Friday, May 09, 2014 @ 10:55 am
Good morning … we are just stretching out our fingers here. We’ve been working on being more conscious of our time and we’ve reinstated doing the household routines again. I’ve got a few things left for this morning and it’s almost 11 am, but still considering that “Pretty” good just not great yet. It took me until about 9:30 am to start … We’re still looking for a 7-8 am start, but not feeling the love there yet. *sigh*.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve been sharing our blog space lately with entries double posted not only in OUR blog, but as well posted at Katherine’s blog for her Animal Psychology Center (APC). Not all our posts will go to APC, but the one’s concerning our adventure with the new dog will be there. We’ve got three posts there already. Maybe we’ll do another early next week if not some time on Sunday. We’ll see.
We might talk more about these posts later as a summary, but not quite yet. We’re just sitting down and getting used to the keyboard again. I know - I know … I am ALWAYS on the keyboard? Well … it IS different doing a blog entry versus messing around with whatever and what not. Who knows, right?
We have been working this week since we posted the last dog blog entry on maintaining the routine we have had in the mind map. This is a bit of a challenge, but it looks good. So far we have showered, dressed, made bed, taken medicine, picked up surfaces, done dishes, and checked dirty clothes. I still have the litter box, garbage and steaming for the morning chores, and then for the afternoon, we have FLOOR CHORES! Ok, that exclamation mark might have been a little sarcastic. BOOO-BOOO…
Afternoon is really about maintaining mood set from the morning PLUS the addition of floors, but I have to tell you I am grateful now of the nice breeze coming in from the front. WooHOO! It should make things better. I think I’m going in the order of sitting room, kitchen, living room, sunroom and then bedroom. I also have to add on guest bath … that be the good Gramma thing. The think about this all is that I SHOULD also be cleaning the kitchen floor meaning using the Shark to wash and shine the floor. I’ve always got this vision of Austin in his socks sliding across it … he does this thing where he is like riding a wave. *Giggle* I don’t want him to get stuck! That be a BAD Gramma thing J
I wish I could think of something particularly interesting for him this weekend, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. We’re going to have to wait til late before he comes over because Rich has a birthday party with his 50+ year buddies. Fortunately, it starts at 3 pm, so will end earlier and he’ll stop by on the way and pick-up Austin around 7-7:30 pm tonight. I don’t worry about Rich drinking … he ALWAYS has diet cokes.
Most the time we’re with Austin there is not a real lot of outside things happening and most the time and attention goes to talking or being on the computer. We did cheat a little and get a Kentucky Fried Chicken lunch out for tomorrow, but I don’t know where I could take him that would be fun for him and something within my ability range. I’m not sure if he’s riding his bike anymore, but I think it’s probably not going to happen. Last time it was a no go. Maybe if we could … mean the weather is fine … we could just sit out for a while on the front patio WITH our computers THAT might almost count as an outing. Just guessing neither he NOR I really get outside too much. I think it’s going to be raining now until Tuesday, but over the weekend the temps are 75 – 77 degrees. Monday is a little warmer, nice on Tues. and FREEZING on Wed at 59 degrees BLAH!
Just that when it’s raining it isn’t always raining and the patio stays relatively dry. The second alternative would be to spend some computer time in the sunroom. Pretty much both Austin and I don’t sit down without some kind of computer. My chrome book bit the dust this week, and when Austin finds out he’ll say, “Naturally, it was a crummy computer!” I do know THAT much about Austin! He was right of course last time he told me, but now I’m just making his case … BOOO… So over the last couple of days we’ve really been leaning on either our phone OR Rich’s Kindle. I know not the same thing, but in a pinch it will work, and FORTUNATELY I still have the old standby STANDUP computer – WITH/Two screens. Yup-yup the screens seem more of the computer than anything, then keyboard, then mouse, and then I like NEVER think of the CPU unless we have to plus something in with the USB. Ok, yes we’re into obsessive detail already. Maybe I better go do the next task, BRB.
AHA! More crossed off the list. We at lunch, made tea for Rich, opened a few more windows, and then we did the kitty litter and garbage. Since it is twenty minutes to noon, we decided to move steaming clothes over to the afternoon tasks so I could see them all together. I know, I know … is she loony? Most likely … votes in I just don’t choose to look! Good-good - just added wet dusting living room. It takes the worst beating because of the field across the street AND the fact we like to leave our front door open. No harm.
I think the stuff we got done SOOOO far has been our EASY cleaning. What are we going to do next … the hard stuff? Have to choose between vacuuming or steaming. Probably going with the vacuuming because there is so much of that to do … and our back hasn’t been pushed too hard yet this morning. Ok, done thought.
The weather today is a REALLY nice 66 degrees. I’m not sure if it’s going to rain or not, but apparently Don didn’t think it was wet enough with this morning’s rain to miss the grass cutting. He told Rich yesterday he’d do it today … it will be interesting to see how soggy grass cuts. Hmm maybe Rich should have spelled that out a little better. We ran into Don on the way out to dinner last night. I’d seen him take his walk and Rich needed to talk about the lawn. But, we always get in some good conversation otherwise. I didn’t realize it – must have been gone or buried the day it happened, but Don said it was about 1 ½ months ago that the new mobile home got inserted in the park. Rich had thought something was moved in and it was easy to guess the old looking trailer without the skirt was the new one. WOW! My powers of observation are pretty cool, hmm? Don said that the new neighbors somehow got the place for $1000 and they told someone they were going to have it fixed up in three months, but he said maybe inside, but there’s no show of improvement on the outside. Shoot, sure do wish I’d seen them moving in an entire trailer! It’s single-wide, but still cool to move houses!
I know something that happened too last night. After we got home from the restaurant, I actually did a TINY amount of gardening. All I did was pull of the dying daffodils, but I felt pretty proud of myself … it’s something that Joe would have done. He’s the neighbor to the North where Don is the neighbor to the south. I KNOW I’ve said that before so sorry for repeating … just doing my “job” Hehehe. Hmm, did a couple numbers too … just now … don’t know what it has to do with daffodils, but I just checked my site hits for this blog and the other … That is what the (55,274/11,912) is all about at the end of the blog. It seems over the last 20 days, we’ve gotten about 100 hits a day to this blog, and about 20 hits to the NEWS blog. Wow! Wouldn’t that be something if we managed to get all that part of our life together too?
I know that we’ve been really heavy on getting Dakota lately, but there’s so much else we used to do as well. I don’t think it was a LONG time of doing it, but several starts/stops. I don’t know if we’ll ever get better than that especially with the Multiplicity, but I like the idea of getting back to routines and having things accomplished that I can feel proud of. Yup-yup … even emptying the kitty litter is something I can appreciate being done. Now I know what was being said through the dog blog entry yesterday … We’d noted through Katherine and Cesar Millan – that our dog had to do work. Part of his thing is to walk several times a day, and part of it, is to learn things to make him a good service dog, and the other part is just well really play not work. I sure hope he and I are going to be good partners. I will be his People!
Ok, back … noon! We just finished the sitting room, little hall, and spot-cleaned the guest room and sewing room – NOT TOO much there, but at least we’re happy. I moved the cord so we could get to the dining area, computer area, and kitchen. We figured THEN we’ll do the sunroom, THEN the living room, and THEN the bedroom, and THEN we’ll get out the Shark and THEN wash the floor, and then WAX the floor … SO how many ups is that? Hmm, 7 MORE up AND we still have to do the steaming. So we’ll take that to be EIGHT ups. That’s an idea. We could just spend as a goal the next 4 hours then on doing this. That would mean we’d start each task on the half hour. That would be a good deal. Plenty of time to rest AND since Austin isn’t being picked-up until 7 pm, then we’re ALL good … we can have a leisure dinner AND do some reading. That’s what’s on the table today. We also should get in the sewing stuff, but hoping Rich will help with that maybe by Sunday. Good deal. Should be almost LEISURELY cleaning then PLUS we are then giving ourselves permission to write. NOOOOO didn’t say we had anything to write about, just that we can make it last that long Hehehe.
Did I tell you when we did the garbage we took out the storm window in the transom over the door to the breezeway? Who woulda known? Rich pointed out that we HAD transom’s on both real doors going into the sunroom and he did his best to explain cross breezes. Basically if we leave the breezeway door open, and windows open on the West side (including the 2ndbreezeway door), AND we leave open the slider from the sunroom to the dining area AND open the kitchen window, AND we leave on the fan in-between that window and the front door … well WALLAH! NICE BREEZE! Yes, we’re still having air checked this next week, but today is really pleasant. Think yesterday was in the 80’s not so pleasant, but today!?? It is a Good day to vacuum. Hehehe Oh about the breezeway … it’s a really terrible looking thing like a white dragon, but it has FOUR doors facing one of each direction west, south, north and east Cool-cool.
OMG who’s being the silly one? But wouldn’t it be cool to paint it looking like a submarine – with doors and portholes? It has nothing but wall, ceiling, crummy floor, 4 doors and 2 windows. Make a really-really NICE submarine! It’s just a tube room now.
Hmm, Missy just scooted by … she’s not liking the vacuum schedule. We still have ten minutes. What’s NEXT to talk about? We might have to consider some of the stuff that’s been happening over the last three weeks. Think that’s how long since the last regular blog entry. Last time seems to be April 19th, and at that it had been after a LONG hiatus of not writing. Now it seems one of the most important things we do again. We also noticed in scrolling we’ve only made 11 entries since the beginning of the year … that’s like averaging about twice a month. Not such a good statistic - in 2013, we blogged an average of twice weekly. Ok, you know the whittle storm that happens in our head … no matter how much we write, we never seem to figure it all out … sometimes though, there is an illusion of having figured something out at least temporarily. Just something that’s going to keep happening right?
The last time we wrote, we talked about Chief dying, being around the family, going out sewing with the girls – AHA that’s new, we just went out with the girls again! We’ll write about that in a few. We had done Easter, Rich’s surgery was over, I’d done a bang-up job on finishing COMPLETELY the scrap quilt, we started thinking about outside stuff like getting done with the roof – hmm, update there too. Not sure what’s happening in Dr. Marvin’s direction – though he’s been pretty close to us with the things happening with Dakota. Hey, did you even know that’s OUR dog’s NAME?!!! Yup-yup, something Katherine helped me put in place. YAY!!! Hmm, Rich is definitely in gear again – he’s also FISHING! This week he DID do work, but he went fishing with Bob TWICE! Will go again on Saturday, then he played cards on Wednesday and going to a birthday party tonight. He’s really feeling MUCH better getting around though is not 100% yet. You also knew last time about him getting a new contract and how much that has helped. Not too much happening with the piano playing because we’re not practicing enough … OK MARK THAT DOWN on the calendar TODAY!
I think that’s mostly what got talked about OTHER than about our dog J AND, if you’ve read down – you’d find three articles updating you there. Hmm, Missy went up to the kitchen table – nothing on it. Why is she up there? Is she appreciating the cross breeze too? OHHHH I see, somebody was going to vacuum so we put her toy mouse on the chair. Hope it doesn’t get sucked up in the vacuum because she hid it under the table again Grrr … Cats what can you do?!
Hmm, a little late on that round … did the desk/dining area and half way around the kitchen, plus we did the laundry room. Maybe we can use the wand next to do the area under the other side of the cabinets, then go around and get the spaces in the living room UNDER the bar stools. Then maybe add the decorative carpet after doing the bedroom. Yup or something like that … did we just bump the sunroom? WHY is this soooo difficult for us – not only physically, but mentally? We just have the hardest time getting a scope on it. Ok, nothing new here folks, move along…
I’m thinking 5 ½ out of 9 rooms done. We get to count Rich’s room because nothing ever happens there … status quo … windows and doors always shut.
ARGH those two times were too close together, but we have now 25 minutes to rest YAY!!!! We did as planned and finished the kitchen and bar stool area. I think somewhere today I swept up Missy’s mouse REALLY by accident and there seems to be a pen in there too. Maybe Rich can do something with it, but at least it’s still picking up. Getting there … we put away the new tea stuff and got some more ice water. It’s one of THOSE kinds of days. We checked out FB and the email too. My sister amongst 9 others was by our page this morning AND we saw that Joe had spent the day in some of his kindergarten students’ classrooms. Pretty sure he was just being Ninja Joe. He really is good with that sort of stuff. I’m so happy his spirit has opportunities to rise to the occasion. I’ve got some REALLY good kids!
So, 6 out of the 9 rooms done! We’re really moving along here! If it weren’t for our back, I’d really like chasing dust balls around my furniture legs. But, WOW! What happened to that kitchen floor … it has some disgusting stuff on it. Better fill up an ENTIRE bottle of cleaner … we’re going to need it!
Oh man it is almost time to do another room! Time is going VERY quickly. We have to remember we’re late on taking medicine this time. BUT, we skimmed through this note and took a few more notes on stuff we should mention just in clearing topics. This is our list so far of what’s going to come up next, but not in any particular order.
SewingSewing WeekendOutside Garden stuffRoofDr. MarvinSummary of DakotaNumber of Days Rich is fishingMissyAnd, is it too early to discuss July birthday?
That should be a good start. But, it’s time … we have to make the big decision … I think we’re going with the bedroom because the vacuum is closer to that direction. Ok girls – go!
Really good … we got the master bed/bath done AND we finished the living room … the desk part of the living room goes with the dining room, and the bar stool area goes with the 2nd half of kitchen, so then the area carpet part goes with the bedroom. Since it’s the biggest room in the house it really makes sense to do it that way, but I hadn’t even thought of what was happening. HEY … I’m getting pretty damn good at this! We got the library area in back of the desk area done too. Lots a good Ann’s! The library area had the BIGGEST dust bunnies!
One last room to vacuum – the sunroom, and then we’re ALL GOOD! Happy-happy! If you’re keeping up with it it’s 1:40 PM now AND we got in our medicine. Doing GREAT! Think we’ll need to use the extra vacuum time we just earned in the washing/buffing of the kitchen. It’s ok. We have 3-4 hours extra where we can just walk around in our nice clean house YAY. HEY … did you know that we were cleaning yesterday too? That time was just picking up the normal stuff that gathers and we did a few extra things like going through paperwork and doing 3 loads of laundry. There was a BIG mess in the kitchen to clean up … Boy had to roll up the sleeves there. Usually what happens is that someone gets LAZY and doesn’t empty the dishwasher and then there you go … dishes AND pots and pans start growing on the counter and sink. It’s nice to get past THAT problem!
Hmm, wonder if I should take a little break … Maybe after the carpets are done. It just feels like the air is so exciting. I can hear the little blind knobs being pushed against the wall by the wind, it rustling through our front door and the sun seems to be out again. I can’t spend ALL this day inside – that would be like withering away. What would it take to get us out that door? Hmm – it just sounds so pleasant. We haven’t had any music or TV on for a while now - maybe weeks? Think about it … what kind of excuse would we need to get all of us into one body and out the door? Probably need to sit, so we’d go to the covered patio, and then? Stands to reason we’d bring the kindle, but really don’t feel like reading now. Could we at least make it LOOK like we’re reading so we could go outside? What else do people do there?
YARD WORK! BLAH! That be TOO much! HEY I know what we might be able to do with Austin! Maybe we could try a little cooking! Just thinking of that Rhubarb … shoot can’t do that … Rich reminded us that he wants strawberry rhubarb pie. Hmm, that means going to my mother for the direction maybe from my Grandmother’s recipes. It was the very best! It had nice custard to it. Don’t really want to set off my mother, but need the recipe. HEY – we don’t even know if the rhubarb is BIG enough yet! Suppose we could look? Maybe we could look in another 5 minutes when we go out that way to vacuum? Yeah, ok, that sounds like a plan. You know what else would be nice? If we could just plant ONE thing, that would be Austin’s? I love that place we went with Rich … I think it’s called Red Bud AHA! It’s called Redbud Creek Farm. Hmm just thinking over our space? I liked the flowers that Rich got us last year for the half barrel thing on the outside of our garage. Maybe we could get something for that?
I’m thinking it would take both Austin and us outside our comfort zone. But, it is a nice REGULAR place to visit with him when he’s here. It’s really just 2-3 miles down the road. Interesting … we still need to get money and permission form Rich, but we could then BRIBE Austin Hehehe Gramma’s are like that too! But if we took him to KFC, then he’d have to go to the flower center with ME! We could just a have a couple of plans on what to do there and see what would work. I would have to get the sewing machine out of the car and we WOULD have to use the walker. I don’t think their paths are very straight, but we’d manage. Hmm, don’t we have another huge half barrel like thing in the back-back yard? I’m thinking something was higher, but it just had weeds last year. THAT be a nice AUSTIN adventure. ONE plant can’t be too bad, right?
Back! Shoot! That was a hard one. Usually the sunroom carpet has the most obvious things that have to be vacuumed. Lots of stuff brought in from the outside goes there – like grass and dirt. We got it PRETTY good. It’s not perfect though because I didn’t take the nozzle and edge it. I’ll have to think if I still want to do that before we put away the vacuum. I’m thinking not because we still have a floor to mop AND we’ve got clothes to steam AND we’re going to need to continue working over the next 2 ½ hours until 5 pm. Just I was unrealistic how far we could go. Both mopping and waxing are going to take two times up EACH, then maybe two sessions with the steamer … that put us like 5:30 PM. We’d still be doing great as to planning our time and it take us right up to dinner, but for sure we’re not going to be able to take a break in-between times and unloading the car would be TOO hard! 3-4 hours of vacuuming really does number on us … even though in REAL terms it’s just not THAT much vacuuming. I really hate our back sometimes.
WHAT-WHAT!?? Is there dissention in the ranks? What’s happening here? I know it just seems like a lot of work. But, you know the reward!?? Austin will feel more comfortable in a NICE place rather than a mess. OH and don’t forget to wet wash furniture in the LR. And, you want to hear something else? The rhubarb is HUGE!!!!
WooHOO!!! Now it is much later. It’s about 7 PM - better take my medicine. Done!
OMG – Getting a little excited. Rich called about 15 minutes ago and said he was five minutes from picking up Austin. SOOO, we’re thinking by now he’s got Austin and he said it would about an hour and he’d be home. I don’t know how to calm down. I have to retrace a few things as to what we were doing … I remember eating a grapefruit, and then we took a nap from about 5:30 – 6:30 PM, and we caught up on our e-stuff and I’m not sure what else. OHHH somewhere in there we talked to Linda for a while. We ALSO got done with the kitchen floor. We were right it took two turns for each task, BUT we didn’t get to steaming clothes. Somewhere in there I think we figured we better get in a nap because Austin will probably be up late. We do aim to accommodate Hehehe.
Hmm, that was another break … we stopped to watch Toddler VS Toddler Videos from Drew and Jonathon the Property Brothers. Have to admit it’s good video! YAY!!! You can find it here!
http://www.hgtv.com/brother-vs-brother-2014-toddler-vs-toddler-webisode-series/package/index.htmlThere are six 3-4 minute episodes and I LOVED it! Of course we’re going through a little something something about Drew and Jonathan. LOVE THOSE GUYS!
I think there is not too much to be saying. We’re having a hard time concentrating because we’re so excited. I think we’re then going to post now and then chill off in the sunroom. Yup yup … happy is as happy does!
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