8/16/10 I'm Like An Old Leather Couch

How am I'm like an old leather couch you ask? Let me tell you...

I often 'get a bug up my butt' and start 'projects'. I'm always working on a 'project' around the house (DD looked at me last night working away and then looked at her Dad and said 'What makes her get up in the morning and say 'I'm going to label that closet or redo the couches today? She's always starting a project!').

After our company left this weekend I took a deep breath and realized that although summer had just begun for me a few short weeks ago, it was now almost over. I realized that for the first time this summer that I have nothing on my calendar for the next two weeks...OK, I've got two kids to get ready to go back to school, but other than a day trip 'drop-off' at college this week, I have no trips away from home for two weeks...I haven't had that since February.

So how did I celebrate this moment...I took that deep breath and realized that I'm looking forward to September and getting together my book proposal to start sending out...and then I realized that because I've been gone so much of the Summer I needed to get caught up on a few projects that need doing (and so I won't feel guilty about focusing on the writing).

First, I cleaned out my 'closet cabinet'...it's a deep cabinet in my kitchen that holds a ton of stuff and every time I came home from Mom and Dad's with kitchen stuff from their house I shoved it in there...with company here this weekend I couldn't find anything in there...well, you know my 'almost OCD' wouldn't allow that! Yes, I have a label maker and I'm not afraid to use it!


Then I was on to my leather couches. We have two twin couches in the Great Room that I've been neglecting for a long time...they're about 8 years old and besides the yearly leather treatment they needed, they were now at the point where they needed an 'intervention'. We went to the store to get my supplies and then I went to town. I started with one couch...used the leather cleaner...stitched up any places where the baseball stitching had come undone, ironed patches on any rips in the thin fabric (bottom side of the cushions), opened the cushions and put in new batting and added new fiberfill to the cushions, and conditioned and buffed the leather.


Here's the funny part...after all that work...

...my family is complaining. Apparently, they loved the 'old' couch(es) and it was 'soft', 'comfortable', 'wrinkly', 'relaxed' and 'cushy'...and the 'new' couch is 'overstuffed', 'hard', 'huge', 'stiff', 'awkward', and 'uncomfortable'.

As I fell asleep last night it occurred to me that all those adjectives described the new and old me's as well...I'm now unstuffed and oh so comfortable, relaxed, and wrinkly...I'm like an old leather couch you love...I'm back to my old comfortable self.

Oh, and I'm on to the second couch today...the family will just have to suck it up and do the 'work' to get the couches comfortable again...I'm sure with a little time and hard 'work' they'll both be back to their old, comfortable selves again in no time.