From The Home Office

The Smell of Sharpies is STUCK in My Nose and Brain

May 5, 2021

The Smell of Sharpies is STUCK in My Nose and Brain
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Our lives are completely upside down right now. Pictures off the walls, furniture askew, empty cabinets and drawers, and boxes EVERYWHERE (almost all of them recycled from several months of deliveries). Worse, I’m not sure I’ll ever get the smell of Sharpie out of my nostrils.

The packing started in earnest on Monday. I decided to get the worst part off my plate first. Mason’s closet… Despite the fact that we’ve only lived here for 11 months, his closet looked like a death trap. I opened the door slowly in case any loose items wanted to fall on my head. Then, I had Mason (almost 15) go get a box of garbage bags, empty boxes, tape, and the dreaded Sharpies.

Believe it or not, in just three hours, the closet was finished, as well as the rest of his room. Desk. Side table. Under the bed. Dresser. Everything was boxed up, taped, labeled, and stacked back in his closet. He decided he wants a new bed after we move (his is a repaired hand-me-down that has passed back and forth from our family, to our daughter’s, and back to us again) so he took apart his bed, and lugged the pieces to the dumpster. He says he likes sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I hope that doesn’t mean homelessness is in his future… (Don’t look at your screen like that. It was funny!)

He also took apart his drum set, and got that boxed up. He’s now living what we call “hotel style.” He has a duffel bag with a few outfits, a backpack for his computer, and a smaller backpack for his toiletries. Later that evening, we took five bags of donated items to Goodwill.

On Tuesday, I got caught up on work. Today (I’m writing this on Wednesday night), I packed up my side of the closet, my dresser drawers, my side table, and THE ENTIRE OFFICE. I feel like I accomplished a LOT but my back and legs are KILLING ME.

I’m getting some work done tonight so I can start packing up the kitchen tomorrow. We’ve done a great job of eating the cold stuff. The freezer is almost empty so we’ve had to get creative. For dinner tonight, I found a box of cornbread mix (score!!), and I pulled out three cans of beef stew (from our pandemic supplies), a can of ground beef (lots of fat in those – gross – I scooped most of it out), and a small can of mushrooms. I then pulled the rest of the carrots, celery, an onion, and bell peppers out of the fridge, sliced them up, and cooked them in olive oil. After mixing all of the above together, I pulled half a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, and dumped those in, and found some leftover small potatoes in the fridge. Plop, plop, plop.

It was actually quite delicious! Max and Mason LOVED it!! They all looked kinda scared when I started pulling random things out of the pantry and fridge but it worked out well. Each night, I tell them, “We gotta eat it all! Waste not, want not!! Isn’t this fun?!” They don’t think so…

The good news is we have leftovers for lunch tomorrow…except for the cornbread. Mason ate FOUR PIECES!! Teenagers…

We’re seriously running out of food and I want to put off getting meal deliveries for as long as possible. And, the more we eat from the pantry, the less we have to pack.

For tomorrow night, I found a wayward can of tuna in the pantry, some frozen, slightly-freezer-burned shrimp in the freezer, and three hot dogs and some Worcestershire sauce in the fridge. Hmmm…

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Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.

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3 Responses to "The Smell of Sharpies is STUCK in My Nose and Brain"

  1. Pingback: Rear-Ended by Leadfoot Leona in Alabama! | WritersWeekly.com

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  3. pamelaallegretto  May 7, 2021 at 3:34 pm

    I don’t envy you the packing and unpacking. But when I look at the photos of your view from your new home, I would say it’s all worth it. I am interested to read about what you cooked up with the tuna, freezer-burn shrimp, 3 hot dogs, and Worcestershire sauce.Sounds like a mystery ingredients food basket on the Food Network show “Chopped.”