As many of you did, I decided that the Thanksgiving break would be a good time to clean house. I had off from school from the Wednesday through Sunday. Sadly, it was not enough time. Family obligations pulled me in several different directions.
I had a funeral to attend on Wednesday, which was more important than cleaning. My Uncle Bob was a WWII vet. His funeral was both amazing and sad. He had a 21 gun salute, a bugle play taps, a poem and a flag folding ceremony. It made me realize that there are so few WWII vets left that we need to honor the ones we have left.
Thursday was Turkey Day. I got up early with the children and worked on organizing the kitchen as I made my grandmother's version of sweet potato casserole (it is really a dessert). My husband got the children bathed for me while I worked on picking out clothes to wear, putting away laundry, and just cleaned up around the house. But then the hives came. MM broke out in hives for no reason we could fathom. We thought it was the soap since Andy used an older bottle of baby shampoo, but now we are not so sure. After getting her dressed, I went to the store to get a few things including cream to put on the hives. Then we went to my sister-in-law's house for dinner. The hives came back with such force, we left Evelyn's and went to Kmart (thank God it was still open) and got Benedryl. That took care of it for a while, but as soon as the Benedryl wore off, the hives returned. The rest of the break was spent putting cream on hives and dosing her with Benedryl. We still have not figured it out.
On Friday I worked on organizing closets, sorting through clothes, making piles of clothing to be donated, cleaning my room, organizing the linen closet, doing laundry... Needless to say I had more than a day's worth of cleaning to do. Although I continued off and on over Saturday and Sunday, I still have to vacuum and wash windows. I did finally find my drapes in the back of my closet so I can put drapes up in my living room and get rid of those horrible, broken, wooden blinds that the previous owner had. I have people coming over to celebrate my son's first birthday this coming weekend and I really need to get my house ship-shape; however, my husband is going to the mountains to go deer hunting this Friday so I will not have any more help after Thursday!
On Saturday, I had a surprise wedding to go to. One of my former students got married. She was beautiful, the groom was handsome and the wedding was simple but elegant. I cried, and took multiple pictures. She had only told me about the wedding a week before hand because they realized that their list of attendees had gotten up to 350, but they could not afford such a huge expense, so this wedding was their alternative to eloping. I, however, could not stay for the reception because I had previously made arrangements to visit a friend of mine whose mom is quiet frail.
Finally, Sunday. My mom had hand surgery last month on her right hand. She had carpal tunnel release and a joint replaced in her right thumb. Needless to say, she is not working up to speed. Because this holiday season is finding me low in cash, I have turned to giving services for gifts. Since my mom is not able to clean house very well, I went to her house to clean. I spent about five hours doing minutia cleaning, the kind that would require two hands. I made beds, dusted floorboards, washed windows (not all, some), organized a bookcase to fit more books, re-arranged furniture, cleaned the refrigerator, cleaned toilets, wiped down counter-tops, scrubbed floors, vacuumed the stairs, vacuumed, and decorated. I ran out of steam before I got upstairs, so I have to go back in two weeks to finish cleaning upstairs, but thankfully there is only two bedrooms and a bath there.
So, my house is mostly cleaned and my mom's house is mostly cleaned. MM hives are being controlled by Benedryl until we can figure out what is causing them. So, overall, I am thankful for family, cleaning supplies and Benedryl.
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