I'm so stressed about the house I'm not sleeping well.

When the painters were here they moved everything to the centers of each room. This process unearthed loads of stuff. junk. debris. crap. The walls are so pretty now I don't want to just put the old stuff back exactly where it came from. I took probably a dozen things off the mantle before painting and now there is a vase and a pair of candlesticks. I don't want to put anything else back up there.

I spent the better part of the weekend putting the family room kitchen back in order. The hearth has been cleaned and vacuumed. I bought a new lamp for the top of the new bookshelf. We have an eight foot cookbook shelf in our kitchen. The painters put all the books and the other school papers that were up there in 3 large bins. Fern and I dusted the books off and put them back up. I purged the collection and marked a large box for give-away. All the loose recipes, school papers, IEP's and report cards are now arranged neatly in metal magazine files. You can actually get something without it falling on your head. When my husband came back from his trip, he just noticed the box of books in the hall.

I'm supposed to be working on a Christmas quilt, but I've lost my enthusiasm about it. This house has zapped the life out of me.