Spring Clean

I told you that Sir came home early on Thursday. He was feeling even worse on Friday and didn't go to work at all. In fact, he stayed in bed almost all day. Almost.

You see, I have some very wonderful friends who called me up Friday morning. I happened to be buried under sticky waffles that I was feeding to PC when the phone rang, so HisLady kindly left me a message that said: "Hi! Curls and I were feeling bored today and wanted to know if you would like help cleaning and rearranging your house to get ready for conference?!" What a phone call! Of course, the first little trouble-making thought that flitted through my head was, 'I must really look like I can't keep my own house clean!' but then I got to thinking about how much I really wanted to get rearranged before conference. Then compared it to doing alone (or more likely dragging Sir into helping me) to doing it with these girls that were my age. I decided that doing it with the girls would be so much more fun. And was it ever! I called them back and told them to come over for lunch and then we'd get to work.

First we assessed the two hide-a-beds that were in the living room. I wanted to know which one was the better bed since it was what was going to end up in the office for our conference guests. Once that was decided, we dragged/pushed/lifted the hide-a-bed into the kitchen where it would patiently wait until it's next location was available. Then we moved the sewing machine over so we could move my desk out of the office and into the living room. We vacuumed as we went since there were spots that had been hiding under furniture that needed attention. Then, excepting Sir's desk, we emptied the office of everything and piled it in the living room. Just to be sure, we re-measured the office, the hide-a-bed and the dresser that was going to move out of my room and into the office. The last thing we wanted was to get everything into that tiny little room and then find out that it wouldn't fit after all. Then I had to get Sir out of bed so we could rearrange the bedroom. As soon as he was up and in the shower, the girls and I emptied the nine drawers out of the dresser that was moving to the office and put them in the kitchen with the hide-a-bed. By this time you couldn't walk through the kitchen or the living room very easily. Then we moved the regular dresser and the bed to different spots, vacuumed and took a break while we waited for Sir.

As soon as Sir was able, we enlisted his help in moving his desk out of the office and into our bedroom. Then we had him help us get the hide-a-bed into the office... which was an incredible feat. It had to cross the hallway from the kitchen to the office, going through two doorways.... that didn't line up with each other and were different widths! We actually got it done after quite a bit of puzzling though. The girls and I left Sir to re-set up his desk in the bedroom while we finished vacuuming the office, arranged the hide-a-bed, and moved the dresser into the office. Once Sir's desk was set up (he has all the modems and router at his desk, so until it was set up again, we had no phone or internet etc.) and I got the bed cleared off, Sir went back to bed. He was still feeling pretty sick.

For the next couple of hours, we rearranged all the stuff that suddenly didn't have a place to be stashed, tidied, organized the living room bookshelves and moved all the toys from all over the house into the office. Then HisLady and Curls called their husbands and arranged to have the guys pick up pizza on their way over. I woke Sir up again, and he was feeling a little better- after all, he had slept all day minus an hour and a half where we kicked him out of bed and put him to work.

So, the office is no more. Instead that room is now a Playroom with ALL of the kids' toys happily out of the way. It will easily change into a guest room for the duration of conference, but the toys will have to visit the living room and nursery for the weekend. The living room has a small desk and a two drawer filing cabinet instead of a third couch, a toy box and a cardboard house. And our bedroom is missing a huge dresser and a nightstand in exchange for a computer desk and small bookshelf.

What took HisLady, Curls and myself five hours to do would have taken me, by myself, at least two days (or more if the kids were helping undo things as fast as I could do them) to accomplish. Not only that but, while it was being done, I got to visit with my friends, get a break from my kids (since there were three adults to watch them), and get all of the work done enough so that we could have dinner and visit with friends that evening! And my house is ready for conference!