…or was today more like that “hoarders” show on tv?  I used to watch a BBC program where the hosts would make some poorly-dressed woman go through her closet and toss her favorite, beloved clothes “into the bin”.  I thought that seemed a little mean.

But I get it.  Self-improvement is a good thing sometimes.  At least around here, right now.

We’re getting rid of stuff.

When you see what I once considered to be worthy of bringing into my house, you’re going to laugh and wonder what on earth was she thinking????

Before I post pictures of the furniture I proudly–at least for a few years– displayed in my combo kitchen-dining-living room up (until 4 pm today, when Banjo Man surprised me by moving it down to the basement), I need to explain.

Just a bit of history, nothing to be afraid of.

About 15 years ago I went through a weird period in my life.  My two best writing friends’ husbands died within ten months of each other.  Two of the most emotionally damaged of my adopted children left the nest (one to a special school for disturbed teens, the other to a group home after a crime spree at the local mall), leaving those of us still at home bitter and exhausted from several years of unending stress.  My grieving friends, whose lives had changed so dramatically overnight, no longer brainstormed novels or looked forward to the next writers conference.  We huddled together, drinking gallons of coffee and talking about life while waiting for the storm of pain and disappointment to pass.

And then we discovered shopping.  Being thrifty souls, we prowled yard sales, thrift shops, auctions, consignment stores, church rummage sales, flea markets (even the famous Brimfield shows) and antique malls.  We would drive anywhere.  We would laugh until we couldn’t breathe.  Nancy taught us the secrets to garage sales (get up at dawn and run), Pat became the Queen of Salvation Army stores (Salle d’Armee) and I taught them how to bid at auctions and on ebay.

We gave each other the most wonderful and hilarious Christmas gifts.

We lured another writing buddy, Sharon from Massachusetts (in a previous post she was the gal in the pink socks riding a lawnmower who didn’t get to go to Scotland because her plane hit another plane on the runway) into going with us, so yard sale mornings turned into summer weekends of bargains and barbecues and general hilarity.   One of my finest purchases, aside from the guitar-shaped cake pan, was the upper half of a male mannequin.

On a whim one hot August morning I ripped up all of my blue wall-to-wall carpet and heaved it, yard by yard, down the steps to the back yard.   I pried up the edging strips, peeled away padding, vacuumed up 9 years of silt.   Why?  Looking back, I think I’d decided that day that future changes in my life should come from me, not at me.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Getting rid of the carpet was so satisfying that I found the “Junk Man” in the Yellow Pages (does anyone remember those?) and hired him to haul away worn out mattresses, dressers, desks, chairs and anything else that I didn’t need, didn’t like or was just plain tired of.  Including the massive pine dining room set and eight matching chairs.

I threw stuff out of windows, piled it in the driveway, sweat like a pig and cried.  Finally the Junk Man put up his hands and said, “Lady, you no worry about nuthin’.  Go sit down and have yourself a nice cold drink and letta the Junk Man take care of this.”

Thank you, Junk Man.  You were my hero.

Speaking of heroes….you should have seen my husband’s face when he came home from work that day and greeted his sweating, triumphant and dirty wife.  He carefully asked what happened to the carpet.

I pointed to the back yard, then waved my arm toward the empty living room and showed off the plywood floor.  “Doesn’t it look great?”

He suggested I take a shower and then we’d go out for pizza.  Over dinner he finally asked me where the furniture went.

It took three years to afford Pergo flooring.  In the meantime I painted the plywood white and eventually found a green and gold Oriental rug at an auction for $75.  One of my little rescue dogs took a shine to it (and not in a good way) so it didn’t last long, unfortunately.

The insanity continued.  Anything I liked I brought home.  We’re not talking antiques, though.  There were $10 bedroom sets, boxes of china or linens or silverware or pots for $1, a $5 quilt that was so smelly I had to wrap it in a garbage bag before Nancy would let it into her car (I washed it four times to get the nicotine stains out).  I washed so many vintage drapes from ebay we had to buy a new washing machine.  Garage sales were the worst, because with a couple of dollars in change we could fill the trunk of a car with things we didn’t know we needed.

I bought myself a pickup truck.

Whatever caught my fancy came home with me.  And as my shocked mother cried when she saw my latest acquisitions (the gold chairs), “There’s no rhyme or reason to it!”

That comment still makes me laugh.

I was the only one of us still coping with deadlines, up at dawn and writing 10-12 hours a day when I wasn’t searching for ruby-flashed glassware and vintage tablecloths.  I wore wrist braces to bed to counteract damage from typing and almost-daily migraines were just a fact of life.   Add nasty sessions in family court, ongoing conflicts with a bipolar teenager, college tuition payments, my beloved father’s death, writing 4-6 books a year and living with a surly 9th grade boy and you had a woman who needed a red-striped velveteen chair, boxes of unpolished silverplate and time with her friends.

It would take seven years for all of us to decide we had enough stuff.   But once a year we would have a “yard sale day”–which meant going to one yard sale, virtuously not buying anything and then spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing on Nancy’s porch–for old time’s sake.

This afternoon I bought a chenille sectional sofa.  All of the pieces match.  It is not bright mustard yellow or red striped or have white-chipped Shabby Chic paint.  It is new and doesn’t need Febreez.  I did not haul it home myself, because the furniture store will deliver it on Friday.  Now that I am 60 (almost) I may have finally crossed over into the Land of Good Taste.  And not a minute too soon.

My living room area is once again empty, except for a wicker couch (bought at an auction for $10, reupholstered by Banjo Man and covered with a $20 quilt from a flea market in Tennessee) and the HDTV.  The wicker couch is temporary, but it looks good in its new spot under the windows.

So here are some pics of what is going to the consignment store this weekend, if they will take it–the saleswoman at one place today turned up her nose when she saw these pictures on my digital camera.  Gosh, what a shock!

See the white chairs in the background?  Got ’em free.  Spray-painted them white.  Recovered the seats three times.  Painted an ugly dining table white.  I think their days are numbered.

The chair Banjo Man loved to hate and yet loved to sit in.

My two Frank Sinatras.

I’m hoping to get enough money out of the sofa to buy some sound equipment for the fiddle.  Wish me luck.

It has a marble top. I covered it with a round tablecloth most of the time, so it didn’t look too tacky.

And here’s the matching tacky coffee table. I think it belonged to Edith Bunker.  I always intended to paint it, but never got around to it.

I think I’ll tell the people at the next consignment store that I am cleaning out my elderly aunt’s 1950’s apartment.  It’s either that or admit buying this crap kept me sane.

p.s. the pie safe I’m keeping. where else would I put 83 vintage tablecloths?