.

It's been one of those "where did the summer go???" kind of summers. I know where it went, but I didn't go anywhere or do half of the things that I wanted to get done for myself.

Basically, all free time from the end of January through July was dedicated to getting the family home ready for sale, on the market, and finally sold. There were lots of little things that we needed to do to spruce the place up, and then years worth of stuff had to be sorted.

We rented a dumpster and tossed tons of stuff, but kept so much more. And a lot of it is in my garage! Just when I thought I had it cleared out and unpacked, it ends up being filled again.

Actually, I wanted all the file cabinets so I could move some of my stamping magazines and things that I want to be able to refer to out there. But I hadn't counted on the Christmas decorations and the stamp collection that was my father's. He collected postage stamps for about 70 years, and it was all meticulously cataloged and put into book after book. I think I have something along the lines of 26 paper boxes full of albums that are all organized by country and year. We took them to a so called "appraiser" who told us they weren't worth anything, but that he'd happily take them as a donation.

Yeah, I'm sure. He didn't even really look at what we brought, he sort of leafed through them and dismissed them as not worth his time.

So now I can't get the car inside again.

I'm going to have to start shoving stuff around, because I don't want to have to scrape the windshield this winter!

Going through everything in that house was so painful. I wasn't ready to really throw things away, but my brothers were ruthless - and they threw out stuff that should have been kept - things like address books. I wanted to kill them when I heard that the things had just been tossed.

I have a few small bookcases that I took, and have brought inside, but still have a dining room set that belonged to my grandmother and a desk from my parent's bedroom.

I haven't figured all this out yet.

I did a couple small things in my condo, painted the hallway deep "Victorian red" and started painting the dining area and the living room two different shades of blue. I know the color choice is on the dramatic side, but that is me. I smile when I walk in the hall and see the red. Everyone who has been here has loved it, and when I first said that I was doing that half of the world shook their heads to indicate that I was nuts. But my sense of drama knew that it was right for me. And it's only paint, easy to undo.

I must say that I did have some nerves when I first started painting, as the primer was Pepto bismol pink. Then it took four coats of the red.

The blue is only requiring two coats. I still have several walls to finish. It's sort of a piecemeal project.

The most intimidating thing was hanging the mirror that is in this picture. It's over 50 years old (it's from my parent's house) and weighs a ton.

The only room that's really together is the bedroom. I spent several days getting it really squared away, as I decided that when work started I would want to go to bed and wake up in a tranquil(ish) environment.

I still own way too many things, but I feel as if it's all put together in there. I haven't attempted to paint in there because I can't decide what color I might want.

I love blues and purples, but I may already have too much blue in here once I finish the dining and living rooms.

I will probably just buy some paint on impulse and go nuts some day.

That's a brief update.

Maybe there will be another someday soon.