GETTING STUFF DONE

 Among quite a few goals for January, three of them seemed lofty.

One was getting the carpet crew in to remove and replace two rooms’ full of the stuff. The hardest part was that Brian and I signed on to do all the heavy lifting of our Stonehenge-like furnishings. Moving things like a glass-front secretary, marble-top table, sectional sofa, two library tables, two TVs, a small entertainment center, bedroom suite, roll-top desk (again!) and several chairs might put us both in traction for a month and run up a hospital bill but we sure would save a few bucks on the installation. Shrewd, we are.

The second was getting my mathematical ducks in a row and paying the 2015 Indiana sales tax on my book biz. Last year that task took a ridiculous amount of time due to my inexperience with retail merchant certification, deadlines, and my own bookkeeping – all summed up in a composition notebook – while the tax filing and paying part of the job was all done online.

The third, and perhaps most daunting because it has been put on the household back burner for years now, was loading up all of Ben’s childhood and teen years’ relics from the closet in the room he had at home and hauling it all to the attic.

Oh, I can hear the critics now: “Why don’t you make him do it?” Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because at 24, he’s too old to care about any of that stuff right now, and too young to realize that one day he will. In the meantime, we’re the ones who will likely help him move heaven only knows how many times and we don’t want to haul around the dozen or so containers full of his vintage things.

That’s why we’ve kept the closet doors shut tight and ignored the trophies, photos, baseball cards, prom sashes, college notebooks, and texts.

If Brian had his way we’d just keep it all tucked away in that closet but I have developed a strong hankering for the active use of that closet. I want to move all my book-related stuff in there and spread out rather than it all sharing space with the Christmas tubs in Sam’s former closet.

Well, what a week! On Tuesday night and Wednesday day and night, we hauled furniture, got the new carpeting put down and put everything back into place before we hit the hay hard Wednesday night. The new carpeting is plush and soft and feels like walking on a warm, cozy blanket. Yes, it's brown, which seems to be our color of choice.  Call us dull if you must. But it seems exactly right. We love it! No traction yet from Stonehenge, but sometimes back spasms take a few days to materialize. Holding out hope here.

This morning I got up and filed the state sales taxes. I had someone from the state hold my hand, cyber-style. But the tax is filed.

And this afternoon, I loaded Ben’s closet belongings and Brian hauled them to the attic. I have to hand it to him in that while it wasn’t a task on his list of new year’s hopes and dreams, he knew it was on mine, and so he did the heavy lifting with me in mind and very little complaining. I haven’t gotten around yet to filling that closet but it will be a beautiful thing: an organized closet devoted to the current book and the next one too without wreaths and angels falling into the fold. Oh, yes.

I can’t say I’m the least bit excited about Sunday and Monday’s plans. Yes, I have to prep and proceed with my first routine colonoscopy. I’ve put it off for a long time. But I know others who have a few or more years on me who haven’t had theirs, either. It’s a dreary thing, and I’m missing two meetings I hate to miss and a day of work in the process. But come Monday night, I will have another learning experience (ba-boom) behind me.

Brian takes an initial walk across the new family-room carpet before we reload the room. Yep, brown seems to be a key color for the Cronks. It's actually a whole lot prettier than the photo indicates. Or so we think.