Thoughts on Cleaning Closets and Bing Crosby

It's been a busy week around here. We're really trying to clean out all of the excess junk that accumulates when you live in the same house for fourteen years. I tackled our bedroom and closet last week! Yay! Even managed to bring down boxes of stuff to send to a thrift store or somewhere. This week's project is the large walk-in closet in the TV room. This is a big job, since it's the only closet of any decent size in the house. All of the hang-up clothes are in there --- not to mention all of our old board games, puzzles, toys and Playmobil. I spent yesterday afternoon up there and managed to clear out a decent chunk.

Elizabeth and I have two oval pictures (in the typical convex frames) that were our grandfather's. They are hanging in our bedroom, but one of them came to us without the glass. Well, it's great to get into the far corners of a closet! I had a similar frame packed away in there (for a felting project that I didn't do), so I was able to take the glass from that and put it onto Grampa's picture. That is something that I've wanted to do for a long time. It's a nice feeling to get little things like that scratched off of the "to do" list.

Our church had a "clean up" day on Saturday. Dad went over around 9:00am to spackle the walls in the sanctuary. The three of us followed a couple of hours later. We were in charge of orchestrating  lunch for the workers, so I spent some of the morning making biscuits to go with all the soup. Dad got about half of the walls done, so he and I are going back this weekend. While he spackles the rest of the walls, I am going to take some wood cleaner and polish to some of the furniture and fixtures.



We've been watching through the first season of Green Acres and the fourth season of Wagon Train over the past few weeks. Both shows are really good, and it's a nice way to get your mind off of closets and bedrooms. We did manage to watch an actual movie on Sunday night. It wasn't a film that is up our typical alley, but we'd seen a number from it and wanted to try the whole thing. The movie was The Country Girl, starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and William Holden. Grace Kelly is Elizabeth's favorite actress, so she was thrilled to see her in her only "non-glamorous" (and Oscar winning) role.

Bing has always been my favorite singer. I don't remember a time of not loving him. Loving his singing, I mean. :) His movies usually have fabulous songs, but the stories tend to be not much more than vehicles for the songs. Bing doesn't usually get much of a chance at acting or playing anything but himself. He won an Academy Award for his role in Going My Way, and you can see why! He's great, but he's still Bing Crosby. The Country Girl really surprised me, because the quality of Bing's acting was beyond anything that I'd have guessed for him. He ran the gamut from laughing to crying --- and he was totally convincing every time. William Holden did a fantastic job, too. I would have given the Oscar to the two guys, myself! So, while the movie isn't exactly the type that I like or would re-watch, it's amazing to see Bing's talent in a showcase that perfect.

Well, got to get back into the closet. More later!