Brother and family headed back to Chile today after a wonderful visit and a sweet wedding ceremony made extra special by the Spanish translation provided by friend and blogger,
Amity.
It's been quite a week with Brother visiting, a presidential debate and a couple of Red Sox games; throw in a gross and hideous physical ailment and I'm ready to be put out to pasture.
Last Sunday, the mirror revealed my right eyeball pooled with blood. I quickly took out my
beloved contacts and thought it would go away in a day or two. It has actually gotten redder and uglier every day and for the last 5 days my entire right eye has been red.
My eye doctor wasn't in the one day this week that I had available time for an appointment so I went to see my regular doctor--oh bad news there, she's gone to another practice and I had to see a young lady certainly younger than most of my children and who didn't see any cause for concern but who had to leave the room 3 or 4 times during my exam--presumably to get instructions.
Ugly or not, this morning I woke up with energy to tackle a BIG JOB. This big old house has five bedrooms and the back bedroom has always been the catch-all room. We all throw things in there and it is full of boxes and crates and tubs dating back to Ethan's senior year of high school with layers of the detritus of four childhoods marking each of the six years since like the rings of a tree.
There is a bed in there and if Ethan and Ann are home they use the room and various other visitors have called it home for varying lengths of time but the room is really just a clutter clutch and not hospitable enough to make anyone want to stay for long.
Well, it looks like the
teenager is going to come home and finish his senior year back in Dixfield. I think that's good news--except I took him at his word when he shook the dust of Western Maine from his feet and with a heavy heart turned his bedroom into a very nice guest room. Charlie painted the walls, we moved a nice double bed in there and I'm really not willing to relinquish it.
Perhaps, then, the back room--all it really needs is a little elbow grease, a few buckets of hot soapy water, some tubs from Walmart along with a sharpie to let each child know which tub contains their trophies and 3rd grade class pictures, a few trips to the attic and more than one trip to the dump. So, this morning when Charlie pulled out of the driveway at 6:45 a.m. to head to Augusta for a class, I headed up the back stairway and got to work.
A few hours and several Advil later, the room is cute and welcoming and ready.