Our Olde House : December 2022

Winter in Mississippi is a time of reflection for me, mostly because it is too cold and dark to go outside, and when I look out my window I see my reflection.  Returning the clocks to Standard Time is unsettling for everyone, especially me.  I know that the clocks are reset only one hour, but I feel jet-lagged for a week or two.  It seems like it gets dark at least two hours earlier than the day before, and I am exhausted at 7:00 pm thinking it must be 10:00 pm or nearly dawn.

We got a call that the picture we had framed was ready to be picked up, so Miss Sherry went to get it.  Once she returned home we had the usual “where are we going to put it” conversation.  I suggested a spot up high above another picture by the same artist and she agreed.  ‘Up high’ in our olde house with eleven-foot ceilings means that I will need a ladder, of course, to be able to put a nail in the wall to hang it.  Nothing gets done lately unless the task involves a ladder, and I now have five ladders to choose from.  I selected the step ladder, a recent purchase by the way, which is very light and perfectly suited to this task.  So after moving the coffee table and two couches I could reach the designated spot and installed a nail in the wall.  The picture was hung and after vacuuming where the couches were, everything was returned to their original locations.

Since our olde house is pretty full of stuff, Miss Sherry and I made a new rule a couple of years ago, that we cannot bring anything else into our home unless we have already identified a place to put it.  This is a great rule, and as indicated by our latest picture acquisition, this is a rule that has yet to be followed.  The list of more stuff that has arrived inside our house after we made this rule is long and illustrious.  So far, we have eventually found a place for everything, and put everything in its place by rearranging.

One would think that the stuff we have that we no longer want or use could be removed to make way for the new, but one would be wrong.  To be fair, Miss Sherry does periodically pack up some items in the house that we are willing to part with and donates them to Goodwill or FourCs.  We have a corollary to the above rule to cover this situation, the amount of stuff donated must exceed the amount of stuff that follows her home.  She is pretty good about following this corollary, but I do have to tease her occasionally that she brought home something that she donated a few months earlier.

I managed to remove another rat from under the house, and afterwards I did not see Columbo in my camera for several days.  I was hoping he left the building voluntarily, but just to be sure I placed a pile of sunflower seeds on the ground.  Sure enough the next night he was scoping out the pile of seeds.  He took one, jumped back, ate it and ran away.  Merry Christmas you filthy animal; I guess I have watched Home Alone one time too many.

We enjoyed Fall this year, the two days in a row where neither the heat nor air conditioning was on in the house.  After Fall I patiently wait for the first day in December where the temperature outside is over 80F degrees, because that means that it’s time to put up the Christmas decorations.  This task will involve several ladders, a brief French lesson and the inevitable “which closet did you put that in” game of couples therapy.  After finding and removing the desired Christmas items from several closets I was thinking that I was ready to start decorating the front yard for Christmas. Wrong. We will start in the front yard eventually after I manage to remove a bazillion leaves from the front porch, walks and lawn.

So off to the little barn to find my battery mower and a supply of leaf bags.  I use my aptly named leaf blower to remove the leaves from the front porch and push them out onto the lawn. Fortunately, since it is hot, the leaves are dry and easily vacuumed up by my mower.  It takes three catchers and about ten minutes to fill a leaf bag, all with a minimum of the incessant bending over required to rake and scoop them.  Four full leaf bags later I am ready to decorate the front yard.

We put out the Elf-on-the-Shelf, a small herd of small Santas, the Christmas bulldog (there is a bulldog involved in everything we do), the metal Christmas tree, the metal Christmas package, the painting on plywood that Miss Sherry did of two of her grandchildren, and the spotlight to light up the painting.

Now we need to finish shopping, and then wrap and mail gifts to our kids and grandchildren out West.  We always put something Mississippi-related in the box to remind them of our home, which is a safe haven and a loving place for all of them.  Our families may be separated by distance, but we are never truly apart.  Merry Christmas to you and your families and may God continue to bless our houses, whether they be Olde or new.