Murphy's Law

We're getting our Christmas tree this weekend and decorating it and the house. We always have a few friends over to help us decorate the tree. When I was single, I had a party affectionately referred to as my annual Pre-Christmas Party the day after Thanksgiving. For years I had this party to kick off the Holiday Season. Then Don and I married and that was MY thing, not OUR thing. He discouraged me from continuing my "single tradition" and look for something that was more a "family tradition". We came up with the idea of a tree decorating party the year after we were married and have done that ever since.

So I've been working very hard this week at putting the house in order and preparing for the tree. I had tons of Fall decorations to take down and an even larger ton of cleaning to do. I always rearrange the living room so the tree is our focal point, so that had to be done, as well. Yesterday I got the kitchen floor scrubbed and the dining room cleaned up. Today I swept and thoroughly mopped the dining room, then laid a coat of wax on the hardwood in two separate section.

Wouldn't you know, as soon as I had laid down the coat on the section nearest the front door, the doorbell rang - a pecan customer. While the floor was drying, I sat in the kitchen and ate lunch, catching up on some correspondence I needed to read. No knocks on the door, no doorbells to disturb me. Then I move the dining room table onto the dry side and began work on the half nearest the kitchen, painting myself in, which was fine for me, because I prepared beforehand. I locked the front door, took my purse into the kitchen, and prepared to pick Daelyn up from school, when . . . you guessed it - the doorbell and another pecan customer.

While the floor has been wet, I've sold at least 20 pounds to about 6 different customers. In each case, I had to run around the house from the back door and meet my customer in the yard. The last gentlemen that showed up laughed when I told him of my plight and said,

"Maybe you ought to wax the floor more often. Perhaps that's what's attracting customers!"

That - and Murphy's Law.