I got up early this morning, mainly because someone has decided that, starting at about 5:30 every morning, she needs to ping onto the bed and begin an hour-long session of crawl-under-the-covers-squirm-out-of-the-covers-jump-on-the-windowsill-lather-rinse-repeat that comes complete with its own running commentary. She’s extremely cute and all she really wants is attention, and considering how amazingly far she has come in the last few years since we adopted her it is hard to be truly mad at her, but you know, sometimes it would be awfully nice to be able to sleep in late, without being hollered at by a tiny little tortie before it is completely light outside.

By about 7 I gave up and climbed out of bed and tossed one of the sparkly catnip mice on the bed to distract the aforementioned furry alarm clock, and then I went upstairs and opened all the windows to take advantage of the lovely cool breezes outside. I poured myself some coffee, and then I settled into my chair at the computer (where my lap was promptly taken over by a loudly purring Sebastian) and I spent about an hour or so catching up on blog-reading and the news, and listening to the world outside. The squirrels were in fine form, based on the sheer volume of skittering I heard, and the rest of the cats were studiously ignoring the squirrels because there were sunbeams to be sprawled in. It felt for a moment as if I was the only one awake in the entire neighborhood, until I heard a familiar sound and looked outside to see little boy who lives down the road being pulled rapidly along the sidewalk by his (mostly new) puppy.

It was nice to have a little moment in the morning to catch my breath, mainly because this has been a rather whirlwind sort of weekend. We climbed up into the closet in the guest room and dragged down all the remaining boxes of kitchen stuff, and either added them to the growing pile of stuff to donate, or found places to put them away. We rearranged the guest room, now that they no longer need it for staging, and you can now walk through it without having to sidle past boxes or random ceiling fans or chairs blocking the way. We went out and bought a towel rack for the upstairs bathroom, and curtain panels and rods for the dining room. Richard cut some narrow dowels for me and I cobbled together a (mostly effective) method for organizing the spice drawer underneath the range, that will do for now. We bought shelf brackets and shelves and installed the first set on the back wall of the pantry, and then promptly filled them all up. We dragged every remaining bit of renovation-related material out of all the places it has been living and corralled it either in a corner in the pantry, or in a box on the counter, and vacuumed up an assortment of tiny little screws and nails and random bits of wood and other related objects.

It all seems like such tiny little things, when I write it all out – but it’s been an exhausting two days. We rearranged the dining room so that (aside from the old fridge still lurking in one corner) it’s back to its usual layout. I made countless trips up and down the stairs doing laundry, or carting things out to the trash, or putting things away, while Richard dragged both bikes out of the carriage house and hosed off all the cobwebs and spiders and construction dust, cleaned out an area inside the carriage house as well so now we can walk in the door without having to fight through a thick layer of cobwebs and dust. We loaded up the car with a huge pile of stuff and dropped off most of it at a local thrift store, then came back home and promptly found even more stuff we’d intended to take but forgot about. We went to the huge farmer’s market under the freeway and came home lugging a canvas sack overloaded with white peaches and grapes and corn on the cob, red and yellow bell peppers, heirloom tomatoes in all different colors, sweet potatoes, onions. I decided to rearrange the living room furniture, and while Richard was hanging the new curtain rods, I finally sat down and glued the glass lamp shade back together, from when it fell, months ago, and two tiny pieces broke off. And then I went into the kitchen and chopped up all the peaches and made a white peach crisp, and while that was in the oven, I chopped up a potato and some shallots and some garlic and one of the lovely red bell peppers we picked up at the farmer’s market, and I put together another Potato and Corn Fritatta, to serve to my parents who came over for dinner.

There are still a myriad number of little things left to take care of, before the house is finally back to normal, and most of them still revolve around the kitchen. But my goal this weekend was to make a serious dent in all the cleaning and putting away and rearranging that has been in limbo for the past three months, and so I think it is safe to say that I succeeded.