Nearing the end

We are so close to being done!!! I hope any regular readers aren't tired of this saga, at least not any more tired of reading it than I am living it. Dear Kathy (the same Kathy who helped me get the kitchen unloaded after the carpet was installed in here) came over this afternoon and helped me get the basement put back together. It looks better than it ever has. (Dagnabbit... got the place lookin' all purdy and we has ta move!) Before she came over, I managed to get a load of laundry washed and dried, boxed up 2 or 3 more boxes of books, then taped up and labeled the 7 total boxes I had in here. We got those carried upstairs to the storage room over the garage tonight.

For a short while this morning, we thought Brian was going to end up with knee surgery today. One of his knees has been giving him grief for the past week and he finally had it looked at this morning. (There are certain advantages to being hospital personnel.... wait times tend to be much shorter for some things!) The orthopedic guy thought it was a torn miniscus (don't ask me what it is; I'm still not sure), but the MRI showed it wasn't torn yet. He has a bad sprain on one side and the other side looks bad, but not bad enough for surgery. So he is limping around and still planning on cleaning out the garage and taking stuff to storage tomorrow.

The plan is to get everything finished up tomorrow and have an open house Sunday. The weather is supposed to be very nice... near 70 degrees... so lots of people should be out looking. Mostly what we have left to do is get the garage cleaned out, clean and dust blinds, clean kitchen, lots of little things like that.

Puppy love

I caught some happy moments between Campbell and Noah tonight. Campbell is a fun dog to have around.

Here he is enjoying a Chew-Eez...

Campbell loves to use his paws like hands; I wonder if he wishes for opposable thumbs??

$300 later...

The kids have a new throne in their bathroom. I was wrong about why the old one was leaking; it was cracked. So now there is a shiny new one. It will be interesting to see how quickly it gets dirty.

Brian finished the landscaping today (mulching, spreading rocks, raking yard). Emily wrote her version of the day on her blog. A 13-year-old's viewpoint is rather different.

I didn't do nearly as much today as needed; I was gone the better part of the day. Before I left, I washed 3 loads of clothes and folded 1. Then I took the boys to get haircuts around 11:30 and afterwards went looking for house slippers for the 3 youngest. Found a pair of ballet house slippers in Halle's size, but other than that, no house slippers for kids at all. The boys wound up picking out some flip flops to wear around the house. Boxed up 4 or 5 boxes of books after I got home, helped pick up leaves and grass in the front yard, then went and bought some groceries at Super Target.

A neighbor down the street stopped by while we were outside raking; she is an Air Force spouse also. She and her husband will be moving the month after us and are getting ready to put their house on the market, too. She brought us a shamrock plant for luck. Wasn't that thoughtful?? So while I was at the store tonight, I bought a Sara Lee Dutch apple pie for her.... to put in the oven before someone comes to look at her house. I have heard from lots of people that good baking smells are a good thing to do when showing your home. (I bought one for us too.)

'Nuff said tonight. I am going to go relax with the kids before bedtime.

What'll they think of next???

Last night before bed, I was looking all over for Noah. Here's where I found him. No, he didn't sleep there, but I think he would have if we'd let him.

Bright beginnings

I got up this morning and hauled laundry down here to the beautimous laundry room. Brian did a great job on it last night (I didn't see it till this morning... I bailed on him and went to bed while he was still painting; of course, I got up before him, so it all evens out.) There is just something about clean walls. Now, if we can just keep them that way!!

I have the second of 3 loads of laundry going right now. The phone rang earlier and it is a plumber who is on his way to look at a couple of the toilets (they keep running.... you'd think they were preparing for the Boston Marathon. Plus one is leaking around the base; I think the guys who installed the vinyl in that bathroom last week didn't get the seal right when they put the toilet back in).

Just remembered some pictures I took last night... I think I'll get them off the camera and post a couple.

Shorter is better

At the risk of boring you all with another "what-I-did-today" post.... let's just say that I didn't do as much as I wanted to. Brian started prepping and painting the laundry room, so the 2 baskets of laundry I was going to wash today will have to wait for tomorrow. I mostly did some running around (3 oldest to taekwondo from 12-1 and 3 youngest to bowling from 3-4:30). Was able to get some cleaning done in bathrooms and kitchen as well.

The carpet guys showed up late this afternoon and got started on the basement. They were only here 2 hours (we had to leave to go to church) and they got the old carpet/pad removed from the largest section of the basement. They also put down the pad and have the new carpet cut and laid down. I have a feeling tomorrow isn't going to be as long a day as the others were. The stairs won't take as long as the ones on the main level because they don't have to be wrapped.

So the list of stuff to do is slowly getting shorter. We still have to get some smaller boxes to box up books to store, clean out the garage and move stuff to storage, paint the inside of the garage, and touch up a few places outside. I sure hope whoever buys the house appreciates all the work that has gone into it.

Fun with books

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it. Just grab what is closest!

The Purse-Driven Life, by Anita Renfroe:

"Robin not only laughed about it in the moment but also continues to laugh about it twenty years later (we're still friends). Come to think of it, Robin is my only former cheerleader friend. I think the cheerleaders all stick together through life and may not befriend the lesser mortals as a rule."

Checking things off

Today was a fairly productive day. I managed to get the boys' bedroom picked up; cleaned out their closet; and straightened up their drawers and their bookcase. I'm still working on the ginormous pile of laundry they had stacked up in the corner. They are sleeping on freshly laundered sheets (ahh, nothing like sheets fresh from the dryer!). I also put together a storage unit that sits over the toilet in our bathroom. (We have one of those bathrooms where the toilet is separate from everything else and I needed a place to put things I didn't want sitting out in the open when people are coming to look at the house.)

Brian was busy as well. He got all the cellular shades installed in our bedroom and bathroom (4 windows), a curtain rod and valance hung over Emily's window, and new towel bars in the kids' bathroom. He also bought mulch and started covering the flowerbeds out front.

The basement was painted today and the carpet installers may be here tomorrow if they finish up early someplace else. Otherwise, it will be Thursday before they come. I just hope they can get it all done in one day if they have to wait till Thursday. I'm beginning to think we won't be putting the sign in the yard on Friday or having that Open House on Sunday.

Emily is trying to revive her blog and bugged her dad into starting one. Guess that makes us a blogging family. Most of the work on Brian's blog so far (except for his starter post) is Emily's handiwork. I think he needs to change his password so she can't mess with it any more.

I suppose that's all the news worth telling.

I've got it covered

Mrs. Rum asked me to post a picture of the piano bench after I finished it. Here it is!

This is a closer look at the fabric's design: