May 29 through June 3

[chochiyo_sama]

Sunday, May 29

I woke up early and could not fall back to sleep, so I got up.  There was a puddle of cat puke in the bathroom doorway, so I cleaned that up.  DeAnn and I were supposed to have our weekly Zoom meeting, but an hour and a half went by with no sign of her.  I just poked around on line, waiting for her and wondering if she had something come up.  Eventually I got a text from her telling me that she and Josue both got covid and had just spaced out the Zoom meeting.

She wanted to know if I still wanted to meet, and I told her that it wasn’t necessary since she was not feeling well.  Better if she just rested and tried to recover quickly.  So we did not meet.

I caught up on my DW entries and watched a few movies on TV.  One was Dear Evan Hansen, which was pretty good.  I had never seen that one before.  It was about a depressed, anxiety ridden, friendless kid whose psychiatrist advised him to write letters to himself.  Another depressed, friendless, explosively angry kid took one of his letters from him then went home and killed himself. When his parents find the letter in his pocket (typed on a computer, so no hand writing to identify someone else as the author), they think he had a friend and hoped that their son had at least a little hope and happiness in his life.  It was an interesting movie—kind of sad but with a hopeful theme.

Then I watched Just Like Heaven which I have seen several times—that one starred Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon.  She is a wandering spirit whose body is in a coma in the hospital and he is the guy subletting her apartment and the only person who can see her disembodied spirit.  The guy who played Napolean Dynamite is also in this movie as the proprietor of a paranormal book store who can sense spirits.  I love that kid.  He cracks me up.

The weather today was odd and somewhat eerie.  The weather people were talking all day about potential severe storms, but nothing really came of it.

 

Monday, May 30

Today I bagged up a bunch of garbage and recycling from the living room, bathroom, and bed room and dragged it to the breezeway.  I also dragged the kitchen garbage to the breezeway and locked the cats in the basement so I could clean the breezeway litter boxes and take out the garbage without their “help” or escape attempts.

It about killed me to hoist those heavy garbage bags into the garbage bin, but I did it. 

That was about it for me. 

 

Tuesday, May 31

Today I went through my Wellie Wisher shoes and did an inventory.  I looked in Etsy hoping to find the shoes I am short on. I like to dress my dolls alike, and I am short on some pairs of matching shoes.  I ordered some plain lime green slip ons, some red tennis shoes, and one other kind—I think it was a black t-strap shoe with a starburst cut out in the toe area.  A lot of the ones I was short on were not available.  That was disappointing.

I had a lot of dishes in the sink, so I washed them while my supper was in the microwave.

There was a lot of bad weather in the area yesterday, but it all went around us.  There was a lot of wind, and that dead tree kitty-corner from my house lost the last big section.  The neighbor spent the rest of the day using a chain saw to cut it all up.

Whether it was that or something else that brought them, it looked like every vehicle from the Ellendale fire department was parked on the street across from my house.  They did not seem to be doing anything—other than the water truck drove back and forth a few times. I thought maybe the tree limb knocked down a power line, but I didn’t see anything like that.  Also, no trucks from the power company ever showed up.

 

Wednesday, June 1

I did not accomplish much today.  I looked up the Lerberg’s ad on line and made a grocery list. 

I took some pictures of my Wellie Wishers in their little cat tee-shirts with the brown skirts.  I am hoping to go through the tote of Wellie Wisher doll clothes and get pictures of them in their various outfits.  Then I can share the pictures on my doll collector groups on Facebook.

I’ve been feeling like sewing for my dolls lately, but I just cannot bring myself to sew when I have so much other stuff that I need to deal with.  The house is looking much better—especially the kitchen, breezeway, living room, bathroom and bed room.  The office and the laundry room are in desperate need of cleaning and organizing.  The next time Hope is able to come (she is down with covid right now too), I am going to work on the office with her.  The last thing we will attack is the laundry/craft/sewing room as it is the WORST.

 

Thursday, June 2

I took a long, hot, refreshing shower this morning.  I hoped it would fill me with ambition—which it did NOT, but I still managed to have a fairly productive day.

I sorted the laundry and got all of it washed and dried and all but the last load folded.  The last load is in the dryer and I will fold it tomorrow morning.  The maniac kittens had somehow managed to dump a basket full of sewing stuff and a small box of fabric scraps into their litter box in the laundry room as well as paw about half the litter out of the box and onto the floor.  It took me about twenty minutes to clean that mess up. Little bastards.

I cleaned all the litter boxes in the house, took the scoopings out to the bin, swept the breezeway, living room, hallway, laundry room, and bathroom and scrubbed the living room and bathroom. I scrubbed the toilet and sink and put the freshly washed rugs on the floor in the bathroom.  It looks and smells wonderful in there now. 

I called the grocery order in to Lerbergs later in the day—got it called in just before closing time.  I didn’t need much, but I needed a few things.

 

Friday, June 3

I worked so hard yesterday with all the scrubbing and sweeping and garbage hauling and laundry washing that I am in pretty rough shape today.  My low back, shoulder, knees, and hips all hurt.  I finished folding the laundry and dragged the basket of clean clothing back into the bedroom.  I haven’t put it away yet—probably will tomorrow.  I got the towels put away in the bathroom.

I woke up this morning dreaming that the kittens had come into my bed covered in blood.  I sat up in bed and started looking them over and then Danny Devito staggered into my bedroom shirtless and also covered in blood—as if someone had been hitting him with a whip. 

That was when I realized I was dreaming.  When I was fully awake, no one—human or feline—was covered in blood.  I have the weirdest dreams.

Ross delivered my groceries at about 2:30 pm.  I got those put away.  I had ordered a package of chocolate eclairs and ate one of those between lunch and supper.  It was really good.  I have three more in the package which I look forward to eating later.

I made a frozen Marie Calendar dinner for lunch—linguini with chicken and broccoli, and for supper I had some Kraft microwave mac-n-cheese.  In the evening, I watched an old Audie Murphy western called Destry.  It was okay.  The guy who played Uncle Billy on It’s a Wonderful Life was in it.  Also the guy who played Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction was in it as well.  The only other guy I recognized was the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.  It’s always fun to recognize random folks on old shows.

Not much else going on today.

I started reading a book I bought quite a while back called Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate.  I am only about ten pages into it.  I am strongly considering taking it to bed with me as I am very tired.  I doubt I can stay awake long enough to read much more anyhow.

Comments

[the_godiva]

Any way of knowing if that was Peaches puke or if you're going to have puke problems with the boys?

I think I saw Just Like Heaven once. Doesn't she wake up out of the coma and they meet and stuff?

I downloaded some free miniature DIY stuff from Zena's Minatures and then put some of the purchase downloads on my wishlist. I'm only doing downloads from her because she is in the UK and if I print it out, I can enlarge them to be Edward's correct scale.

I've been looking at the house. I need help, but I don't want just anyone to come and help me. I think after I get the HELOC I'll see how much money I have left after I pay off all of the credit cards. That will consolidate my debt to just paying down the loan. Then try to estimate how much it will cost to do the repairs on the fence, gates and pergolas and maybe some yard work. Still hoping at some point Pedro might just show up looking for work as he will do from time to time since his mobile number is changed and I have no way to contact him. If there is some money left I think I will call my parent's ex-caretaker, Alma, and ask her if she can give me some afternoons each week to help me. I like her, trust her and we worked well together getting my parent's house in order. I'm sure she's seen worse and she will be discrete about it. She will at least be able to help me get control of the kitchen, bathroom and main rooms. I don't care about the sewing room or library or bedroom. They can wait. But I need to be able to walk through the house again without maneuvering through paths. If we can clear a space enough in the living room I can stack stuff there that needs to be photographed and listed online for sale I can start to get stuff out of the house. Also make a pile for donations that will also get stuff out of the house and just throw stuff away as we go, getting stuff further out of the house. (And hopefully find stuff like my knitting as I only finished one sock and the yarn tote that has my skein of red yarn so I can finish my hat.) If we make good enough headway in the house, she can help me in the garage. I want to be able to park my car in the garage again. I'm hoping it will cost me less than $5,000 once we are through. She charges $25 an hour. That's 200 hours. Not really a lot of time. At 5 hours a day that's only 40 days. If she comes 2 days a week, that's only 20 weeks, 5 months. Maybe six months. It would be fantastic to have the house cleaned up for Christmas this year. I could get rid of the chair and ottoman in the living room, repair and reupholster my chaise lounge and then start watching TV in the living room. Maybe use some of the HELOC to get the antenna installed on the roof.

But I do want to make some headway before I call her. The HELOC will take 30 days to fund and I haven't even done the paperwork yet. So maybe tackle the kitchen and bathroom a bit first. If I can call her in July that might get me my Christmas this year.

Maybe she'll even know a handyman I can hire.

You need a lid for the litter box. Or maybe take a box, cut a door in it and put it over the litter box. At least when they fling it it will be contained in the "outhouse."

I need to do laundry too.

I didn't get to the pool at all this week and they are closed this weekend for training so I have no idea if I will feel like going on Mondays. Mondays suck because we get kicked out early for Ai Chi. Tuesday is my driving test. (Fingers crossed I just need to pass the first time. I can't afford another delay.) So the soonest I can go is Thursday, whether I have my driver's license back or not.

Oh, I love the Marie Callendar Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and broccoli. I had that today.
For microwave mac n cheese I prefer the frozen Stouffer's.

I'm going to bed early tonight so I can read and still get up at 10am to make sure I can jump the car before Dennis gets here. If I can't I have to call AAA to tow it to the dealership down the hill. He's getting here at 11:15 so I want to start it up before 11am and have it running for a while before he gets here. Then if it doesn't make it we still have time to call for a tow. I have several credit cards with me to cover the battery and anything else that isn't road worthy they find they just have to fix. They always find a big ticket item they have to fix.