Lots to do this week in preparation for my son and his family coming on Friday. This is always true, but this time I have to contend with the piles of stuff I have in the basement that accumulated as I have been simplifying. These are the things I did not want to keep and did not want to toss. They are give-aways, not to persons in particular, but to the new second-hand store that the Boys & Girls Club will be opening this summer. They are not yet ready to receive items to sell, so my stuff is in piles all over the basement. It would be a disaster if Chris’ kids got hold of it. So my task this week is to box and bag all of the stuff and hide it somewhere.
Add to that the usual cleaning down there and shopping for food.
When Bernie and I built our house it was our intention to create a simple living area on one floor and a guest area that could accomodate our most frequent guests, our family, on another floor. We put the guest area down instead of up because it was less expensive to build and less expensive to heat and cool. We even put in a separate entrance so guests can come and go without going through our living area.
The design has served us well for 15 years. Our children’s families have expanded to a total of 22 grandchildren and 2 greatgrandchildren. Sometmes we have more than one family here at a time and often they invite old friends and inlaw relatives while they are here. Two bedrooms and the family room down there are plenty if you have sleeping mattresses to throw around on the floors and bags of pillows and blankets to pull out.
My strategy is to do whatever I do to the basement before they come and then not go down there again until they leave. It all works.