Alone in the Mountains

I'm sitting out here on the back deck with my laptop and a fresh glass of iced tea, taking a break. I'm alone today, but definitely not lonely. When I was younger, I had trouble understanding the difference between the two words. But "lonely" hasn't been part of my vocabulary in years. And "alone" is a word I cherish on those rare occasions when I manage to get such time. The girls went rafting as part of a retreat with our church youth group and will be gone until tomorrow evening. DH is working a 24 hour shift. It's an absolutely gorgeous day here in North Georgia! The sun is out giving us a noon temp of 75 with a wonderful Spring breeze blowing through the trees. Life is good! :)

I got up this morning and stripped all the beds, washed all the linens and valances, packed away all the winter linen and pulled out most of the spring/summer supply. I say most because the new set that I bought last summer for the master bedroom has been stolen by gremlins! I swear, I've looked in every closet of the house and can't find them! How do I lose such things?? It simply must be gremlins because I can't come up with any other explanation! I vacuumed and washed all the window screens and opened all the windows of the house. Then I cleaned all the woodwork around the windows with Murphy's Oil Soap. Then I polished them up with Grandma's old kitchen recipe for woodwork. Geez, I love that stuff! I had all this done by noon! Isn't it crazy how I can get so much more done so quickly when I'm alone than when I have family "help" at home?!?

I don't have curtains anywhere in the house. Basically, I feel curtains take away from the wonderful woodwork around the windows and take away from the window views. So I use valances, scarves and over-the-window shelves throughout the house. On bedroom and bathroom windows, I have mini-blinds to give privacy. During the day they are up behind the valances; and at night they are down. It seems to work well for me, except during Springtime. I HATE cleaning the darned things! For today, I hung them up on the back deck, soaped them down with dishsoap and sprayed them down with the garden hose. But they don't get truly cleaned that way.
I've yet to find a good, efficient and effective way to do this. If any of y'all have any advice, please share!

Well, the dryer just buzzed. So it's back into the house to fold laundry and start on the bathrooms. I'll update y'all later this evening.