I got up this morning and immediately sat down at the table and made a list. Actually, I made two lists – one of things to do, and the other of things Richard needed to pick up at the hardware store. I tackled the first thing almost immediately, addressing the remaining Christmas cards and handing the stack to Richard to sign and stuff and seal. We ate breakfast (homemade polenta with, you guessed it, lemon curd on top), gave ourselves about half an hour to poke around on the computer, each hung about five or six ornaments a piece on the tree, opened the little window in the Advent calendar just to get into the spirit of things, and then got started.

It took a bit of searching but I finally tracked down where I’d stashed the gallon can of white primer and all my painting supplies. While I was taping the baseboards of the long wall in the library, Richard measured and cut the remaining transition strips to size, and took some measurements of the closet where we’re going to install some much-needed shelving. I kept thinking of more things to add to the hardware store list (Night lights, so people don’t trip and fall down the stairs when they’re here for Christmas! New outlet and light switch covers for the library because the old ones still have the ugly blue wallpaper on them!). Then I commenced with priming while he headed off to the hardware store. I managed to prime about half of the library and have a teensy freak out at what turned out to be (thankfully), a dead large spider, shower off all the paint in my hair from the experience, unpack the last of the kitchen stuff, and then break down the large stack of empty boxes in the downstairs hall, before Richard returned from the hardware store, loaded down with a gallon of Hawaiian Cinder paint (for the library wall), shelves and all their associated hardware, night lights, shelf pegs, and just about everything else on the list.

We took a break from the chore list to drive down to Vacaville for the monthly knitting group (and as usual, after lunch Richard headed off to Borders to do some writing). Considering the list of stuff I wanted to accomplish today, I would have been tempted to just skip it this month, but I needed to pick up yarn from my friend-with-a-yarn-shop to do a sample piece for her, and also I knew we both would need a break anyway. So I knit, and Richard wrote, and we both had a lovely few hours of no chores at all, and then it was back home to tackle the list once again.

Except on the way home we decided to drive through the outlet stores in Vacaville, because the last two times we have been at Richard’s parents’ house, we’ve seen some really nice new pieces of furniture and decorations that they said they got from The Bombay Store, which just happens to be going out of business. And by the way, they have an outlet in Vacaville. So we tracked down the store, and wandered around inside, along with several dozen other people who were also lured inside by the combination of “Going Out of Business” and “Everything 50% Off” signs plastered everywhere on the doors.

If anyone happens to be in need of a nice wooden jewelry box (the smaller kind that sits on top of your dresser, or the larger kind that acts as its own unique piece of furniture, get thee immediately to a Bombay Store outlet, because the store was swimming in them. Richard and I, neither of us the jewelry box type, passed all of those by and decided, instead, to focus on the furniture pieces still available. Back in the very back of the store, half hidden under a stack of boxes, and behind an assortment of desks, we found a beautiful wooden cabinet. The front looks like one of those old library card catalog cabinets, but it’s actually file drawers. We’ve been wanting a good file cabinet for some time now, but wooden ones are usually incredibly expensive (and rarely on this sort of incredible sale), and we’ve made do with those clunky black metal ones you can pick up at thrift stores and garage sales for pocket change – ugly and awkward, but functional. So needless to say, the beautiful wooden file cabinet came home with us (along with a very handsome sword-wielding nutcracker, to add to our collection, and some pretty decorations for the upstairs bathroom).

Shopping trip and awesome furniture score aside, we have managed to make a pretty good dent in the list for the day. When we got home, Richard glued down all the door transition strips, so there’ various heavy items holding them in place until the glue dried. He also installed the new shelving in the guest room closet downstairs, and then promptly filled it with all of our suitcases and all the guest bedding that’s been cluttering up the floor for the past few months. And while he was doing that, I gave the main wall of the library two coats of the deep brick red paint.

He’s off at the grocery store now (yet another item on the list of things we needed to do today) and I’ve got rice cooking on the stove, and a load of laundry in the washer, and all the ingredients thawing to put together some bean and cheese wraps for lunches for the week. After dinner, I suspect we will assemble our lovely new wooden file cabinet and do some furniture rearranging to put it in place under the window in the office upstairs. I will make the wraps, and also try to get a batch of yogurt set up, so we will finally have homemade yogurt to take for lunches again, and then, if there is time, and I am not starting to fall asleep on my feet, there will be just a little bit more unpacking, and maybe, just maybe, a few more ornaments put onto the tree.

I knew, even as I put the list together this morning, that we would not finish everything on it. But we’re getting there. Slowly, we are getting there. And that much is enough, for now.

Happy Holidailies!