Join Me in Snarkville

Today begins the new year — just in case you live in a cave without a calendar or Carson Daily screaming at you from the TV. Now, normal people are making resolutions to diet, be nicer, or you know, stuff. Normal people are recovering from hangovers because they actually went out last night and celebrated. But you see, the Royals are NOT normal people. Oh no.

You see instead of cooking our pork and lentels (something I saw on the Today show about bringing good luck), we decided (read: sort of started a project and one thing lead to another) to re-arrange the entire living room, half the kitchen, and the laundry room — in three hours. Oh, and clean the whole garage. Seriously, we are NOT normal.

It all began with an idea (doesn’t it always). The idea was to get Duke out of the house and running around a bit. (Does this even remotely sound like “Hey, let’s clean everything we own, move stuff around a lot and fill all the garbage cans,” to you? No? Hmmm.) So, we opened the garage and let Duke ride around on his trike. Ok, cool. However, Prince and I then had basically nothing to do but watch Duke, so we both set about random things that we’d been meaning to do outside. Prince moved some stuff from one side of the garage to the other; I removed the cobwebs out of the corners of my front porch and swept up a ton of leaves. Duke “helped” with the leaves a bit. Then, slowly I noticed Prince venturing into the pile of stuff we’ve been trying to pretend isn’t there — the pile of stuff that makes a two-car garage a one-car garage. We knew what was in the pile, but really had little idea what to do with it. I tried not to get sucked into the dealing with *THAT* pile and instead focused on sweeping up leaves from the side of the house. Then, it began — we consolidated a box, then two boxes — then the spark of an idea hit. “You know, if we could get these two, REALLY comfy recliners out of the garage and upstairs in the living room, we’d have a lot more room in here.” “But where will you put them.” “I have an idea, you game?”

And thus it began. This is the first time in recorded history that Prince has had fore-knowledge of a major furniture move in our house (I typically prefer to do it when he’s not home because a) I don’t like other opinions; b) I prefer to move stuff around with my own brute strength and thus don’t like to hear him gasp as I move things ‘differently’; and c) I never have a plan in mind, thus there is always a need to stop and re-adjust and fix and alter and throw my hands up in the air and walk away cussing — Prince doesn’t need to see any more of this side of me than he already does.

So, given that Prince was now privy to my plan; I had to ammend my plan a bit. “Yes, Prince, you help me move the recliners upstairs and I’ll get the rest taken care of, k?” Well, fortunately he was still dealing with Mt. Box-more in the garage and I was pushing the sofa this way and that.

[Wait, you want to know who Duke helped? Well, you see somehow, we were able to take care of all of this during his nap today. Don't ask me to explain how it can take me ALL day to move a room full of furniture around, but today I moved it all; cleaned it all; added 2 recliners to room -- not only silently enough not to wake Duke, but in the time span of a single nap.]

I won’t go into the details of the two of us moving two chairs up a flight of stairs or how we are still dealing with a few odds and ends or how when Prince came back upstairs after I declared my wonderfulness at being about to use all the pieces of furniture, unexpectedly, he says, “Hmm, not sure I like it — but it’s ok.” But I will say this, we are NOT allowed to make any garbage this week. Despite our best efforts to allow space at the top of the cans for the normal weekly garbage, I can tell you that as of this moment my trash, recycling bin, AND my yard waste containers are FULL. And you see Snarkville’s Waste Management system does NOT allow for more than your single can’s worth to be picked up. Bummer, since we now have the “waiting to go out” pile in the garage where Mt. Box-more and the recliners once lived.

Alas, I sit here typing away in my own personal chair (attempting to make no garbage), with my knitting stuff to my right and the remote to my left. I am in a chair of great power in this house. I have somehow figured out how to create more room with more furniture. I have also successfully removed at least one or two whole cats worth of fur from under the various pieces of furniture in this room and did not discover any hidden puke.
And it is Day One of 2007 and I get to cross another thing off my 30 things list! I shall celebrate and party like it is 2006!