Home and Work and Homework

Well, I'm back in the Middle and it feels good. I was completely blessed to miss the attacks in London by 24 hours having departed for Ireland on the morning of the 6th. But, the events there made me even more ready to return home than I already was. I was, of course, horrified by the events, and also pretty shaken since I'd been living and working in the near vicinity of where two of the explosions happened. I think I'm still processing all of that...

Upon arrival, I've thrown myself into working on the house. So far, I've dedicated myself to ripping things up - namely, weeds and carpet. There is almost no carpet left upstairs -- and I've got the very sore fingertips, multiple scrapes, and some bruises to prove that pulling up carpet is hard work! I started with my bedroom, which is pretty much a rectangle and therefore straightforward. Then, I moved onto the stairs -- less easy and required the use of pliers. The edges of the stairs that stick out beneath the railing and into the living room space are still wrapped in carpet since I can't quite figure out how to get it off, but I will. Trust me. Next, I tackled the bathroom carpet. SO DISGUSTING. Not only was the carpet around the toilet stained, the smells released as I pulled it up where horrid. Ugh. I immediately dragged the whole thing out of the house and put it out with the garbage wearing gloves which I threw away after giving the floor a good scrubbing. After that, a shower to complete the de-grossifying process. I'm still kind of disgusted by it, but at least it's done. Ripped up the carpet in the small hallway up there too. All that remains is the carpet in the spare bedroom. I need to move my things back into my bedroom so that I can move things out of that bedroom and take up the carpeting. It's going to feel so good when it's done. I also filled an entire 32 gallon trash can with yard waste. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. But at least the yard looks less shabby now. I think I need to look into starting a compost heap. It seems wrong to put all of that into a yard waste can, but it's the easy solution for now.

I'm anxious to get these gross tasks done so I can move on to the more fun stuff -- like painting and seeing things really take shape and become my own. With each step though, the place feels more like it's mine and more like it is my home, not just a place where I happen to be sleeping right now. A good feeling.

So, in celebration, I'm spending the rest of tonight with Harry Potter 5 in preparation for Harry Potter 6 for which I have set aside all day tomorrow (almost). Glee!