It is very quiet here in my house. I hear two clocks ticking, and the hum of the refrigerator and a soft whirring sound from my lap top. I hear the clicking of my keyboard keys as I write this. Sometimes it gets a little spooky to hear so much silence. But I usually leave the music on, day and night, and that drowns it out. I know a lot of people leave the TV on a lot to drown out that silence, but TV drives me crazy. Too much fake laughter and ads.
It's getting warmer but it rains pretty often. On those sunny days, life is beautiful. I have a ton of energy and get lots of things done. But who wants to be inside on a gorgeous day? On a cloudy, rainy day, my mood is duller. I know I've written about this before, but it amazes me how much difference is made by the weather. I think about people who move to Florida - Annie, are you reading this? Are you in a good mood every day? That can't be true, can it? If it is true, then I guess we're all crazy for living anywhere else.
Today? Today is warm but not bright. And I feel comfortable but not energetic. I can look outside and see a bright spot of color in my backyard, a forsythia bush. It's a bright wild tangle of yellow and today it's the only color I can see outside from this seat on the couch. There is a reason I keep that bush, and today is the reason. I keep a wild tangled mess for 365 days so that for one day when it is gray outside and I am glum, I can see some bright color.
From this spot on the couch I can also see some chickadees trying to build a nest in a bird house that has gone beyond seeing better days... it's just plain shot. It's hanging lopsided and cracked, and the roof is practically coming off. I'm sure it's stuffed full of dirty old nesting fluff, and it can't be pleasant. But for some reason they keep coming back to it. I guess in nature, no one would clean out the hollow of the tree they would nest in? So maybe they like it this way. I'm a little worried about them, though, because it doesn't really look safe. And I can't reach it to fix it. I'll have to ask Frank.
I read an article this morning about how the Great Recession has had an effect on how people decorate their houses now. I forget exactly how they worded it, and I forget the catchy phrases that they used. But the gist of it was that people are not as into reading magazines about how they should decorate their house. They are just doing what ever they feel like doing, and there is no right or wrong. That's pretty much what that bird is doing out there. I'm pretty happy about that, because that means I finally have a chance at being in style, lol. (Not that I'm really worried about that. I never decorated my house like this for anyone else but me, and that is very true, as true as can be.)
My house is comfy and reflects my interests and my history and my personality. I don't change things much. For example, the lamps in my living room are the same lamps my mother made in ceramics about 35 years ago. It's not that I love them - although I do like them - but it's s
omething my mother made, and it works, and why should I change it? The same as my kitchen. My mother redid the kitchen in the 70's or 80's, and it still looks great to me. Sure, I get new appliances when I need to, and when we added on our addition, we redid the floor and wall paper. But I see no reason to replace the dark wood cabinets she had put in, because they still work fine. They'll be back in style eventually.
Oh dear, this is turning out to be a very rambling post. Sorry. I don't write for ages, and then in one day I write a book.
Anyway, back to my point. I decorate my house for me, and I only barely care who else likes it. And I guess the same thing applies to cleaning it. If I know I'm going to have company, I try to clean up. Which is a good reason to have company. But if you just drop in, expect to see a mess. And at some point, when I know you pretty well, I won't even really try to clean up much.
So that's getting back to the reason for why I'm rambling on my blog. I have decided that today I'm going to work on the laundry room. That's a spot that NEVER gets clean, because company never goes up and looks in there. (Usually.) That is something I really need to straighten up, because I can't walk into the room without tripping over something. And so, obviously, I'm sitting on my couch, listening to the clocks tick, and rambling on my blog. What else would you expect me to be doing?
