...wee plant post...

I’m trying to write but I am so distracted. 

*whispers* spring is coming. 

Also, take a peep at the start of the spooky shed!

 

...this is not a post about the Weebles Haunted House or daybeds...

The Weebles Haunted House with a witch and a glow-in-the-dark ghost and two scared Weebles kids includes a revolving bookshelf with a secret hiding place, a trunk with bats, a chimney chute to drop the Weebles from the attic to the second floor, and, my favorite, a creaking door sound when the house is opened.

It was featured in the 1976 and 1977 JCPenney’s Christmas Wish Books and in the 1977 Sears Christmas Wish Book. Somewhere around that time, I received it as a gift probably from Santa. It was my first haunted house and my favorite childhood toy. I still love pushing the Weebles down the chimney chute and I still love the revolving bookshelf with the fun-house mirror on the other side. I love all the details of the décor from the cobwebs to the witch family portrait with their cauldron. I love the ghost in the mirror and I love the bats in the trunk. 

For more than a decade, I’ve been asking my parents if I could get my original version from their attic. They will; they promise.

The thing is, while my folks were always pack rats saving this and that, my mother is now a hoarder. I briefly mention it in a prior post and I feel uncomfortable going into detail here because it is a private matter; and, I do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Family relationships are complicated. My mother and I have a complicated relationship. I’m just going to leave it at that.

For over a decade, I also have asked for my college daybed. At some point from move to move, I left my bed at my parents. They never used it as an actual bed. It was always a place on which items could be placed. When I finally bought my own home, I wanted it for the townhome and I asked if they could clear it off so I could bring it to my place to use. They will; they promise.

Now, we’ve been in our house for over a year and I had hoped to move the daybed into my study so that my brother and far-away friends would have a place to stay that wasn’t the sofa. Finally, during the summer in a moment of *F-This! Why am I waiting?* I bought a daybed. I actually like it a bit better. My old daybed is a black iron bed and the back came to a gothic arch. It was the coolest daybed I had seen (in 1993) but it does take up a bit of wall space. This new one has more subtle gothic arches and the off-white blends in a bit better. It fits in my study where I do my course prep, crafting, and writing. It’s a small place that is somewhat tight now that everything is in it but I like it and it’s a place of my very own. I remember how my therapist cheered when I told her about the bed because it isn’t just about a daybed. It’s about removing some expectations and metaphorically cleaning-up some emotional baggage.

This leads to me to some point muttering to my best friend, whom I call Babushka, that the Weebles Haunted House was the last thing that I needed from my parent’s house. Yes, it would be fun to see my old, very loved Pound Puppy and the countless other toys that were saved but the Weebles Haunted House is something that I would want to display in my house.

So, Babushka being who she is, searched and found a near new Weebles Haunted House to give to me for Christmas. I cried not because I have a Weebles Haunted House to play with, which is cool in itself. But, Babushka understands the “wills” and “promises” and the baggage.   

In the end, when I am called to clean up the hoarded clutter, she will be the one who is there holding my hand, telling me it will be okay, not my husband who has never set foot in my childhood home. I won’t allow it. I didn’t grow up with the house looking as it does now and I don’t want him to see it like that. When I take pictures of the clutter that is up to the ceiling in my childhood bedroom, I send them to Babushka because she remembers what my childhood bedroom looks like. She was there; she will always be there. She promises.