Clean Up Days

My guys had to run errands in the Emerald City after EJ got out of work Friday afternoon so they got a late start and didn’t arrive back here until 11 p.m. They were extremely tired and glad to be home. As soon as they arrived, I began washing the dirty laundry they always bring back with them. I was able to get the last load into the dryer before we headed to bed.

A good night’s sleep re-energize my guys and we had a tremendous weekend together.

Saturday was Spring Clean Up Day–the day in which the Village rents huge dumpsters so villages can get rid of unwanted junk for free.

Friday morning I had filled the pickup truck with junk that we wanted to get rid of–old fences pieces, old windows, broken chairs. Saturday morning EJ and I threw in a few more things and then unloaded it at the dumpsters set up at the Village Department of Public Works. I was planning to help unload, but the dumpsters were too high for me to throw heavy items into. Besides, my help was not really needed. The were several Village workers and men from the dumpster company who helped EJ empty the pickup.

When the pickup was emptied, we drove back home to refill the pickup. EJ went up into the second story of the garage–actually the garage is only one and a half stories–and threw stuff down which I dragged to the pickup. We pretty much emptied the garage of junk, except for the tires and old air conditioners which the Village wouldn’t take. When we had a good-sized load, we went back to the dumpsters and EJ and the guys threw it in.

After our second load, I had to leave with JJ. He had opened an account at a bank in the Emerald City and wanted to close his account at the bank down here. Afterwards we drove to a store because I had a few things to get. Mostly I needed paper for the printer because the printer was out. We have paper at home….but it’s packed in a box and buried under a mountain of other boxes and I didn’t want to bother trying to find it.

While JJ and I were gone, EJ saw his old Lazy-Boy chair, which finally broke last week and he decided to haul it to the dumpsters. When JJ and I returned, I profusely thank EJ for remembering to take the old chair. I was so focused on ridding the garage of junk that I had totally forgotten the old chair. We got to talking about his current old chair, which is also not in the best of shape and not worth moving to the Emerald City. We decided we had just enough time to take it to the dumpsters. The DPS worker laughed, “Wow, every visit you bring chairs that look better than the last!”

We would have preferred to wait until we moved to buy a new Lazy-Boy for EJ but after hauling the two old ones to the dumpsters, he had no place to sit. Our couch hurts his back. So we drove to the furniture thrift shop and found him a really nice Lazy-Boy for not much money.

This morning as we drank coffee together, we observed some of our coffee and end tables and other little tables. We weren’t sure we wanted to haul them up north because they were a bit battered. I considered trying to refinish them–most of them would be worth refinishing–but we weren’t all that attached to them and didn’t want to have to bother with it. We have bought all our living room furniture at thrift shops or yard sales for little money. We have fun “treasure hunting” and EJ had said there were a lot of thrift shops up there where we could buy nice tables. So….we searched the house and found seven coffee tables, end tables, and other little tables that we didn’t want to move to our new house and we loaded up his Buggy with them. Then we drove to the closest Goodwill and donated them. When we left the “Donate” door, we went around to the front door because EJ wanted to see if he could find some shirts. I found some T-shirts and jeans. I needed jeans but often have trouble finding any at thrift shops because my legs are short so “average” jeans are much too long. I’ve learned to just look for short jeans hanging among the longer-legged ones on the racks. I found several pairs of short jeans in my size.

As we browsed the store, EJ pulled me over to show me that there was an end table in the store that was exactly like the one we had just donated a couple of minutes before. We thought it was amazing that there were two matching end tables in the store because they were a bit unusual. But a few minutes later I saw in another part of the store, another end table that was a duplicate of the one we had just donated–one whose legs had been painted blue (not by us). These were not duplicates but the exact tables we had just donated. We laughed. We had not expected the tables to get taken into the store so quickly after we dropped them off.

If felt good to get rid of so much junk this weekend. We declared that we have made a lot of progress and we had a very fun weekend. It was hard for us when the guys had to leave for the north, but I remind myself that there is only three weeks left before we close on the house and I can go North.