Let the dust settle...
There’s something to be said for neglecting housework, or not doing any at all. You lessen the odds for breaking things.
For the first time in months I breathed a sigh of relief that my mother wasn’t heading to the ER, on her way to rehabilitation for an extended stay, hospitalized for a procedure, or following up with a doctor appointment. I thought I’d take advantage of a temporary lull by deep cleaning her room above and beyond routine maintenance conducted by the staff at the assisted living facility.
The oft-used expression, “no good deed goes unpunished,” comes to mind.
My mother’s room and adjoining bath accommodate all the amenities of home within an area roughly the size of a 9’ x 12', two-person prison cell. The room itself, minus the clothes closet and double-hung window, is a holding cell for a hospital bed, cedar chest, armoire, and bureau. A plenitude of framed family photos adorn the walls and vie for viewing on the level surface of each aforementioned piece of furniture.
Making progress along my tour of duty, I brandished a feather duster to make contact with photos out of reach on the wall behind the bureau. In hindsight I should have left well enough alone, allowing dust to settle. Overzealous in one of my swipes, I accidentally dislodged one of the 8” x 10” photos from the wall.
Crash boom bah!
From what I could discern by dropping to the floor, wedging my body between the bed and the bureau so I could peer beneath its scalloped bottom—broken beyond belief!
Sigh! At that, a gal can’t catch a lucky break!
Besides fragments of glass to pick up, a tedious task unto itself, half of the splintered frame in the shape of an L landed like a horseshoe around the rear leg of the bureau. Given the space I had to work with, prying that sucker loose posed a challenge requiring the dexterity of a contortionist.
Home is where you hang your hat—or, your photos. There’s no place like home without a little fairy dust sprinkled amongst family and friends.
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Sandie :)
In this case, as luck would have it, it was a case of overzealousness that brought that glass picture frame down. You can be excused for that. Happens to us all. I'm sure that you got every splinter of glass so that your mother would never cut her foot in that room.
As far as a "break" from routine, I think what happened was par for the course. ;-)
Ron