If sadness has a scent, for me it would be one of dust, and withered lace on delicate dresses.

I just spent four days clearing out my hubby's childhood home. Both his Mom and his aunt are alive, but in nursing homes (for different reasons). Anyway, we needed to clear out the house, and quickly, for some work to be done there.

Four bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and four - count them, four - metal sheds, all crammed with stuff.

And dust.

Not to mention the closets. It's enough to make the biggest hoarder want to clean house.

A highlight of my trip was seeing my writing buddy Greg, though to my embarrassment I wore my housecleaning clothes instead of my "see friends" clothes - I guess that's what comes of being thrilled that a new 40 cubic yard dumpster had been delivered at 5am, and tossing clothes on to throw stuff away. At least they were semi-clean. (The clothes, I mean.)

The other highlight of the trip was eating out every night. Saturday was chinese/thai/vietnamese food; Sunday was mexican, and Monday was italian. Yum. Tuesday was plain ol' American, at Sonic Burgers. And spending time with my BIL and SIL was wonderful, too - probably the most time we've spent with them, all in a row, in a decade or so(before kids). In retrospect, it was a fascinating four days. But I don't want to re-live it any time soon!

At times, I could swear I was turning into a withered thing of dust - my hands grew dry and cracked, my mouth and throat dry, dust in my nostrils - not even a shower fully revived me. I'm thinking there's a sugar scrub in my very near future.

And for those of you who don't know - two cups sugar, one cup of any type oil (I like baby oil, but olive oil or grapeseed oil or almond oil also work), mixed together - then rubbed on all the parts of your body (in the shower, but out of the spray). It exfoliates and moisturizes, all in one step, without being outrageously expensive.

And hopefully will deliver you from feeling like you're turning into a dust bunny. Because aside from the name, dust bunnies are NOT cute.

Ever.