The plan for today was to take the kayaks to Chatfield. We did that, detouring to the Apple store in the mall on the way because neither of us remembered the one directly on the way and remembering only when we arrived that someone who packed the car had forgotten our PFDs. (For once, the responsible someone wasn't me.) Violating state law there would have lasted about two seconds and, I'll have to check, cost us our kayaks. The boat rental area, which must offer them along with canoes and foul jetskis, was closed.
So we retreated, walked through the (our) park and up 17th Street to À La Tomate (which has been open more than eight months though not that we noticed until today) and had yummy sandwiches over newspapers, and came home.
Then I did tidying up stuff. The kitchen is winding down--we have only to paint the window sash, touch up the east wall/ceilng crease, rehang the blind, remount cabinet and pantry doors, replace scrim, and invent thresholds to cover border between newly finished floor and not--and I am so delighted that I accidentally on purpose prematurely put away supplies, which led to a larger project. I disposed of--in or near the dumpsters for the opportunistic or determined--crap that we'll never use, that was in the coal cellar or garage from before we owned the house and that we should have got rid of ages ago, and things that I wish could be recycled but which I haven't found a taker for. From the garage, four bags of Scott's lawn repair, scraps of real wood and lengths of particle board, many little seedling pots, odds and ends of kitchen tile. I stacked empty paint cans in the far corner for hazardous pick-up, sorted through odds and ends in the cabinet, stacked this and that better, used space more efficiently, and swept the floor. That leaves, after I bring the cardboard to recycling this week, only one thing in the car-space in the middle of the garage--one unstackable thing. But one thing is easier (for two people) and tidier to move in case of hail or blizzard. There.
Then I tackled the coal cellar. Useable segments are now not in the garage but the coal cellar with the remaining whole tiles; all the particle board and ugly shelving strips are gone; the painting supplies are in a box big enough for them so they don't spill out; gloves are clipped into pairs; brewing stuff is contained and off the floor; all the sanding stuff is together and all the plumbing; and sometime I am going to get RDC down there to tell me exactly which component boxes we still need to keep.
This winter, or Before My Mother Visits, I mean to refinish the much missed gateleg table. I would prefer to horrify her with a new cherry finish than with scars in the current mahogany (? so dark as to be nearly black) one. That needs to happen in the furnace room, which means that several of its denizens need to reside in the coal cellar for the duration, like the standing fans and the wet/dry vac and the coolers. And now there is room for them.
No kayaking. But I got to nest, or to clean my nest, and that's fun too.