So. Today I started spring clean­ing. I know. It’s not spring for a few days yet but being the ever effi­cient me, I  thought I’d get a head start on it. This makes me sound like one of those per­fec­tion­ist who do spring and fall clean­ing and every­thing in between. Ah…no. I hate wash­ing win­dows. Let nature do it. Unless I can’t see out of it. These peo­ple who clean there win­dows til they shine.… Go read a good book for heaven’s sake!! How long will they real­is­ti­cally stay clean? Who looks at them? Out in the coun­try it seems silly. Sorry if I have offended any coun­try folk who reli­giously wash win­dows. But really. As to the clean­ing… I actu­ally have been want­ing to tackle the base­ment for a while. Seems to have been in a state of sloth since christ­mas when I did not return the xmas boxes to their orig­i­nal spot, antic­i­pat­ing a work­man hav­ing to come out and redo our duct work.  Which, we dis­cov­ered, on christ­mas eve, when our fur­nace did a loud bang­ing and tum­bling than died…had not been prop­erly vented, thus over­heat­ing some wheel or some­thing, thus caus­ing it to warp, thus the break­age. Did I say on xmas eve? At 9 pm? When else would that hap­pen? Con­viently on a week­day, not a hol­i­day would have been nice. But, this is Iowa, and we know our friendly fur­nace guy, and although I inter­rupted his xmas party, he did agree to come out the next day and at least got it up and run­ning. He did return to fix it with the under­stand­ing he would return within a week or so to do the duct work. It is now March. You do the math. So. My boxes are still sit­ting in the mid­dle of the ping pong table. But…I did get the rest of the base­ment cleaned, so once he shows his lovely self, we can once again be clut­ter free. I am not really hep on clean­ing our base­ment. We have two. An “old” one and a “new” one. The old one is under the orig­i­nal house and has stone walls that weep con­crete and dirt.  I am con­stantly doing bat­tle with dirt and spi­ders and God knows what else. I hate it. It is on my List Of Things To Do To The House. Every time a truck goes by, con­crete falls. I can­not fathom the rea­son they did it that way, but there it is. My kids hate that base­ment. It is low and creepy. Before I moved in here, my hus­bands kids refused to set foot in it. I at least have it now where we can store stuff. I have to vac­uum it all the time, but espe­cially before Chels comes down, or she won’t go in there. Even though I spend hours vac­u­um­ing up spi­der­webs, she still sends her hus­band Matt down to get her pop. Chicken. There are open­ings to the plumb­ing that even I won’t ven­ture into but appa­rantly cats who lived here pre­vi­ously did and you get one good guess what they used that dirt filled space for. Yep. So that is it for MY spring clean­ing.…
Son Sherm is off to the BIG state of Texas. It is a huge adven­ture for him. Some big thing called South by South­west. So far he is hav­ing a ball. He will come back exhausted and deaf, but, I think, hav­ing had a good time regard­less. Four days of none stop bands and music. Bog­gles the mind. I would run scream­ing like a ban­shee back to the quiet of my farm. Austin. 75 degrees. Have fun you rat.
I hope one and all have been read­ing Bauschy.com (my girls) and ramblingmen.com (the boys). What fun reads. Go there. Imme­di­ately. You will love it. (They write SHORT posts)
On a qui­eter thought. I have been think­ing today about the peo­ple who formed the sting oper­a­tion for the child pornog­ra­phy ring that was just busted. What a god awful job for them. I can­not imag­ine hav­ing to do what they do, but I am eter­nally grate­ful they do it and suc­ceed. Thank-you from the bot­tom of my heart. I am appalled that one of the mas­ter minds was a  woman from Iowa. Not any­more. We dis­own her. And to the munchkins. Hey lit­tle peo­ple. It will be okay. Hard, I think, but okay. I am sorry that dis­gust­ing per­verted peo­ple like that exist and have hurt you. I wish you heal­ing, both phys­i­cally and spir­i­tu­ally. Know that peo­ple all over the world care about you and have you in their thoughts, and that a mil­lion hugs and kisses are being sent to you on angels wings. You are pre­cious beyond com­pare. Be safe lit­tle ones.