clean-up

I’ve begun a room cleaning to end all room cleanings. I knew the place was a wreck, but I didn’t realize how much of one until I found school folders from the fourth grade occupying my precious floor space. I would love nothing more than to toss those out with the rest of the junk I’m trashing, but my mother wants me to keep them because she’s a bigger packrat than I am. Besides having a trash bag for old school papers, I’ve one for toys, clothes, shoes, and trash, of course. The toys, clothes, and shoes will be donated, probably to St. Vincent de Paul’s. My closet will no longer be home to old Barbies, Trolls, and Legos! (I can’t tell you the excitement that gives me.) I’d offer such things to my cousins for Julia’s use, but they’ve already stated that they don’t want toys from anyone. Apparently, when you get a kid, everyone sees an opportunity to foist off their kid’s old toys and you end up being swamped. My parents have said that this happened to them with both me and my brother, which is why for years after we’d grown out of them, we had old toys crowding up our barn. The majority of those have now been donated, fortunately, and the rest have settled in among wasps’ nests and old car parts.

We were to have a load of lumber delivered today from Lowe’s, and we still are, but with some key pieces missing. I don’t remember the specs on the lumber that won’t be coming (because Lowe’s was out of it, even though we’ve already paid for it and you’d think they would keep the stuff around if they’ve sold it to someone for later delivery) but Dad’s annoyed because the exact pieces that he needs to begin work on our garage expansion (or rather, to continue work) are naturally the pieces that won’t be delivered today.

My car is sitting in the garage with all my crap in it from this summer because I’ve only brought in a few things, one of them being my book on the 15 most evil dictators in history, which my brother is surprisingly quite interested in. In my PJ’s last night I had to rummage around out there in the dark trying to find my toothbrush and face wash. I’ll probably get my computer in sometime today, if I get my desk cleaned off upstairs, so I can work on stuff for Dr. Jaromczyk, play the Sims 2, tinker with PHP more (most especially my guestbook), and burn some CD’s for Dad. Ooh, and two CD’s from Trinity arrived today, so I’ll have to get those transferred onto the network; huzzah for German and Finnish rock music.