The Great Attic Cleanout

One of the big things on my "honey do list" this hitch was clean out the attic. This is a chore that has to be done before Summer, 'cause our attic aint no place to be in da South Louisiana heat. Yesterday dawned clear and breezy, and it was only in the low 70's. I called my young nephew Ren, offered him a few bucks to help me do da deed. Being a full time LSU college boy, he readily accepted the offer and came right over. We began by taking everything outa da attic and strewing it all over da yard. One of our neighbors came by and could not believe; "... all dat stuff came from ya lil attic????" Well, anyways we organized da mess into piles: 1 by da road for the garbage guys to take away, 1 in da back of our SUV to carry to Goodwill, and 1 to be sorted through and replaced in the attic. Peggy donated lots of her material and sewing stuff to Ren's mom's Home Ec. Department. We are now putting the finishing touches on sorting through stuff, and when the attic cools off this evening we will put back all da keepers. For those fo yall wonderin das what we been up to the last 2 days.

While Cappy went to fetch himself something to drink, I've usurped the blog reigns. While Cappy was out on the boat, he had me make a long precise 'to do' list, in detailed outline form. "Put a Roman numeral I, then a small 'a', then under that a regular '1' ", and so on, and so on. Here at home I was running at full tilt trying to get things done in anticipation of his coming home, plus having to deal with the organization of plumber, electrician, cabinetmaker, floor tile guy, carpenter for the tin ceiling, granite countertop guy and seems like somebody else, but it all had to be choreographed timewise and a few of them were holding everything else's progress, much to my...uh...let's say 'dismay'. I'd get overwhelmed at times, but consoled myself with the thought that when Cappy got home, I'd be able to take a break and get a little rest out of the deal. His 'to do' list had a lot to do with Ren helping him clean out the shed, getting the boat ready to go fishing...going fishing...a lot of easy-going stuff, which sounded just fine with me. He said I could sleep in while he quietly worked on his 'honey-do' aka 'to do' list. Well, that sounded really good to me. This list then consumed his every thought and he had a lot of pent-up energy out there, waiting and chomping at the bit until he could get home and start working on it. Well, he 'hit the bank' in high gear, getting up early at 5:30 a.m. saying, "Time to get UP!" then bounced the bed, yelling, "Bouncy Bouncy!! Time to get up...we can always take a nap later!" ....whaaaa???? Well, we ran and ran, bought out Lowe's home store, plus other running around I can't remember. I was draggggging. Finally, Monday the cabinetmakers came to hammer and pound the morning away with electrical saws and screwdrivers and all kinds of loud 'men work'. I stayed in bed and blissfully slept, totally oblivious to all the commotion going on just outside my bedroom door...and the door was open the whole time.

Yesterday Cappy told me that he and Ren were going to bring down the boxes from the attic out to the patio where I could go through them at my leisure in the shade. HAH! I don't know what happened, but everything was strung out all along the driveway from the back where the shady patio is, to out by the road, for all the world to see, but worse...for all the neighbors to see. In the hot sun! Cars slowed down and I was aware of 'full frontal gawking'. Sonia hurridly came over to see what was wrong. I kind of giggled to myself thinking she probably thought we'd gotten into a big fight and one of us was getting tossed out on their butt. Naw, she took one look and knew what was afoot. As usual, she lent me moral support, "Just bite the bullet; it'll be ok"...I guess I looked kinda frazzled. Her words helped me as I began carrying, pushing, and dragging boxes under the shady patio roof. When the boxes first started coming down out of the attic, my attitude was one of ambivilance...what did that mean to me anyhow? This attic job hadn't even been on the 'to do' list. I serenely puttered around inside the house until Cappy said, "Now...you've got a lotta LOTTA work to do sorting out all these boxes, Pegody". WHAAAA???? Just GREAT.

Well, that was yesterday. This is today. The boxes are all sorted. The SUV is crammed full of stuff that's going 'somewhere', Ren drove home with his truck full of stuff, one of our Forum friends, Stephen came by and took a lot of stuff off our hands, the garbage truck arrived at 5:30 a.m. this morning (I heard them) and they drove off with their truck loaded down. It's wonder all of this fit in our tiny attic and that the interior roof hadn't collapsed. How had this happened? How had we accumulated so much stuff over the years? It doesn't matter. We now have a dozen or so neatly packaged boxes of important stuff in the attic, tomorrow the electrician comes and drags his stuff to the attic and he'd better be neat about it! >:-/