Memorial Day Weekend: Round One

Most of the schools around here are finishing up for another year, so in honor of the start of summer, I present to you What I Did Over Memorial Day Weekend.

I had to work all day yesterday, and I think everyone in the office had long-weekend-brain going on. We did elect to order in pizza for lunch...from Brooks Upper Crust...which may just be the best pizza in town. I appreciate a pizza joint that does not skimp on its toppings. That must be a popular opinion because they told the person that picked up our pizza that they had 70 pizzas to make that day for schools celebrating the end of the year. That's a lotta cheese.

After work, I got to enjoy this amazing treat:

Rachel, our student worker, wanted to take me out for dinner as a belated birthday gift. I told her I was really craving a good old strawberry shortcake from Ivanhoes. (Another Grant County treasure.) So after work we hopped in her car and went to Ivanhoes! As I took these pictures, people in two booths around us laughed out loud at me. I just shrugged and said, "Can't help it. Have a blog."

For the record, they do serve the world's best strawberry shortcake. As you can see, there's no skimping on the strawberries. And buried in the middle is a warm, sugary, made-from-scratch shortcake. No sponge cake here! You can get it with whipped cream, ice cream, or both. I knew I wouldn't be able to finish it so I opted for whipped cream so I could bring home the leftovers and refrigerate.

After getting home from Ivanhoes, I sat down at the computer and wrote the first 2973 words in my next book. Loved that feeling!

I was still working on that when my friend Faith called to see if she could come over for a little bit. We ended up having a great girl-talk for a couple of hours. And before I knew it...day one of the weekend was done.

This morning I enjoyed a true Saturday morning treat of sleeping in later than I'll admit in print. After getting up, I began the great purge of 2010. This has nothing to do with the strawberry shortcake I ate and everything to do with a reorganization of the house.

I'm coming up on the 10 year anniversary of living here and I have accumulated a ridiculous amount of stuff in that time. I realized if I ever moved, it would be a flat out nightmare to sort through and pack. So I am getting a head start on that by sorting and purging now.

I'm currently in what my friend Kristin calls the storm before the calm. That translates to...if you come over, give me fair warning so I can clear a chair for you. (You think I'm kidding...someone dropped by this afternoon and let me know while pulling in the driveway. I had no clear spot.)

While the house itself may be a hot little mess, check this out:

That, my friends, is a blank wall. I'm swapping the purposes of two bedrooms in my house. This room has been my office and will now serve as the guest room. I had a monstrosity of a desk in there (like the kind with a huge hutch and a side desk attached), along with an amazing, long, fluffy, comfortable couch that is just too big for this house.

Key word: had.

My friend Olivia, who just graduated from college and will be starting up her own household came over today and picked them up. (Well technically her boyfriend and dad did most of the lifting, but you know what I mean.)

So while the room is empty, I took advantage of the opportunity to sort through all the stuff that had been in the desk, toss what was outdated, put aside what hasn't been used but still has life in it, and create a pile that will be moved into the new office space.

There is something kind of fun about a (nearly) empty room. It feels almost like a new house. It gives me the chance to sort through the decor, switch stuff around, and give a whole new feel to an old space.

I was going to paint the room. I love the bright yellow that it is, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep it. But I decided other rooms needed painted more than this one, so yellow it stays.

My mother is always telling me I need to wash down the blinds. I never see the point. But I decided since deep cleaning was the order of the day, I'd wash the blinds.

Now I know why I don't.

The stupid thing BROKE! The OCD Bekah of old would have immediately put down everything and run to Lowe's for a new one, but I just taped it back on for a temporary fix and kept going. But among life's top annoyances is the sight of a broken blind. To answer the question I always want to ask anyone who has one, YES! I know it looks like that!

So that's where the day stands. I think I'm going to continue organizing...you know. So I have a place to sit.