HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A new year has arrived!  It’s hard to believe that 2008 could really already be GONE!  It seems like it was just yesterday that we were ringing it in.  But here we are with a whole new year to start all over again.

To me, the new year is like starting with a clean slate.  A “do-over,” if you will! 

One of the things happening here for New Year’s is some home improvement.  You see, Tall Skinny Man, the Ankle Biters and I live in the home that was my Daddy’s.  He built this house in the early 80’s.  And he built it little by little with my brother. 

We’ve lived her for 9 years now since Daddy passed away.  Shortly after we moved here, we were tossing laundry downstairs on a Sunday morning to get a load started before heading off to church.  Ankle Biter #1 was about 4 and was heading down the stairs in front of me.  With the laundry at the bottom of the stairs, I couldn’t see the last 3 or so steps and missed them entirely.  When I realized I was going to fall, I gave AB#1 a shove because I thought a shove would hurt him a lot less than Two-Ton Tessie falling on him and smushing him.  Long story short, I ended up with a trip to the ER instead of a trip to church that morning.  And I spent the better part of the next 6 weeks in one of those fancy strappy boot thingies.  Joy!

At that point, TSM determined it might not be wise for me to do the trotting up and down the stairs to do the laundry since I’m so incredibly graceful.  So he’s done the vast majority of the laundry since then for fear I’d take another tumble down the stairs trying to do it myself. 

The problem with all that is that TSM works.  And I work.  And we both work very long hours.  And laundry piles up with 2 Ankle Biters who have absolutely NO concept of putting away clean laundry and not letting it mingle back in with the dirty laundry.  And who also have absolutely NO concept of wearing just one suit of clothes in a 24-hour span of time.  And they say GIRLS are bad about changing clothes!  As IF!   So we generate a hideous amount of laundry in this house!  And it usually takes an entire weekend to get it all completed.

For some time now, I’ve wanted to move the laundry room to the upper floor of the house.  And it’s just not happened.  I’ve also been jonesing for some of those groovy front-loading washer/dryer machines.  So at long last, I finally ordered my front-loading machines!  But who wants to banish such nice, new machines to the basement?!

So we have begun the destruction of what was the stairwell leading to our basement.  That area will now become my new laundry room.  My brother is going to build a solid floor in there and just close off the stairs to the basement.  Since it’s used primarily for storage at this point, we can just go outside to get down there instead of having the stairs.  I’d rather go outside to get something out of storage than trot up and down a flight of stairs for every load of laundy.

Here’s what we did at our house yesterday:

Lovely, no?  Deconstruction at its best!  This used to be just a nice little stairwell that housed my portable dishwasher, a china closet and the vast majority of items one would normally find in a pantry.  But since I don’t have a pantry, this room pretty much served in that capacity.

That yucky, funky carpet?  That’s what was in the stairwell!  EWWWWWWWWW!  After 28 years or so, it was getting MIGHTY gross!

I can’t wait to see it with a floor in it!  As it is right now, I’m absolutely TERRIFIED to even walk out there due to there being no rail to keep me from falling down the stairs.  So hopefully soon, it will begin to take shape!  I’ll keep you posted as the construction progresses.

What does all this have to do with food and cooking?  Well, not a darn thing!  But this room is just off my kitchen so now I’ll be able to do a load of laundry when I’m cooking dinner at night instead of it all piling up and having to wait until the weekend when we have time to do all that stair-trotting. 

But with a new year starting today, I thought I would share what will be new at my house for the new year.  I hope this big improvement at my house is just one of MANY to come this new year!  For all of us!  Have a happy, blessed 2009!  May we all wake up this time next year and be better people for the year we’ve just finished!