shimmer, shine, and glow!

Isn't it lovely?
I've spent a good portion of the day beautifying my couch and loveseat. First, I gently cleaned and conditioned the leather of the seat cushions, allowing ample time for each to dry before continuing. Also, I cleaned and conditioned the leather on the back of each piece of furniture, as well as that on the inner portions of the sides and front. The wooden armrests, outer sides, and front bottom were then cleaned and polished using the specially treated cloth, fresh from its protective bag.
I did all of this using the Guardsman products supplied with the furniture...back in 2003.
No worries, I have plenty of the liquids still! You see, I probably haven't done this in six years.
That was the last real party I had here. Yes, indeed, back in February of 2008. I had invited quite a few women to the house, some family and close friends, others who were on the fringes of my social circles.
Why?
Well, "a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do", to quote my BFF. And to do what she's gotta do, a woman needs the proper tools.
(wink, wink, nudge, nudge!)
Yes, my first social event as a divorced woman was to host one of those parties! Pure Romance was the group that my friend Amy had recommended and, after perusing their online catalogue to check out their selection, I agreed. It had been many years since I had shopped for toys, but I well recalled what I had liked back in my single days.
I had wanted to make a good impression on my guests, so I had spruced up the house.
Now, I was hosting the December Family Gathering, as I am calling it, and I feel the need to spruce up the house again. Admittedly, I tend to let things slide in the housework department. Sure, I sweep and wash dishes and do laundry and change the air filter every other month... but not much else.
Honestly, with just me here, the house doesn't suffer from neglect except for an occasional build-up of shed hair in the hall.
I have good habits to minimize the need for constant cleaning. My shoes usually come off as I enter the front door, so that keeps down the dirt input and the tracking-in off outside components. I wipe up spills as they occur, so no unsightly or sticky puddles are left to stain the floor.
There isn't even much dust! I'm generally the only one here to shed skin cells and I have no pets.
So, I'll be going through each room and spiffing it up prior to the pre-Christmas Gathering in three weeks. I probably won't do much with the pantry, but I don't expect folks to hang out in there, n'est-ce pa?
But the living room is ready and waiting!

cleaning up

For the last few years, I had said that when I turned 50, I was going to learn how to play the drums. After I filed for divorce, when I was still six or seven months away from my 50th birthday, I needed SOMETHING as a distraction. A very good friend, who happens to teach music in a local middle school, decided to help me by scouring the ads for an affordable set.
Well, before a couple of weeks had passed, he'd found me some: the Black Hawk kit shown here, complete with three cymbals (with neat names like "Crash" and "Ride" and "Hi-Hat"). No snare drum, but he found one of those for me the next week. The drums and cymbals had been sitting in a garage for some few years (since the guy was in high school; his dad told him they had to go NOW). I spent some time taking them apart and cleaning them up, removing and trashing the mildewy pillows inside the bass (to muffle the sound for the neighbors), removing tarnish from the cymbals and shining them back up, using a bit of Superglue to re-attach some of the hardware. it was a bonding experience for me and the drums. Every once in a while, I'd even put on some Robbie Robertson and try to drum along!
After I got them in a serviceable condition, I bought a "learn the drums" dvd and set about finding my beat. Well, that was sure easier said than done! I was expecting something that would teach me when to hit which drum, when to add a little crash or ride, what part of the drumstick. No. The tutorial assumed I would just pick up on that, I guess.
I even attended a workshop/concert at a local music store, at my friend's invitation. The event featured Will Calhoun, the drummer of the the former, and now again touring, band Living Colour. He gave an incredible performance, amazing to hear AND to watch. WOW! I even bought his CD, Native Lands, which I'm listening to as I write. The sounds that man could make! Not just with drums and cymbals, but with other objects he had incorporated into his repertoire and converted into musical instruments. What an inspiration!
I was definitely inspired and set myself a schedule for practicing on my drums. Unfortunately, my inspiration didn't persist. I was still very unsure of just WHAT I was supposed to be doing. How to know which drum to hit??? How often? How to coordinate with the foot pedals on the bass and the Hi-Hat?
How to coordinate, indeed. I'm a bit of a klutz, as most anyone will confirm. Trying to get my feet and my hands to work at different speeds, on different items, in some synchronized manner... well, it just wasn't happening. I didn't have the patience to try to teach myself nor the funds to take lessons. And so the Black Hawk kit found itself being used as furniture: an end table here, a luggage rack there, a nightstand. The cymbals met a worse fate, sitting closed up in a closet to keep them out of the way.
No more. I had found them on Craig's List, and back to there I went to seek a new home for them. The first two contacts were a bust, but the third, as they say, was the charm. A young man was wanting to take up the drums. He was already accomplished on the guitar and was wanting to start a band with a friend... who also played guitar. I sold him only the Black hawk set, just as I had bought it, albeit quite a bit cleaner. I even gave him the package of drumsticks, a few drumming books, and the instructional CD I had purchased for no extra charge. I imagine I could have asked for the same sum for which I had purchased them, but, as I told him, I knew I had gotten at least $50 worth of entertainment from them and was glad to have the drums go to someone who would use them.
(I'm not really sure why I held on to the snare drum. It came in a travel bag, so it stores quite nicely on a shelf, out of sight for now. Maybe I'll learn how to be a gypsy jazz drummer. That would certainly be more my speed: only one instrument to operate, with no need to coordinate my hands and feet!)
Since then, I've been selling off a few other items that have been collecting dust around here. I started with some books that Daddy had read, then some movies that I had watched and decided that I did not need to own. Then, I was going through my music collection and realized, with a start, that I hadn't listened to some of those artists for YEARS. On to the eBay marketplace they were posted... and many have since literally been posted off to new homes! To date, I have sold more than 47 items! That's right, at least FORTY-SEVEN "things" have left my abode! Actually, the total is even better than that, but I've had 47 "positive feedback" reports filed on me, so I know that many of the items were well-received by their new owners. Fly Lady would be so proud of me! And I'm pretty pleased with myself, too.