the virtual party

Thank you, thank you, friends, for helping me with the virtual unpacking.  We annoyed the hell out of a lot of spiders, scared the crap out of a generation of mice, and cleared the room all the way to the walls.  We discovered several more windows that were hidden behind china cabinets and piles of stuff, and things are much brighter in here now.  We went through dozens of boxes of cookbooks marked, "Not for Roxie.  She's not interested in cooking."  (Compete with my mom, the gourmet genius?  I wouldn't think of it!)  We cleared out boxes of costume jewelry.  She LOVED those sparkly things!  We found a pair of peep-toe alligator pumps with ankle straps (size 3), and a wardrobe packed full of hats with feathers and veils and silk roses and the carapaces of a thousand carpet beetles that had ruined all of them.  In the lining of a moth-eaten sable coat we found a diamond ring that had slipped through a tear in the pocket.  We uncovered velvet chaise lounges and down-filled slipper chairs and squooshy, overstuffed sofas that could just about swallow you whole.  Several sets of china emerged from the mess, a huge pile of bodice-ripper romances had been tossed under a side table, and every where we turned we kept turning up half-filled bottles of bourbon.

The  wallpaper is light brown with big red roses.  That's got to go!  There's a chandelier that will need re-wiring.  It's a freaking pain to polish all those crystals, but it'll sparkle plenty when it's done.  The floor is brown linoleum, cold, slick, and easy to clean.  Maybe a nice carpet?

And the view from all those newly opened windows?  I can see for miles! 

This has been a good exercise.  I haven't shared the uglier parts, but without your company, I wouldn't have worked through them, either.  Thank you for taking this journey with me.  My head feels a lot clearer!!

Things I have learned:  Money and things will not make you happy.
                                  No one is perfect, me included.
                                  Mom is responsible for a lot of who I am, and who I am is pretty darn good.
                                  Use your nice things today.  You're worth it.
                                  If you're going to do yoga stretches in the nude, don't look. Keep your eyes closed.  No matter how fit and firm you are, it'll appall you to see yourself from those angles.