Thursday, February 17, 2005

Odds & Ends...

I saw The Notebook last night. Oh my heck. I think I lost roughly 40% of my body weight from bawling my eyes out. I also came to the conclusion that there is no way in heck my husband would sit down and watch a movie like this with me.
I always use his business trips as an opportunity to watch the films he would never watch with me, a.k.a. "chick flicks." Last trip it was Vanity Fair. (Quite a fun film since it is literally the same time period as my current novel I'm writing.)
Speaking of which, I went through all the drama of getting a synopsis to my agent a few weeks ago (he'd wanted a full, and I hadn't completely thought through the story) which I'd hurriedly thrown together, and NOW that I'm actually writing it, I have completely changed the ending, or at least, it's been screaming at me to be changed. I had a bout of writer's block yesterday, but then a little Maidens of the Celtic Harp inspired me to not only continue writing, but to completely change the ending. There's nothing like great writing music.

On the domestic front, I cleaned out three closets yesterday. I started with the dreaded Coat Closet (I should have ended with it, the process was so off-putting I nearly gave up and quit afterwards) and marveled at how many "onesies" we have, that were compacted into a colorful strata at least five inches thick on the floor of said coat closet. One red glove. One snow boot. One blue glove. One spiderman mitten. One glow-in-the-dark-design black glove, another single snow boot from yesteryear. It was a sad event. I had to throw them all away, because their mates are either lost, or lounging in the Lost-and-Found boxes of numerous institutions and businesses across Wisconsin.
Most dryers eat socks. I am convinced that school buses eat Winter gear. Oh well.
Next I moved on to the dreaded Utility Room closet. This is the lovely receptacle of all my "stuff" when I'm in a pickle. Pickle being defined as an unexpected visit from a guest, or anything that involves someone coming to the house without much notice at all. Whatever I'm working on, I throw it in the Utility Room Closet. If I'm folding a mountain of clean clothes, and the doorbell rings, I toss them into a big sheet and wrap them up like an over-sized Canneloni and toss them into the Utility Room Closet. Its become my saving Black Hole.
Problem is, sometimes I forget to take my stuff OUT of the closet, after the guests leave. This is embarrassingly horrid to admit, but one time I threw a dirty cooking pot in there, because I didn't want it sitting in my sink, and I FORGOT to get it out. I'm sure you can guess what happened. I can't help that I'm a forgetful person. Of course, it could have been worse. My mom has this trick of shoving dirty dishes into the oven if guests "pop over" and when I was first married, I did it as a last resort. Problem is, I forgot about the dishes later and turned the oven on to preheat for a pizza, melted and burned everything inside, and nearly burned down the apartment to boot.
(my husband has NEVER let me live it down, its been his "party story" for the last eight years)
Next was my master-bedroom walk-in closet, which I'm ashamed to admit, we haven't been able to "walk into" lately. What can I say, if you come to my house, it's deceptively clean, until you look into my closets! :-)
I'm actually tired after all that organizing. I've been eyeballing the garage all week, but I think that will have to wait until Spring. Too darn cold.
I think I'll run my errands instead and rent another "chick flick."
Can't hurt!

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