Saturday morning I finished the last of the lace stole, and then I curled up with an afghan and a few cats and spent a few hours of bliss just reading, with nothing at all left to do. We pretty much spent the day indoors. And when we did venture out (to go for brunch), everywhere we drove there were piles of debris alongside the road, or people outside, cheerfully raking up leaves or dragging huge branches down to the curb. In our general area, at least, the only full trees down were small ones (although some of the branches that fell from the ancient elms that line the main road were large enough to be trees on their own), and even though it was obvious from the power company vehicles and the blinking lights at major intersections that power had not yet been completely restored, things looked pretty normal for the aftermath of a storm. I did get a kick out of the group of kids we saw, as we were driving home. While the adults were out, busily clearing out all the debris and dumping it in piles as trash, here was this group of kids, happily arranging huge palm fronds and branches taller then they were around the base of one of the giant elms, building themselves a rather impressive little fort.

Sunday afternoon we headed off to Ikea – mainly because it was the meeting place designated for handing over the lace stole to the woman who commissioned it – but also to wander around and ponder ideas for bookshelves downstairs again. Apparently Sunday afternoon is prime Ikea shopping time, because the parking lot was completely full and the place was packed. Even so, we managed to find a tiny little table tucked away in a corner in the cafeteria so we could eat our lunch, and the store is huge enough that despite the crowds, there was plenty of space to wander around and browse afterwards.

We ended up picking up a few things – a little throw rug for the downstairs bathroom, and a new coffee table to replace the ugly thing in the living room that has been steadily falling apart ever since I bought it in a garage sale about ten years ago, and some magazine holders for Richard. But then it was back home, where we sat down and made out a menu for the week to come, and then followed that with a shopping list, and then Richard went off to the grocery store to get everything we’ll need while I stayed home and made a loaf of banana raisin bread for Richard, and a loaf of oat bran molasses date bread for me. They were meant to be for breakfasts this week, but we ended up eating large chunks of each loaf for dinner Sunday night because they smelled too good to ignore.

Richard is working at home this week, which has worked out well for us because the contractor is back, and by the end of today we’ll finally have a sturdy new stair rail installed in the interior staircase (both our mothers will be happy about that), the rat-sized hole fixed in the attic, ductwork repaired, and new plywood flooring laid in the attic – enough (I am hoping) to provide space for storing all the Christmas decorations that we took down this weekend, as well as all the other holiday stuff that’s been cluttering up the closet in the guest bedroom upstairs.

We did, by the way, discover we had one small casualty from the storm. When Richard went out to start clearing up the back porch this weekend, he discovered that the force of the wind had popped out one entire window panel – frame and all – from the wall. Luckily there’s still enough stuff piled up in that little enclosed porch that the window could not fall, and so it did not break. Call it a rather interesting bonus of using the back porch to store all the clutter we couldn’t find places for in our frantic race to get the house ready for Christmas.