Saturday - November 30, 2024

Both of our sons are in the middle of big projects.  A few weeks ago, Son #1 began to "tune up" the truck we bought for The Grandson.  He disassembled the thing and discovered it was gunked up something awful.  He cleaned all the parts and re-assembled the engine, and it wouldn't work.  No one is sure what happened.  He ended up buying a used motor to replace it.  This weekend's problem was getting the motor off the trailer.  He borrowed the "cherry picker" from Nanny's shop, only to discover that the hydraulic component was shot.  Yesterday morning, The Husband went out in search of a new hydraulic thing.  He was lunchtime getting back with it.

As soon as The Husband had eaten a sandwich, he went across the road to help Son #2 with his remodeling project - tearing out sub-flooring and shoring up floor joists.  They worked until 11:30 last night.

What was I doing all this time?  Babysitting the LRB and Granddaughter #3. Ten-year-old #3 had no problem amusing herself in my sewing room. (She has her own tub of fabric scraps.)  The LRB needed a little more attention.  We painted, read books, rode the rocking horse that Pop-Pop built for Granddaughter #1 almost 20 years ago.

The girls went home about 8:00.  The Husband and I cooked a frozen pizza, then he went back across the road to work on the house some more.  At 10:30, I went to bed, and never heard him when he finally came home.  

I hear hammering across the road.  Today's job will be laying floor covering.  I can probably help with that.

Brrrr! - November 29, 2024

We had Thanksgiving dinner at noon today with The Husband's extended family - his paternal grandmother's people.  Since the "old ones" died, the younger generation (now mostly in their 80s) seldom sees one another, but Cousin Gus throws a big stomp for this family twice a year - Thanksgiving and 4th of July.  It's always so good to get together.  Gus fried two turkeys and baked one.  His wife makes the BEST cornbread dressing.  Everyone brought a dish or two.  Mine were scalloped potatoes and a pecan cobbler.  

Mid-afternoon, we noticed that Son #2 and his family were across the road, working on the house, so we walked over to see if we could help.  #2 and Granddaughter #1 were in the process of tearing out of sub-flooring in this old house.  The Husband jumped in to help.  With the sub-flooring torn out, the house was cold.  My contribution to the renovation effort was to bring the LRB to my house.

Earlier in the week, I'd found a 24-piece jigsaw puzzle that I'd worked with the older granddaughters and thought to keep it out for the LRB, who will be 4 in a couple of months.  I showed it to her as soon as we got here, and she was gung-ho to try it.  We worked it three times before she got bored and noticed these guys atop a cabinet:

They have been around this house far longer than the LRB has been in the world.  She'd been asking about them for a year or so, but I'd always diverted her attention.  Yesterday, she insisted on knowing what they were.  When I told her what they do, she insisted on a demonstration.  I got the red one down, filled a cup of water, soaked the bird's head, and set him by the cup to do his thing.  We waited and waited, and finally he began to tilt toward the cup, but he stopped before he got there.  We waited some more.  He would not do it.  About 10 minutes had gone by when Granddaughter #1 came in and reminded me that one of the two birds hadn't worked right when she was a kid.  So I got down the green one, soaked his head in the cup, and set him down by it.  We all three watched with bated breath as the green liquid started to ease up the tube (the red one had done that, too), and when it reached the top and the bird flopped downward, the LRB let out a delighted scream (as only little girls can do!) that nearly busted all our eardrums.  We watched him do it a couple more times before the girls had to go.

They'll be working on the house again today, and it's COLD, so I'll go get her if they don't drop her off.  One guess what we'll do when she gets here.

I should go figure out why the red bird won't work.

 

La

Thanksgiving Eve - November 27, 2024

Monday, I went to my workroom long enough to load up three boxes of Phase 1 reports to bring home.  By 7 a.m. yesterday, I was sorting them on my kitchen table.  The table isn't quite big enough to get the job done, so the work branched out to the countertops and stovetop.  By mid-afternoon, the records had been sorted into A-B-C piles, but I didn't get around into sorting each pile alphabetically.  I put each pile into its own folder and stuffed them back into the boxes.  I'll get to them . . . sometime.

Over the weekend, my niece had brought me four jackets on which she wanted her company logo and department name embroidered.  I digitized the logo Sunday and started the embroidery process yesterday afternoon.  All went well until the last item, a quilted, tuft-y nylon vest.  After embroidering the logo, the embroidery machine tried to eat the vest when it started sewing the department name.  Part of the vest lining was wadded up (along with a bird nest of thread) between the throat plate and the bobbin.  I had to pry up the throat plate (hard to do when it's trapped under the embroidery hoop) and cut the thread nest out with a scalpel.  Luckily, I managed to do that without slicing the vest, itself.  The machine had embroidered half of the letter "R."  It took about an hour to pick the stitches out.  The embroidery machine had made a little hole in the nylon fabric when it jammed.  It might have been possible to re-start the embroidery process at the point where things went sideways, but I was afraid I'd only make it worse.  Since the jacket is tuft-y, the hole isn't all that visible.  Miss Niece will just have a logo without a department name on that vest.  Or wear a scarf.  ;)

Granddaughter #1 came home from college for Thanksgiving.  She (and her rescued dog) knocked on our door at 7:30 last night.  She and her family are across the road this morning, working on the house.  She knocked on the door at 7 this morning to borrow toilet paper.  It's going to be a long day of renovation work.

I should probably go across the road and see if the Little Rotten Baby wants to come to my house, to get her out of the way.

Lollygagging - November 25, 2024

I am lollygagging this morning.  Friday afternoon, I texted the dude who has been letting me in the building at 7 every morning and told him that I would not be there so early today.  All I intend to do once I get there is load up a year's worth of Phase I reports and bring them home to sort.  That workroom may not see me again until after Thanksgiving.

Yesterday after lunch, The Husband and Cousin David showed up.  David had asked The Husband to help him unload some furniture and then drive him back down here to pick up a car.  When they came in, I said to them, "I bet Son #2 would like some help with his renovation work."  David high-tailed it out of here. The Husband and I went across the road to help.

In addition to other remodeling, #2 is taking out two walls, opening up the front rooms of the house into one large room.  One of the walls had a brick hearth that went all the way to the ceiling (a wood stove once sat there).  #2 and The Husband sledge-hammered the bricks and hauled them out in a wheelbarrow.  While they did that, I took up carpet tack strips and staples from the floors. 

I do not have a single finger that doesn't have something wrong with it. Cuts.  Blood blisters.  Bruises.  Splinters.  These, on top of the arthritis and the sliced cuticles from the file job at work.  My hands are screaming, "Enough,already!"  

If I'd had good sense, I'd have worn gloves.

But nobody ever accused me of having good sense.  ;)

Sunday Morning - November 24, 2024

I did not sleep very well last night.  The problem was my hands.  They've taken a beating for the last few weeks.  

"Arthur" plagues my hands.  At work, reaching into tightly-packed file boxes, gripping the tops of as many files as I can (slicing my cuticles in the process), and tugging them out - that's hard to do with compromised grip strength and made my entire arms hurt.  Last week, I nearly ripped a mole off the back of my hand when it connected with a sharp corner inside a file cabinet.  Yesterday, at #2's house, I pried and hammered, sustaining a few lovely blood blisters and bruises.  Hauling broken tile to the trash gifted me with several cuts that are sore as heck today.  My hands throbbed all night.

This morning, I swallowed some Tylenol with my breakfast, gearing up for another day of de-construction.

Renovating Begins - November 23, 2024

Whew...the past few days have been a whirlwind.

Yesterday, I almost finished the file project.  There are maybe a dozen files on the table that need to be put in place, but all of the years are in the cabinets, and (hopefully) in numerical order.  The next job is to finish alphabetizing the Phase I reports.  It is getting uncomfortably cold in my unheated workspace, so I will be bringing these reports home to sort out.

After work yesterday, The Husband said he had agreed to help Cousin David with some chores this weekend.  I was a bit irked that he'd agreed to do it.  For one thing, Cousin David lives two hours away.  For another, Son #2 and his family are across the road, working on the house they just bought - tearing down walls, ripping out carpet, prying up tiles.  The Husband and Cousin David need to be helping them.

After The Husband left, I walked across the road and offered to help.  I pulled up carpeting from one room and pried up all the nail strips (that was a b*tch).  About the time I finished that job, Son #2 started trying to remove the tile from the kitchen floor.  That was a worse job!  Son #1 showed up to help, and we managed to get the tile off the floor with a sledgehammer and some pry bars.  Then we had to haul the debris to the dump - two trailer loads.

I am whipped!

I came home about dark and started a pot of taco soup.  It's simmering on the stove.  In a bit, I'm going to shower off the construction dust, have a bowl of soup, and call it a day.

A Big Day - November 20,2024

This day is notable for a couple of reasons.  

One, Son #2's family formally gains ownership of the house across the street from us.  The house is livable as is, if one could abide 1980s mauve carpeting in the main rooms.  #2's family of 6 (5 females and 1 male) (plus 3 dogs) has been living in a rental house with three bedrooms and one bath.  The house across the road from us has 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  The house has been added-to over the years, and so the arrangement of the rooms is a little weird, but it's kind of cool, too. #2 wants to move some walls and lay flooring and build countertops and stuff like that.  The house comes with a workshop and a few tools.  #2 is over the moon about the workshop.  :)

Two, I got some sh*t done at work today.  My daily goal has been to get one year's worth of records in the file cabinets and get the next year ready to sort.  Every day I've thought, tomorrow's going to be worse, but today I thought that the worst of the work might be behind me.  There are only a couple more years to go, and their volume is lower.  Besides that, I have become a number-sorting MACHINE and can knock out a pile of files in nothing flat.  2019 is in the cabinets, and 2020 is on the table, ready to sort, so at noon I said, Screw this," and came home.