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Today, in just two hours, Elmer and I cleaned the basement. This is part of the endless quest to keep my house from falling down, of which more shortly, but what interested me was how much more quickly it went than it would have if Bill and I had tried to do it together. We'd have had to stop and discuss every disintegrating box of moldy papers. As it was, he just said, "Throw it all away." And we did. Feels so good. There's an enormous pile out on the street, though.

( My house will not fall down! )
But lots of mold! Already took one shower, wish I could wash out the inside of my head.

So for the last week I've been attacking the living room. Got rid of grass cloth, glue under grasscloth, dirt under glue; rinsed soap used to get rid of glue; spackled holes, sanded spackle; now, spot-priming spackle. Still, very discouraging to see the bad repair jobs done by previous painters, who apparently looked on plaster and tape as mudpies and bandaids.

Still, I really enjoy this kind of work, at least for a while. It makes you very mindful to teeter on a metal ladder washing the plaster around a live wire. It also makes you come to terms with perfection, because that is what you will never achieve on the plaster walls of an 80 year old house on a sand hill near a granite quarry with daily dynamiting. But there is progress.

However, there are evil discoveries. The chimney is worse even than feared, and needs major masonry before it can handle even unvented gas logs, or even stand upright much longer. And Bill, bless his heart (southerners will know what that means), trying to open a painted-shut window not only breaks the glass but almost destroys the frame. He replaced the glass, and we'll putty and spackle the frame, I guess.

Looks like spackle is to home-repairers like me what Bondo was to the old shade-tree auto body workers. Maybe I will finally achieve a house built entirely of spackle.

ETA: ( The Senior Meme )

I'm wandering the world in various hazes of fuzziness, due to trying out new prescription for contacts, which is NOT better than old ones. Yesterday I couldn't recognize a friend halfway down the block. Today I put my old contacts back in. Nevertheless, I'm having a good Christmas so far. I've bought most of my presents, and in the last couple of days, we:

Put lights on the outside tree and decorated the inside tree, with NO cross words!

Did a crossword, for that matter.

Went to see a friend who'd just had surgery, then stopped by a neighborhood party, tonight--nice to see some old faces and some new ones. I had a very good talk with a young woman from Cameroon about her realization that her culture had a lot to treasure and her longing to go back and help there. I had thought before that she was just into money and clothes--glad I saw her differently.

Made the site for my husband's book work, sort of.

Looked at all it's going to take to do the living and dining rooms: strip grasscloth, patch plaster, clean, sand, paint...pulled covers back over head

Walked to Dollar Tree and bought junk we didn't need--but it's only $1! How can we resist gold ribbon, baskets, lint roller, locarb bars, ornament hangers, sponges, spare reading glasses (blue plastic with pink dots--really), corned beef hash, and toothpaste?

Sold fireworks, but not many, to benefit the Dharma Center. We should run a Dollar Tree, instead.

Helped my writing buddy with her computer, and she gave me cilantro seeds.

Added a nice murder to first chapter of my first book and tried to think of new title.

Murder, fireworks, lint rollers, Cameroon. It's a good time of year.