Some laundry, a hammer, and tears

Cor this is really a washed out picture..full of characters that make up Miss Dunnit's year group and shots taken on Leaver's Day again. She actually leaves on Thursday after the last exam (History). A small party is in the offing; I share the school run and we're going to have a muted celebration; Mrs SchoolRunChum has another daughter at the school, so it's not all over for her just yet! I shan't miss the icy wintery journies; those country roads are bad for my stress levels in freezing temperatures, but in fine weather, really, it's the most glorious journey. I shall delve into my photo archives and see if I can share it with you. I'm sounding quite sentimental aren't I? Well you see, this morning, I thought I'd get a steal on the chores and squash in a couple of those housekeeping jobs that you have to do because you've put them off for so long they're actually becoming annoying. Oh yes, those of you who clean and maintain properly, regularly and possibly as followers of the flylady really ought to look away now. No pictures though, I have a little pride! Anyway, at the risk of exposing too much detail about the private life of an average middle aged couple, here I go: Mr Dunnit works in jeans, and T Shirts and sweatshirts embroidered with the company name; these are kept seperate from everyday clothes for reasons that suit us both, actually. For me, it's easier to pile them all in the same place (they're in the right hand drawer of the divan bed, on his side). For him, staggering around at Ohmygod o,clock every morning, having them literally at his feet is an advantage; getting dressed in the dark never throws up any embarrasments. Still with me? Our bedroom is now in the extension which is now 3 years old for goodness sake. And when we moved the bed, the cheapskate chipboard base of a drawer popped out at the back. You guessed it; the right hand drawer, on his side. So almost every morning for the past three years, the poor man has tugged the drawer open and slammed it shut. And woken or at the least, disturbed me. Now I know he could have mended it in a jiffy, but these are the sort of jobs that get put off around here. The sort that you just know will lead to other jobs that all have to be finished before the first, simple job can be completed. Oh yes. So this morning, I was putting away laundry. Tugged open the drawer and decided today was the day. I've had enough, at last! It was much heavier than I anticipated, considering it only holds a couple of dozen tops and some manky jeans at any time. And the reason for that is why it's taken me 2 hours of this morning to mend the drawer. All of Miss Dunnit's Primary school papers were in there. Art, projects, home/school diaries, reading records, SATS results, reports...oh, everything. It's been a happy but quite tearful morning! And there was stacks of stuff, which I must say has now been weeded a bit..a sample of art and stuff from each year. Flicking through the home-school diaries is such a revelation - shows me for the amateur first time parent I was, and the tolerance and goodwill of each teacher in turn really shines out from those pages; at each stage, her teachers have had nothing but Miss Dunnit's personal success at heart; a vocation, that. If you're a teacher reading this, thanks for going into teaching; truly you touch more than one life forever - my daughter's for sure, but ours too; we couldn't possibly have turned out this fantastic creature without your help. And the drawer? As predicted, it took some persauding with a hammer and of course, a bit of duct tape for surety, but overall, it was a five minute job. Now I should log off and go to the chores I was going to do. But, there's always tomorrow!