Saturday, March 29, 2008

A Quiet Evening

Last night I had the house to myself, well, almost to myself; my grandson was soundly asleep in his bed, and the rest of the family were out and about - my children all out visiting friends and Paul needed to stay late at work.

After spending a lot of time in the afternoon working on household paperwork and insurance forms, I planned on an evening of doing nothing. And it did start that way. I watched the new version of Northanger Abbey, which I enjoyed very much. When it was done, I thought I'd go upstairs and surf the net. But I was oddly compelled to "tend" the house.

You see, the house had been nicely cleaned for Easter. Add to this that we had our new sitting room furniture delivered (a sofa and love seat). And although the furniture is inexpensive (with a toddler it just won't do to buy expensive stuff, plus it was on sale!), it looks very lovely. Before it was delivered, the girls and I vacuumed and mopped the sitting room thoroughly. We also picked up and sorted through all of Tyler's toys. Earlier yesterday I got motivated to sort and neaten our CD collection, which was out of order, many CD's were "homeless" with their cases strewn about on the stereo shelves, and there was quite a bit of dust on the shelves of the CD holder.

So last night, I wanted to keep this nice feeling of order. So I got the kitchen wiped down, sinks emptied, floor mopped, dishwasher started. I vacumed all the downstairs floors (with a toddler, vacuuming only once a week just will not do), tidied the table, and generally put things right. It was not a burden; it was actually quite enjoyable.

I liked the feeling of "tending".

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