Final Four Baby!

My alma mater, The University of Southern Mississippi, had a very good basketball team my senior year. I loved it. Not because I was in any way interested in basketball - or any sport for that matter, but because my three roommates were.  When they went to the games to cheer on the Golden Eagles, I would have the apartment to myself for up to three glorious hours. It was my own little nirvana.

Time goes on. Some things change and some things stay the same.

This year, Daughter's school, The University of North Carolina, has a very good basketball team. I love it.  This time it is not for the peace and quiet of an empty home - frankly, I get a little too much of that these days - but because I am actually interested in the sport.

I cannot really say how that change occurred. Honestly, with my natural competitiveness, it is weird that it has taken me this long to get onto the team sports bandwagon. And of course, here in The Triangle, the team sport defaults to college basketball.

We got to go to rounds one and two of March Madness in Raleigh. They were the first basketball games I have ever been to, other than the time California Boy played rec ball in the fourth grade. It was great fun, made even better by the fact that Carolina won both of their games.

Thanks to excellent coaching and team work, Carolina has made it all the way to the Final Four. Thanks to a friend at work, I scored Final Four tickets, and Yankee and I are headed to Houston. Go Heels!!!

Extreme Closet Make Over

Our under-the-stairs closet is a little over three feet wide by ten feet long. Large enough to fit at least two - maybe even three - orphaned wizard children comfortably, or in our case, tons of stuff that had not found a permanent home in the new house yet.

The previous owners' closet organization system, consisting of one lone 38" wire shelf with a rack for hanging things, was pretty poor. Our organization system of cramming our coats onto that rack while stuffing the rest of the closet with unpacked boxes, unhung pictures and a plethora of other homeless items was no better. Last week, I finally had enough of tunneling my way through the junk just to get to my coat and decided it was time for a closet makeover.

I started by pulling everything out which was similar to taking an air mattress out of the box. The stuff that was tightly packed into a fairly small space was now taking up the entire dining room, and just like an air mattress, you know there is no way you are ever getting it all back into that box/closet.

I have no explanation for the number of lampshades.

I pulled the lone shelf down and painted the walls with some light blue paint bought, but not used, for a previous project. Then I put up a Closet Maid organizer I bought at Home Depot on the long wall across from the door. I have two 48" poles going from it to the wall, giving us more than double the room for all of our coats. During this process, I did have to wonder how have people who live in a fairly temperate climate collected so many coats?  For me it is probably a style thing, and I guess Hubby is preparing for his dream cabin in Vermont.

This is where the lonely wire rack hung. Now there is room for photo albums, storage boxes, mail supplies, files and vacuum cleaners.

The shelf with the hooks was another thrift store find that I painted white. It is a great place for the take-the-dog-out coat, my picnic blanket scarf and the all important Georgia Bulldog scarf (both survived the great scarf purge of 2016).

I put up two shelves were the wire shelf had been. In the corner I placed a nice two drawer file cabinet that holds legal size files - very necessary for real estate agents - that I bought at the Durham Rescue Mission Thrift Store. Next to it was room for my two downstairs vacuum cleaners.

You can see in the photo that there are still quite a few unhung pieces of artwork stacked against the wall. That is a project for another day.

Before putting everything back, I purged - again. I was stunned to see some of the useless junk that made it up here from Georgia.  How many winter scarves do two people living in North Carolina need? Certainly not 17! I was able to cull down to nine. The same held true for mittens, wrist braces, entire packages of school photos (I kept about three for each year) and so on.

There was a lot of work, and a good week and a half of stumbling over the out-placed closet dwelling junk, but it was oh so worth it. If you are a person like me who loves nicely organized closets, drawers, cabinets and pantries, you know the feeling of joy I get when I open the door to this closet now.

Goodbye and Hello

I had always planned to trade in the mini-van when College Girl graduated from high school. Now that she is a second semester junior, I finally did it.

Sally IV

I hung onto the Debate Mobile (her legal name was Sally IV, but more on that later) for so long for several reasons. One was that she was a great car. At 165,000 miles, I never had any engine trouble with her, she was very comfortable and had plenty of room for all of my stuff. I just hated spending money replacing her when she was perfectly serviceable. The only issue with her was she was getting a bit long in the tooth so to speak. She had lots of driver-induced digs and scratches on the outside. On the inside the dash was cracked and peeled.

Reliability is important, but as a REALTOR, I need a car that looks good as well , so with I traded her in for this beautiful Acura RDX.

Clearly I have a type: I like my men Italian and my cars red.

It was a day of mixed emotions. I was could not believe how sad I was about letting the van go, but really it should not have come as a surprise. I had driven her for 12 years. The kids were in elementary school and middle school when we got her and now one has graduated from college and the other is not far behind. A whole lot of living went on in that car, and it is sad to see that era come to an end. On the other hand the new car is uber nice, so it makes the change a little easier.

The van's name was Sally IV. My grandmother called all of her cars Sally. When she died, I continued the tradition. But this new car seems to want a different name - Baby. No she's not a '67 Chevy Impala taking me and my sibling across the country to fight Supernatural beings, but I still think she's cool like that in her way. She can take my around Wake County selling real estate. It is almost the same thing. Although with a name like Baby, Hubby pointed out I can never park her in the corner.