When Work Comes Home....

 Hubs and I both work for the Post Office. It has its ups and downs, for sure.  And it has changed dramatically over the years. Back in May we took some time off together to go to the Brimfield Antique Fair, an enormous nationally known flea market, that has been the backdrop for several shows on HGTV. I went with a few things in mind. Quirky things.  I wasn't looking for a deal per say, but definitely for a few affordable items that I could craft into something else.

Hubs found some unique birdhouses made of old license plates and another chainsaw carved one made of cedar. I found an old glass 5-gallon water bottle, now turned "swear jar" that sits full of change in our living room. And this...

An old bank of PO boxes, that my husband, God love him, carried a quarter mile back to the truck for me. Shortly after we returned home, the shed project took over everything and alas, the boxes sat in the garage for months. I'm pretty sure the husband thought it was going to sit there forever. Until one day when I had a few moments of time, some spray paint, and sheet of maple plywood...

(Please ignore the dirty siding on the garage.  We just haven't precured the pressure washer from my Dad yet.) And then the box sat for some more time, until I figured out what exactly it wanted to be and could afford the maple to do it.

Hubs thought the top looked like butcher block cutting board. While I agreed, I wanted it to have that older rustic look, so I completely ignored him and moved on. It definitely needed a more chunky look..

See.  It needed to be chunky. It also helped that I had it on a creeper board that I could roll around when no one was home to help me pick it up. Then it was time for stain....

I have no idea what color I ended up with.  I was all over the place with it.  But it was coming together. The legs I bought for it are 6-inch brass legs. They overhang the sides for an art deco look.  Most important, they can hold 500 pounds.  Because when this sucker was done, it was HEAVY. Thankfully, they arrived from China a month earlier than expected.  Note:  I specifically bought them from Etsy, as I am anti-amazon, and yet, they shipped from China, not the US, and arrived via Amazon.  *sigh*

Anyhoo...

After the stain and poly was fume free, it made its way into the house, where I redid the numbers with my Cricut machine. I had keys to only two of the boxes, so two locks are still intact.  Rekeying them all is far too costly, so I am getting magnetic closures for the rest of the doors, mainly so the cat doesn't take up residence in one of the boxes, as they are the perfect hidey holes. I'll keep a bottle or two of wine in there, but as I'm not much of a drinker, the rest will house cords for the TV, and other miscellaneous stuff that kicks around the living room. 

It's one of my new favorite things.

Can't wait until next May when we return to Brimfield... imagine the possibilities.

Building Walls Of Cardboard Boxes...

 Youngest's house hunt is not going so well.  Truth be told, I'm not really sure how hard he's trying.  He's out in the garage with friends, clearly getting ready to do... something. He rushes in, asking for something that he can't find.

He proceeds with more attitude as I'm putting on my shoes to go find it for him, rambling on about how I shouldn't be moving his stuff. The same stuff I moved THREE months ago, after giving him 4 days notice that his grandfather was coming, and the entire garage needed to be cleaned up, and accessible so we could get in there for tools and not break or damage any of his stuff. He did not in fact, do any cleaning, so I moved all his stuff into boxes and stacked them neatly in the back of the garage, three months ago.

I find the item in less than a minute. It's in the same box he left it in, along with some of my higher end kitchen stuff, now destroyed, that he has commandeered without permission, for his many projects. Irritated, I return to my Hallmark movies inside when the flurry of texts come in.

Now furious and frustrated, I go outside and tell him to be an adult and talk to my face instead of passive aggressively sending texts. The yelling starts.  He heads into the kitchen to clean something and drops it in the sink.  Before he breaks the other dishes in the sink, I tell him to get out.

He starts packing up the garage. He thought I meant to move out, not get out of the kitchen before he broke something. Voices are high.  We are both exhausted and frustrated with each other. Now he's packing to move out, with no place to go, but can't save face and settle back into staying, even though he's been told that that was not what I meant.

It takes him hours for pack it up and stuff it in his car.  One friend has to walk home. 

He has nowhere to go. he's undoubtedly going to couch surf with far from reliable friends.  The entire encounter was somehow different than others. Our heated exchange never got out of control, perhaps because we are just too tired for real emotion. We have done that too many times now. Just two hours before we had a productive conversation about his next steps. Now, my stomach feels as if someone has ripped half of it out.

He returns later, says nothing, drops off a backpack, picks up another box. 

He doesn't return.

We leave for work this morning, my stomach still in knots. It hurts to breathe.

I check the cameras, he's returned to get another box from the garage, which is still full of his stuff, and grabs the backpack.

The entire thing is heartbreaking. My brain says it's time, my heart is broken. Perhaps if he had an actual place to go, I would be better, maybe even helped him pack. Because in all the back and forth, he has not taken any clothes.

None.

Not even his toothbrush.

I'm not sure how one moves out without their underwear.

But if there's anything I know for sure, it's that if anyone can do it, it's my son.

*sigh*

If he doesn't return before the weekend, I will clean up the mess, boxing up all the rest of his stuff and putting it aside, so undoubtedly, he won't be able to find anything. 

Irony at its finest, I guess.