Some of this spring’s dreary days marched into a few weeks of grey skies making me feel grey as well. While chatting with my friend, Sue in St. Louis, about my doldrums she assured me I wasn’t the only one.
“All you need is a little pick-me-up. No, I don’t mean a glass of wine, although that’s not a bad idea either. I mean a tweak here and there to the house. Redecorating always gives me a lift.”
‘The Lou,’ which I affectionately call her, went on to describe a recent pick-me-up exercise she took part in.
She targeted her guest bedroom and vowed to replace the bedspread…one in a nice cool green to go with her décor and reach to the floor. Four stores and seven mismatches later all the returns were made. The original spread went back on the bed.
I was amused by the rigmarole she put herself through for literally no change. Yet still I charged ahead beginning with a rug that I have under the kitchen table. If only that rug could talk! Over the years it has survived many a fur ball the cat has deposited on it…never on the tile floor always on the nap of the rug.
And then there were the times of unexpected and very moist upchucking the grandchildren showered in a downward direction. The numerous cans of soda that have been knocked over and rolled around and around are hardly worth mentioning.
It took me five pieces of carpet to get a replacement I thought I would like. I kept buying 5×7 cuts of various colors, patterns and shapes but couldn’t be happy until I got them home and in place.
You may have heard the expression, “I’m from Missouri, the show me state.”
Well, that’s absolutely true. So my poor husband had to unfurl each one, put it where I pointed and let me ponder over it for a few days. Only then could I make such a monumental decision as to whether or not to keep it or take it back. You can imagine how pleased he was to help with rolling each one back up and dragging it to the car for its return journey.
Ken did luck out on one rug rolling because I accidentally brought home the wrong size. Fortunately for him it stayed in its wrapper and never left my trunk until finding its way from whence it came. Well, at last the search was over and I beamed when I saw this particular rug in place under the kitchen table. It was perfect and I said so!
“Ken,” I said, “This is perfect!” My Rug Roller Extraordinaire collapsed in a chair. I moved on to the living room to make certain there were no tweaks needed in there.
The accent rug in this room was a lot larger yet required the same routine as that applied to the quest for the kitchen rug. That would be: buy a rug, load it into my van, cart it home, remove furniture, unroll and place rug on floor, replace furniture, stand back, rub chin, wait 3 to 4 days, have Ken roll rug up and put it back into my van.
As a bonus on one occasion I brought two rugs home on the same day! I justified replacing this rug because I was just tired of it. It had a bold busy pattern and I wanted something smaller, lighter and calmer. And that fringe! Mercy, save me from that string fringe.
It always got knotted up in my vacuum’s throat and caused it to make this awful noise just before it choked. I’d looked at that huge, loud print for at least 25 years! It was time for it to go. While Ken didn’t agree, at last I convinced him to give it one last well- placed boot out the door.
My behavior in search of a few little “tweak me ups” kept Ken holding his breath after I’d return from going to shop. He lived in constant fear of what I’d decide to transform next. Good that he had prepared himself for what ensued.
Since I had started my sprucing up at the bottom there was nowhere else to go but up!
And like my friend, The Lou, who chose to buy a new bedspread that seemed like the right direction to head.
Next month I think my focus will be
Just how many comforters did it take to please me?
