What I don’t love about clothes is the end product that comes from wearing the clothing. Laundry. Demon laundry. That haunting, ever growing, creeping mass of cast off haberdashery. A great textile blob slowly oozing it’s way across the floor intending to dissolve all human and animal kind ignorant enough to stand still in it’s path. The sheer weight of the laundry pile generated by 3 females and one poor male is enough to make the knees of a strong man buckle. It is truly my nemesis. The ceaseless sorting, the heavily burden treks to the washing machine, the hot, humid folding of the dryers offerings….and then again we make a pile. An ever growing, teetering, towering pile of garments ready to be returned to the closets from hence they came. Ready and waiting…and waiting…and waiting…and teetering…and waiting. Until you have what one can only be described as a veritable mountain of apparel sure to have Sir Edmund Hillary reaching for his altimeter. And do we dispatch the pile when it reaches such epic proportions? Heck, no! We divide it into 2 piles – even 3 piles! We keep dividing our clean clothing until we have a genuine mountain range in our laundry room! Our very own Blue Ridge in our own little mudroom. Oh, we may chip away at it on a daily basis for long lost jeans or a clean pair of underpants but the mountains are an everpresent part of our daily lives. On occasion, one may upend the pile to discover what forgotten garment lies at the bottom but the mountain is left to flourish.

There is no end in site nor do I fool myself that things will ever be different. I understand my limitations and my predispositions quite well. I will state, for the record, that, when I build my dream house, I fully intend to have my washer and dryer connections placed directly inside my walk-in closet so that the task of returning clean laundry to it’s so-called rightful place will no longer be an issue….but until that time, I urge you, when visiting my home it’s best to leave the laundry room door closed.

R2D2 was more difficult than we would have thought. Drawing straight lines on a wavy surfaced spheroid was…challenging. Painting over those straight lines was enough to make the eyes cross but, in the end, it looks fairly decent:

Side view:

We learned some fairly interesting scientific facts regarding florist foam, spray paint, Solo cups, and a cheap ass coffee table, though. It appears that while you can spray paint florist foam, you should not spray spray paint in a Solo cup and brush it on the florist foam…it tends to erode the foam. You should also most certainly not leave said Solo cup of spray paint sitting on your cheap ass coffee table as it will eat through and make an unsightly mark:

All that is left is the transporting in the morning and then we are finished with pumpkins for another year! Time to start thinking about next year.

This one was done by committee so there were 3 of us working on it with Rob as overly qualified errand boy. It came together very well and I am pleased with it, although it is a big departure from the spooky ones I have done in years passed.

This was not the original design concept. Originally, there were to be white horses pulling a Cinderella-esque coach/carriage but for once in my lifetime there were no discarded toy Barbie carriages at the thrift store from which to steal the wheelbase. The sleigh base was a good find and it forced the scenary change. The polar bears were another departure. The Target next door to the thrift store is apparently closing (can’t say I mind, it was very crappily run) and they were smack out of little white horses. They had 3 beautiful unicorns but symmetry is key in beast-driven vehicles so 3 was not going to work and 2 wasn’t enough. The polar bears were copious and hidden on the bottom shelf. I think it gave the pumpkin a Narnian appeal. Their harnesses and tack are a gold bead trim from the fabric store and tiny pearl strands. The woman who picked those up made excellent choices as it all came together well.

It was kinda fun playing with the spray snow. It clumped in spots and dusted in spots which I think add depth and realism to the finished product. It’s definitely not the status quo of class pumpkins but the committee of 3 and Rob are kinda proud of it.

Rob and I are now cleared to place all of our focus on the other class pumpkin (our 2nd grader’s) and hopefully we will finish that up early this week. Want a hint? You may think you’re not going to get a hint…but you R2!

I want to say we walked about 2 miles on the day, which is quite an accomplishment for your average 7 year old. We threw a ton of candy and a bunch of beads. I was actually a bit surprised at the turn out for the parade. It was a gorgeous day with lovely sunshine and moderate temperature yet I would say that there were little more attenders than participants. Perhaps it was the big football day or a last gasp vacation weekend.

The parade route ended at a local shopping center where the parking lot had been transformed into a makeshift fair. We spend about an hour or so exploring the stands and getting faces painted whilst the parade crowds dispursed. Malory managed to perk up enough at the prospect of fancification.

All in all, it was a nice outing. Next year I will endeavor to order more beads and perhaps pencils or erasers as we ran out of candy towards the end….of course, that could easily be attributed to overexuberant distribution by the girls but at least they were enjoying themselves.

My bedroom becomes the dumping point for dirty laundry, clean laundry, books to read, empty boxes, craft supplies, gift wrap, things that were in my now closed ebay store, material, packing supplies, magazines, shoes……and that’s just me!

Rob, bless his heart, does his fair share of housework so I am totally not complaining really….but the man has not one single aesthetic bone in his body and finds absolutely nothing wrong with leaving assorted crap and wrappers laying about. I have somewhat gotten him to understand that this is generally not a good idea to do around the main rooms of the house as there are frequent visits to our home from random people but I have not been so demanding in the bedroom.

Yesterday was a bit of the straw that broke the camel’s back when I was tearing through the house trying to locate my high school diploma (I mean, how often do you need that? And I still don’t know why the fuck it wasn’t exactly where I have kept it since moving into this house but whatev, things happen) and the dust and debris from behind his bedside table was enough to make me go running for the Flonase. So today I am attempting to tackle the bedroom.

I have spent the first half an hour at his bedside table. I am beginning to understand why he wakes up congested. Apart from the dust rhinoceri that are grazing on his side I have located: 2 sticky spoons, 5 ponytail holders, 3 chip clips, 2 bottles of muscle rub, both of my heating pads, 3 years worth of gas and cable bill stubs, a half-filled box of much needed Breath Right strips, and the dice version of Phase 10. All of this was buried under empty Alka-seltzer wrappers and the contents of a roll of scotch tape that the cat had apparently made a day of sometime ago.

All this is only one small fraction of the room and I am utterly ashamed that I let it go so far. Please learn from my domestic misery and either find time to keep up your bedroom or make your husband sleep somewhere else.