Born In The Wrong Era!

  A few days ago, I made mention of missed opportunities and stifled ambitions.  As with most moms of the world, my life was put on hold to raise kids.  Not that I am complaining as those were incredible years and I would not change a thing.  Mark worked hard so I could be a stay at home mom but, as kids are prone to do, our youngsters grew to adults and created their own lives.  Now, what was I supposed to do?  After talking with Darling Daughter, I have decided to do a few things for "me"!  It has been a long time in coming but I have been redoing parts of the Little Bayou House.  I figured the house was as good of a place to start with changes as any so this is the first step.  Since it is no longer necessary to have a place filled with toys or, for that matter, filled with kids, things could be changed to suit me....but what changes?  Out with the old and in with the "old".  Huh?  That is not the correct saying!  Still, that is what happened!

  For a few years now the living room has been devoid of a sofa.  As much as I loved our old set, it made a move to Darling Daughter and Son-in-law's house.  That was a beginning but nothing replaced it.  The living room was a hodge-podge mess of whatever furniture happened to wind up there.  To be honest, I had no idea what I wanted.  Then the conversation with Elizabeth made me realize that I was still trying to "build" a room around a bunch of rough-housing teenagers. Nope!  I needed something different!  One of my favorite rooms ever was a parlor in an old house that I lived in for about a year during my late teens.  I had gone to live with my Aunt Helen and Uncle Jack to help run a hardware store.  Aunt Helen had decorated the huge antebellum home with period pieces.  I loved it!  I felt at home amongst the nineteenth century pieces.  Perhaps I was born in the wrong era!

  Recently, a similar set to Aunt Helen's came up for sale so Mark and I purchased it. The old set adds just enough quirkiness to the look of the room!  All that is needed is a few finishing touches.  Baby steps...baby steps to finding where I am at during this stage of my life.  Red settee, purple doors....I am seeing a tinge of an eccentric trend going here.  That is suitable as it is sort of tied into my roots from long ago!  While others are most likely scratching their heads at my change of pace, it thrills me.   Also, I am thinking my grandmother and Aunt Helen would be proud!

Wash Day!

Have you ever checked into the prices to have furniture professionally cleaned?  Oh, my goodness!  I think I should go into business.  I know it involves bringing a steamer into your home but I never expected it to cost nigh onto $400 to clean my living room set.  That is a tad outrageous when you think that my whole set only cost around $2000.  Back when Hurricane Katrina thought my old set needed washing, I was forced to buy a new one.  Even though she tried to help by dousing everything with water, it was nasty flood water and, well, that did not set well with me.  I had the boys haul everything out into the yard to wash it down with buckets of water as we had no running water yet.  Mark took one look at that mess and told me to get rid of it.  "Buy a new set." he said.  So, my sweet sister, Susan, drove me all the way to Jackson some nearly three hours away.  (That being the nearest town that had furniture that was not all squishy and muddy!)  When a kindly salesman asked me what color set I wanted, I told him "mud"!  He sort of scrunched his face and questioned me again.  "Mud!"  You see,  I was using my head on this one!  I live on a Bayou. Bayous have mud..icky, brown, smelly mud. And..I had just gotten Ms. Ez, one soon-to-be very large dog.  I figured if you cannot beat them..join them!  Mud-colored furniture would be ideal so if a small spot of mud happened to get on it (ha ha ha!  Happened to get on it!  Yeah!)..I could wipe it off without too much stress.  Since Katrina, the set has served us well.  It has not shown the mud, coffee, blueberry, dog, grease and other stains that come with living on the Bayou.  I would wipe the thing off and it was good to go!

But today, it occurred to me that the set had never been really "cleaned" in the eight years that I have had it.  That thing has to be pretty dirty by this time! Over breakfast, I asked Michael what he thought we should do.  I really did not want to spend $400 on cleaning the sofa when I still have a dog and still live on the Bayou where mud literally jumps on just about everything.  "Wash it."  Huh?  "Wash it." he replied for the second time.  "Wash it?" I queried.  "Yep."  So, we washed the living room furniture.  I cannot say we actually hauled it outside and squirted it with the water hose as I refused to go that far.  Michael pulled off covers of all the cushions and I handwashed them.  Ugh!  I was right when I thought the set was dirty!  The water was...like muddy bayou water!  He hung them out to dry on the clothesline and came back inside to vacuum the entire set.  Afterwards, he wiped it all down with a damp cloth.  (I have a great son!)  It already looked a lot better even though I now had large white cushions.  Late this afternoon, we slipped the dry covers back onto the cushions and the set looks and smells wonderful!

So, save yourself about $400 and wash your upholstered furniture!  (Or at least wash those cushion covers!)  I do not advise putting the things in the dryer though..you might find that they will not fit ever again.  Hang them on the clothesline!  (This reminds me of something so cute that my sweet son-in-law said one time.  When he and my daughter moved into their current home, he informed me that they now had an outdoor air-drying system in their backyard!  I looked puzzled and asked what he meant.  "You know, like that thing where you hang your clothes to dry!"  Ahh, a clothesline!  I love this young man!  He had never used one before and did not know what that strange thing was called but he was really happy that they had one!)  So, make sure to use your outdoor air-drying system if you wash your sofa covers!