Cleaning out my cupboards

Sorry Eminem, but we say cupboards down here, not closets.

I know this diary is about trimming what's not needed from my body, and my life, but since I started it, I don't think I've actually got rid of anything.  In fact, I keep adding to it in various ways.  

Take this morning as a for instance ...

It's MeDay again and so I wanted to sit down and do some family history research.  I love doing that.  I spent yesterday with the Anti-Christ (Kristy, the third born) and we worked our little bums off going through some of our current research and reformatting it and finding out what's missing.  It's a complete delight for me to have a child want to share one of my hobbies.  Wonderful.  I can't begin to explain how happy it makes me when the Anti-Christ and I do this together and I hope all my girls get to experience that pleasure with their own children when they grow up.

Anyway... because I wanted to do that, I had to get my  'chores' out of the way.  We are having renovations done to the house and it's one of the most frustrating experiences a middle aged woman can ever go through, even more frustrating than trying to explain menopause symptoms to a male doctor.  Total fools all of them.  Wouldn't know a homicidal tendency if it hit them in the groin.  God knows why we bother even trying to explain anything to them, they should just shut up and hand over the drugs and iron their bloody shirts while they are at it.  Bastards.

Where was I?  Oh yes, the renovations.  Today is Episode 49 in the current round of tradesmen arriving, or not arriving, or arriving late, or arriving and finding a pickaxe waiting to chop through their skulls because they didn't call or bring the right tools, or they are dirty, or disgusting, or can't string two words together or, the worst of them all, they arrive in ironed black jeans with a crease in them.  I ask you... ironed black jeans with a crease in them and you want them to lay a concrete slab?  yeah right.... piss off back to the supermarket to buy more Fabulon because you sure as hell aren't getting this job.

It's meant to look like this

So I had to get the house ready which meant moving around the lounge room furniture to clear out the place to fit the new fireplace  in.  It's supposed to have already left the warehouse and be on it's way here.  So that exercise involved not only being a weighlifter, but also a cleaner to clean the hidden treasures that were under the lounges.... I found little reminders of life ..... stale CocoPops from one of Milly's spilt bowls, a couple of cryogenically frozen blowflies from last winter, a rolled up piece of alfoil from one of The Hindenburg's (Cassie the Wonder Cat) playful moments when she was doing her David Beckham impersonations, a kids book that I remember Cora I'm Not Tiger I'm CoraCurvyfromFaulconbwidge telling me she would hide so Yanya (her imaginary friend) would have to hunt for it, and a million dust bunnies.   It's a shame David Attenborough is busy doing whatever he's doing because I think he could make a show out of the underside of my lounges.

Dave the Plumber, is going to arrive this afternoon and maybe (I'm not really clear on this bit) he's going to install it.  Dave is also going to check on my digging and pipe exposing abilities which was my next task this morning.  You see, Dave has to replace some old galvanised pipe with copper pipe which will go under the new concrete slab before the slab is laid.  But, Dave didn't know which direction the old pipe went out into the yard so I had to dig it up to find out.  Something got lost in translation between me saying "I want you to do this job" and him saying "You'll dig up the pavers to find the pipe before I get here".  It was one of those moments that I just can't quite remember how I got here and because I feel rather foolish for allowing it to happen, I won't dwell on it.

So I had to dig up pavers, dig through sand under them, find the pipe, trace it's path and break nails doing it.

Not 4 inch roofing nails.  No.  My finger nails.

I did the digging job and finished the furniture removal tasks, hung out the washing, vacuumed the house, tidied up and then went into the bathroom to clean my hands and repair the nails.  Chipped nail polish is an awful look so I bent down to look in the bottom of the bathroom cupboard to find the nail polish remover and then I saw it.  An unused tube of a very nice hand cream.  I pulled it out and sat it on the basin while I fixed up the workman's hands dangling off the end of my middle aged woman's arms.  I kept looking at it and wondering why it was unused.  Once the repair work was over, I opened the hand cream and slathered it in.  It felt lovely and smelt divine.

I hauled my lard arse down onto the floor and went through the cupboard in earnest.  The pot of gold kept on spilling out potions and lotions and perfumes and creams and makeups; and most of them were unused.

I was surrounded by real tools, not the shovel, giant screwdriver and hammer I had been using earlier.  These were the real tools of middle age femininity. 

Memories kept coming back of Xmas and birthday gifts of these which prompted me to look in other cupboards and to find other exotic tools.

The Toolbox

I've never been one to go for a skincare routine other than the morning undercoat and decoration of makeup and then washing it off in the evening, but now, I'm so well armed with equipment that I have to use it. I've got a cure for everything from cracked heels to cuticle repair to hair treatments here and I've cleaned them all up and have dedicated a shelf in my study to all of them.

No longer will they hide their little squirty things in cupboards; now they will share the light of day with me and cure every single skin issue I have ever had.  Goodbye wrinkles! Goodbye age spots! Goodbye hard skin! Goodbye blemishes! Goodbye smelly feet!  Hello Extremely Moisturised and Gorgeousnessed Goddess.

And if they don't work, I'll hide them under the new lounge when ... sorry, IF.... it ever arrives.