Banishing the Saturday night blahs

I decided to banish the Saturday night blahs by cleaning a shelf or two in the pantry. Jordan has been after me to do this for some time, claiming there were probably things back there ten years old. Let me tell you first that this turned out not to be a way to banish the blahs--but it sure did make my sore back ache. At first, I was quite smug--didn't find much that needed to be thrown away--a couple of individual packets of board-stiff prunes, a stray lollipop, an individual cup of applesauce that had turned a really funny color. So I washed the first shelf--hadn't thought to buy fresh shelf paper nor extra garbage bags because I knew I wouldn't have much to throw out. I'd just straighten a little.
When I went to put things back, I began to examine the sell-by dates which they often make way too hard to find--and loaded two garbage bags. The worst offenders were Crisco (who uses that anymore?) and CoffeeMate (ditto--no one uses it) with 2002 dates. Even in this house, with a grandson who inhales peanut butter, I had to throw out an unopened jar--out of date (I thought the label looked different!).
Once I offered my oldest granddaughter some dry cereal. She took the box and then went over and whispered to her mom, who said to me gently, "She doesn't want to eat it. It's out of date.' At tne or eleven, Maddie was smarter than I am.
Tonight I picked up an open bag of ziti wrong side up and it scattered all over the floor. Had to stop and sweep--in spite of my efforts I heard Sophie crunching away on dry pasta I'd missed. Hope there are no gastric repercussions from that. I could feed an army on the partially used packages of pasta I have. Why do I have two unopened bottles of malt vinegar, two bottles of chocolate sauce, and a barely used, years old bottle of red plum vinegar (must have been a dilly of a good recipe). I think things got pushed so far back in the pantry (it's very deep, which is bad) that I thought I didn't have any and bought new--like two out-of-date bottles of Worcestershire.
I've barely made a dent in the storage places in this house where I've lived for twenty years but I quit for tonight. Maybe that old advice to move every five years or so is good--makes you clean things out.  Periodically I clean my closet floor and straighten all the shoes into neat pairs--pretty soon it's a mess where I have to hunt for the mate to the shoe I want to wear. Wonder if this will be the same?
I'm going back to my manuscript. I'm convinced writing is easier than cleaning. Erma Bombeck once wrote that she'd rather scrub the floor than face a blank sheet of paper in her typewriter (okay this was a while ago). You got it wrong, Erma! I'd rather look at that blank screen.

Powder your nose!

I realized the other day that since the holidays I've slipped into being a real slouch. I went around the house in jammies--well, a T-shirt and cotton knit pants--without makeup (but always with freshly shampooed hair--I have a fetish about that!). When it was time to get Jacob, I'd throw on sweats until he finally asked one day why I was wearing the same clothes three days in a row.
So the other day I resolved to mend my ways. I showered and shampooed first thing and then put on makeup. My good friend Melinda was coming for lunch, and it would have been easy to say, "Melinda won't care." But I put on makeup and clean slacks and a shirt. Set the table with place mats and cloth napkins and acted like a grown-up. Amazing how all that improved my outlook on life.
Then came dismantling Christmas--it's not such a bad chore once you get to it. It's the idea that you have to do it. At this point, I have all the decorations down, about half packed away, and the rest staring at me waiting to be boxed up. To add to my woes, I can't remember what went where before I put it all down for Christmas. I'm sure that will come with time and meanwhile I am certainly avoiding the cluttered look. Hope to get it all boxed and put away this weekend.
But then there's the matter that my house is falling down around my ears--Jordan claims that some of the food in the back of my deep pantry is probably ten years old, and she may be right. The bookcases in my office desperately need cleaning, rearranging, and thinning of books--there are a lot I could give to the Friends of the Library. The linen closet in the kitchen needs straightening, and if I'd relieve the toy chest of all the things the grandchildren have outgrown, I could use it for a blanket chest. Truth is, for one person, living alone in 1800 square feet, I have too much stuff. Don't talk to me about tiny houses, though I think the idea is charming.
Now my grown kids are talking about redoing my house, putting pull-out couches where sofas are (sofas do need re-doing), adding a big-screen TV, etc. They're all coming home the end of the month, and I guess will have a conference about what to do with Mom's house. I'm willing to go along for a bit--I know it needs updating--but when they start talking about removing bookshelves, I will have to remind them it is my house. Besides, do you realize how ugly most sleeper sofas on the market are?
I think one of the big problems in life is that there's always something else to be done. Excuse me now, I'm going to read a book.