Last day of vacation

Well, it didn't feel exactly like vacation today, but boy did I need this day off. Why? I have embarked on a zealous crusade to declutter every part of this house. I got the main bathroom done a few weeks ago, and today it was the linen closet. The linen closet! Which I hadn't touched in the entire eight years we've lived in this house and what an education it was. Dental floss! Emery boards! Useless scented soaps! Melted candles that I never bothered to replace! One of the things I learned? At one time in my life I was really, really into incense. If you want to know how much, come and buy some at the end of June. That's when we'll be participating in the Irvington garage sale. Hence the decluttering project. My goal is to get every room in the house decluttered -- including the garage -- by the weekend before the June 30 garage sale. So, yes, for the next month I'll be doing this every spare night and parts of the weekend I have. Tomorrow and Thursday nights: The hall closet and the dining/living rooms. With luck, those of you who visit us will actually be able to hang up your coats.

I did have a sad moment today packing up Rachel's baby blankets -- most of which were hand-crocheted and we just didn't get the chance to use. I ended up calling Mom and tearing up a bit. "Does this mean I won't have another baby?" I said sadly, to which she replied, very nicely, don't be ridiculous. Really, it feels good to have a leaner set of possessions even though the project took me ALL AFTERNOON. I thought I could get it done in, oh, two hours. And this was without taking a break except to talk to Mom. I rewarded myself at dinner with a glass of the excellent wine our friend Anne brought over last night (who would have ever thought I'd like cabernet? This one is FABULOUS). I grilled mustard chicken and make roasted potatoes, and it was a lovely meal to usher in summer. Which I'm sure we'll get around to one of these days once it stops being cloudy and cold and rainy. So all of you who have perfect summer weather, complete with air conditioning? Don't want to hear it.

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Rachel is busy talktalktalktalktalking these days. Mom had an excellent suggestion: Tell her to play with her imaginary friend in her bedroom. Great idea! Luckily when she got home from the science museum with Drew, she was perfectly content to color and play with her paper dolls in her room so I had time to get dinner going and finish the linen closet.

"I'm going to pretend yes is no and no is yes, OK?" Rachel asked at breakfast. "I have purple hair! Write that down!"

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I told Rachel the story of the half-eaten candy in our pantry in 8K (remember, Mom and Dad?) that turned out to be the likely result of a mouse that made its way into the apartment, gnawed open the bag of mini- Almond Joys and Mounds, and for some inexplicable reason just took one bite of each candy and then went onto the next one. Mom and Dad stuffed some steel wool into the opening of a pipe and told Daniella and me not to open the pantry door that night....and the problem was solved.

"What if a mouse came in and ate all our food and ate up all the tomatoes and the salad dressing..that would be a DISASTER!" Rachel said.

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One great thing about Rachel is that she really seems to have a deep connection to Valerie even though they've only met a few times. It's as if she realizes that Valerie is her only relative her age.

"Can we go to New York sometime and see Valerie?" Rachel asked at breakfast. "I love her as big as the city and the sidewalk and the whole school and the house. That's how much I love her. And the street! And all our clothes. That's how much I love her. She's not my cousin, she's my sister. SISTER VALERIE!"

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"Who's sitting in that chair?" Rachel said, pointing to the empty chair near the window next to the driveway.
"Your invisible...." I started to say.
"Elijah!" my non-Jewish husband piped up.
"Who is Elijah?" Rachel asked.
"Who IS Elijah?" I said, temporarily forgetting.
"Elijah is a prophet," Drew answered.
"Yeah," I replied. "And he's listening to everything you say!"