Some days what I am grateful for is not immediately clear to me and I have to stop and think about it. Then, what I think I am grateful for sounds so mundane and boring and.....well....... a little trite actually. But I continue to think about it and it really does sorta light me up. So I find, I really AM grateful.
Today, I am grateful for an empty house.
My niece is staying with us, has been for the past week, so she is here in the mornings until around 1015am, then back around 430pm or so. DH, as we all know, retired this year, so he is usually around, underfoot, making me twitchy. But he is working this week, so is gone when I manage to get out of bed. I do have a dog, lazy, mangy mutt that he is, but I like having him around.
Oh! Don't get me wrong. I don't dislike having my niece stay here, it's kind of nice, usually. She picks up after herself, usually does the dishes after dinner. Gives me neck rubs and back rubs and those are very nice. It can begin to be irritating, sharing your living space, your life, with someone who is not a part of it, but so far, we are dwelling nicely together.
And I love DH. Everybody knows that. God only knows why, but I truly do. But having him underfoot every day, all day, after awhile I just want to scream at him to "GET OUT!!" So usually I leave. Go off on my own for a few hours and get it out of my system. So it is nice when he works one or two days a week, or even a full week, like he is supposed to do this week.
But yesterday we went to the storage unit and I brought two boxes home with me. I would've brought a couple more but we had a car stuffed full. My car seats six, or four and has storage space in the back. DH, niece and I met brother and other niece at the facility and we went through a few things and he wanted to take some stuff home with him. And he doesn't drive. Oh joy.
I shoulda made him take all those bags home on the bus. Lord knows he's taken worse home on the bus. But I digress. Less than a week into this year and I find I am digressing quite a bit. You'll get used to that.
Anyhow, I told him I would take the bags to his house. He and niece were going to catch the bus home because, guess what? I didn't have room in my car for him. But he looked so pathetic and sounded so forlorn, I told him we could squish together and get the two of them into the car and take them, and his bags, back to his place.
So DH is driving, of course, and brother and niece squished cozily together in the one left over back seat and other niece and I are left to share the passenger seat. Which does not make DH happy. Anything I do slightly outside..... well, the law, makes DH unhappy. But I persevered and got myself over onto the console enough that niece could fit in and she could close the door. And we are not tiny little skinny things, either, so it was quite a feat. Once in, with the door closed, I dropped my right leg down between hers, lifted my butt off the gear shift, told DH to "Put it into gear, dammit, and hurry!" and away we went. It was only 6 or 7 minutes, not terribly restricting, and finished safely. I'll probably never hear the end of it. But we got brother, niece and their bags home safely and then DH got us safely, and legally! home and our two boxes deposited into the living room.
Which brings me to what I am grateful for and why.
I hate cleaning or putting away my house with pests underfoot. So I was ever so glad when both DN & DH took themselves off to their respective places of employment/learning today and left me in the quiet solitude of my little house to listen to CSI and my dog snore as I opened boxes and sorted and cleaned and put away and threw away. It was relaxing, it was rewarding, it was accomplishment. I liked it.
Today, I am grateful for an empty house.
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