Last Friday after work, I embarked on a little decorating spree that lasted through Saturday evening.

Around noon that day (Friday, I mean), I received in the mail a pair of vintage McCoy wall pockets—two sunny yellow ceramic flowers that I’d ordered off eBay. I was very excited. As soon as my workday was over (I’m still working from home), I ran into the sunroom to hang them in the gaps between three gold-framed photos under our big dragon-boat carving on the main wall. I’d been pondering those gaps for months, wondering how to fill them.

After the cheery wall pockets were up, I cleaned the whole sunroom from top to bottom. I even dug out some fun vases to add a bit of pizzazz to the bare marble table by the back door. But when I ran outside to gather flowers for the vases, I fell into a familiar predicament: I couldn’t bring myself to pick even one! I ended up making bouquets of anise leaves instead. Ha! It never fails; I always feel too sorry for my flowers to disturb them.

The decorating continued on Saturday, which saw me up before dawn making improvements to the back bedroom. Earlier in the week I’d bought an antique spool cabinet at Memory Lane Antiques in Tallahassee, and it was waiting patiently in my closet for setup. I got it into position on top of the chest by the door and started filling its six little drawers with various thrift-shop treasures—a celluloid fan, a rhinestone brooch, a beaded coin purse, etc. Then I rearranged all the room’s pictures and knickknacks, which was very satisfying, like working a puzzle. I cleaned the whole room, then moved on to the breezeway.

The breezeway was so filthy that I had to enlist Rob’s help in the cleaning. The main reason the breezeway gets so dirty is that it’s our cats’ favorite hangout—and, as Rob says, only partly joking, “cats are disgusting.”

We mopped and scrubbed for about four hours as Rob sang a modified version of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” substituting the names of our nine cats for the names of the reindeer. When the floor was finally clean and dry, we unrolled a colorful new rag rug that I’d ordered off Amazon. We’d moved all the furniture outside when we started cleaning, and we gave it all a good washing and/or dusting before moving it back in. Then we dressed up our rickety table with a brand-new tablecloth.

The cats had been hiding during all the ruckus of cleaning, but now they emerged to check out the new rug. They loved it. They rolled on it. They scratched it. They curled up on it. They napped on it. Every single cat in the house had to try out the new rug.

“Aww, there’s nothing like a new rug, is there, babies?” Rob said.

I asked, “Did I do a good job with my purchase, kittens?”

Leroy replied in the affirmative by rolling onto his back on the rug and exposing his cute, pink, peach-like tummy.

As Rob petted him, I went out to pick more of my dumb, flower-less anise bouquets. I had quite a few vases to fill on the breezeway.