Today's project was to buy a new van. Pending some other issues, we are waiting until Monday to complete THAT project.
One of the benefits of backbreaking yardwork (which was the back-up A.D.D. project du jour) is that you often get to converse with your neighbors.
While Chris and I watched the skies for threatening rainfall as we shoveled about 23 bags of leaves, branches and seed pods, an unknown neighbor came by to introduce herself. Forty-five minutes later and her cat Wendell using one of our eight leaf piles as a litterbox as we watched in resigned curiosity, we found ourselves covertly dancing back and forth with "we need to move on now" as she continued to talk.
However, truth be told, she was a wealth of information about the previous homeowners for at least the past 30 years and the goings-on of the current residents of our prestigious Chestnut Street.
Chris and I have always been very intrigued by the Winchester Mystery House in California for its odd structures and designs, a la Sara Winchester, the wife of the late inventor of the Winchester rifle. A psychic had apparently told her, at some point, that she needed to move from her native Boston to the West Coast.
The eccentric Sara Winchester required her builders to work 24/7 to appease the spirits with a grandiose house made of nothing but the finest of materials (and she was a bottomless pit of money) and also to confuse them with odd architectural designs to prevent them from following her. With the unusual staircases and completely odd architecture of our house, we had immediately begun referring to it as "The Winchester Mystery House of Kewanee."
And guess what...there was indeed an "eccentric little old lady" who lived here. As we had suspected. And she barricaded herself into the dining room as her primary residence. As we had suspected. And she built on various additions and questionable upgrades. As we had suspected. And she had plopped a bathroom two feet from the grand foyer in our house because "she could". As we had suspected.
We also found out that this eccentric elderly lady had, at one time, turned her home into a home for elderly ladies. So parts of the picture become clearer.
This all still clearly, and possibly more so, propels me to go to the Kewanee Historical Society to uncover more mysteries.
Now - some hydrocortisone on my neck, a nice adult beverage and some blogging about the day's experiences have made me feel quite good. And I'm ready to tackle something else tomorrow.
But guess what....we FINISHED the project. The front yard, as proven by the pictures in the photo album, show the before and after shots of what we tackled today. And I'm awful proud of us. We worked as a family in the beautiful "day before spring" sun, each with our own rakes and each child additionally wielding a cheap plastic shovel. And Super Grammy came to the rescue at the right time to bring us additonal lawn bags (we seriously thought ten bags would be enough...?) AND take over childcare for the evening so we could finish without having to constantly run interference.
We have uncovered grass and hostas and renewed our belief in ourselves that we can complete a project.
The result? Sore....but very, very proud.
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