I have not posted here in a month. We have been continuing to save money and live our weekends to the fullest we can, but I’ve become too distracted living life to write about it. September has been beautiful in South Carolina. The humidity vanished and the sunshine remained. The sky burned bright with that blue that September seems to have some kind of special monopoly on. Every evening when I got home from work, the wood floors and pear colored walls in our house glowed comfortably in the lazy sun beginning to slip into evening. We loaded up on Asian pears, and I’ve made buttery pear cakes that we ate with hot coffee. We’ roasted asparagus, caramelized cauliflower and boiled new potatoes and then dressed them in olive oil and yogurt. I don’t want to place too much emphasis on my feelings or risk taking myself too seriously, but I think I have manage to shake of this bout of restlessness and discontent.
This past Saturday we woke up in Atlanta. We had gone down Friday night to help my accomplished sister Rebekah celebrate the successful completion of her CPA exam. Daddy paid (read moochers), and Matt and I stood nearby to let some of the fruit of her labor rain down on us as well. I always enjoy staying at my sister’s Atlanta townhouse. It’s like staying in a boutique bed and breakfast where you are the only guest, and you are related to the proprietor. She has the poufy guest bed with soft sheets and a fluffy duvet that is perfect for burrowing when you don’t want to face the sun. The room also has a unique alarm clock in the way of her birds who will sing you into wakefulness if you continue to ignore the sun. Her shower has thundering water pressure and her towels are like big velvety blankets. Then of course, there is her wardrobe which I like to scavenge through and her array of makeup that makes Sephora’s sample tables look stingy. Rebekah brews us lattes and makes us food. It is truly lovely.
We didn’t leave as early as we had planned (see above description of blankets, makeup and lattes for explanation), but were able to tear ourselves away in order to be home not too late after lunch time. I immediately jumped into organizing mode. Atlanta is not only home to the largest aquarium in the world and Coke; it is also home to The Container Store. I have been eyeing Rebekah’s nifty containers for quite some time and gradually made my way to their website, but this was the first time I was coming home with Containers of my own. When I was in junior high/high school, my mother’s nickname among their friends was “the Tub Lady.” It seems I am not impervious to the inevitable fate of turning into my mother. Matt had given me a budget and I was seventy cents under! That takes skills. Loaded up with my bins, I organized all the bathroom drawers and under the sinks of both bathrooms. Inspired by my own organizing prowess, I also cleaned all the surfaces and mopped the floors. I stopped short at vacuuming, because I consider it the most unromantic of all common household chores. How can you escape into the world of Jane Eyre on your headphones or pretend that you are Marie Antoinette in prison if you have to maneuver a huge plastic sucking motor around your carpets? Matt is not, however, hindered with these sensibilities and stuck his head around the corner to ask, “Are you going to vacuum?” Translation: Please vacuum; the carpets are dingy, darling. I decided that vacuuming for Matt is almost romantic, and obliged.
