Keeping busy

[vanillafluffy]

After last night's bedroom bottle roundup, today I headed into the oft-interrupted dining room (as in, I keep starting on it, getting distracted, working on something else, coming back to it, etc. I ought to decorate it in a homing pigeon theme.). Anyway, I removed the breakables from the white bookcase, slid it across the room while pivoting it 180+ and tucked it against the west wall. The frees up the east wall for that cabinet.

There was still a furring strip on the east wall from the days of wall-to-wall carpet; I took a hammer and chisel to it, revealing a stripe of immaculate terrazo beneath it and nastiness on either side. That inspired me to scrub that patch, despite the fact that it'll be covered when the cabinet is in place.

The color that seems to be dominating in there so far is orange---I don't mind---I happen to like orange, which is how I've managed to acquire an old enameled coffee pot, an orange plaid ice bucket, and quite a few candles. I also have a length of fabric with orange, brown and red stripes that looks to become a tablecloth.

Now I'm confronting The Drawer. It's the top drawer of a bureau that got trashed at least a year ago...the only reason it wasn't included was because my brain short-circuited when faced with a plethora of keepsakes. Things like the bell-shaped green candy dish I made in kindergarten, jewelry, mementos, tchotchkes, etc. I took it out and set it on a chair when I dragged the rest of the piece down to the curb and never did get around to going through it.

I got as far as sliding the chair around so I could sweep that side of the sliding glass doors and took a break to look at my email...that really side-tracked me, since there was an email from GK, saying Kat's going into the hospital. She was really quiet when I was with her on Saturday, and apparently she was in pain yesterday and had a couple of falls. They're going to give her the industrial-strength painkillers and hopefully this time they'll be able to drain the fluid in her abdomen. Or...GK says she's contacted Dr Bizarre to come if he can, since there's also a chance that This Is It. As much as I'm dreading my world without her in it, she really isn't herself anymore. Is it selfish of me to want her to be at peace?
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Comments

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, hon. I'm sorry about Kat. And it's never selfish to want those you love to be at peace. *hugs*

The idea of the homing pigeon theme made me smile. :) Stuff really does have a tendency to return to where it started out.

I'm reading a couple of books about home organization for people with attention deficit disorder because someday soon the boy will move away and I'd like for him to be able to manage his own place without me around. They're Making Peace with the Things in Your Life: Why Your Papers, Books, Clothes and Other Possessions Keep Overwhelming You and What to Do About It and One Thing at a Time: 100 Simple Ways to Live Clutter-Free Every Day, both by Cindy Glovinsky. They're really good and I'd be happy to pass them onto you when we're finished with them.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

The books both sound interesting. Somewhere, I have Peter Walsh's Does This Clutter Make Me Look Fat?"...which I browsed, bought---and promptly lost somewhere in this wilderness of mine. I accept with thanks!

And thanks for the moral support. She's so frail and her quality of life is due to opiates, not any real joy in her existance. She's never going to get any better, and we're all waiting awkwardly for the inevitable.

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

I will send the books your way soon. I think you'll enjoy them.

Both of Corgiguy's parents died of lung cancer within a year of each other. They both survived about five months after the diagnosis, and it was such an awful way to go, especially for his mother who fought so hard. The last two weeks of her life were not really living, just being stuck in agony between this world and the next in a near coma from opiates. It was a blessing to her when she finally passed away. So I know that waiting, the dreading, and the wishing for relief very well. *hugs*

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Kat was diagnosed with lung cancer quite a while ago---as in, more than five years. They discovered it had metastasized to her liver early last summer. Shortly after that, an MRI revealed that the neurological issues that everyone thought were a side effect of her chemo was actually dementia. For a while, she was using patches that were supposed to help her cognition, but after about two months, she refused to use them any more. I think that's when I knew it was hopeless---before that she was always very positive and survival-oriented.

[socialhermit.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry about the situation with Kat. Of course you're not selfish for wanting what's best for her (and everyone). *hugs you*

And YAY! for household progress. Good for you!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

*hugs back* Thanks on both counts.

[fufaraw]

Not in the least selfish. If those who are going through the experience had a choice I'm sure they'd choose peace. I'm sorry your world is changing though, that you're losing someone you treasure.

And I continue to be impressed with your house-clearing efforts.

my brain short-circuited when faced with a plethora of keepsakes

I understand completely. If my husband and son hadn't cleared out my mom's house, saving a few things they thought I might want, or might want to dispose of other than "trash" or "Goodwill", I'd still be sifting through it all.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

someone you treasure

That sums it up so well...she's been there for me for so long. I lost my own mother at barely 16, and a couple years later, Kat stepped in to fill the void. I've said more than once that she's been like a mother to me longer than my mother WAS a mother to me.

I continue to be impressed with your house-clearing efforts.

I wish I did! It's like the house is a battlefield, and I'm fighting for territory it one cubic foot at a time---and sometimes the enemy gets behind me and refills space that I thought I cleared. It's never ending.