Monday, January 5, 2009

File Under What Was I Thinking

After our heart-to-heart with the precious in-laws last week, we rushed home and started working on the house with renewed vigor so we can sell it. Mark removed 38 bags of leaves from our yard. His method is to mow over them so that they get sucked up into the mower bag. It beats all that back breaking raking. We had a used leaf blower/sucker thing for a short period of time, but it sucked. Or didn't, to be more precise, and so it went into the garbage. Anyway, it was a beautiful day on Saturday, as random days in Oklahoma's winter can be. I'm pretty sure it was in the 70's. Angela came over and helped him cut down a small tree and Riley brought over a load of dirt he had dug up somewhere and filled in some of the many holes their dog, Sadie, has dug in our yard. So now it looks less like someone was practicing their pyrotechnic skills by throwing homemade bombs of various sizes randomly into our yard.


Speaking of dogs, while we were out of town Angela called to say there was an extra dog in our backyard. I told her to count again and she kept coming up with three, which is odd because our yard is fully enclosed by fencing, some of it 6 feet tall. Usually dogs escape from yards. It's unusual to have a dog break into ones yard. So while I looked up the number for animal control, she went next door to see if by chance Mr. T had added another dog. Sure enough, he claimed the dog and came over and for some reason attempted to heft the dog back over the 6 foot fence, and in the process got a large cut under his eye. I don't think that dog got any doggie treats that day. Saturday when I went to feed the dogs, there were TWO extra dogs in our yard. I'm thinking, I know we love our dogs and treat them reasonably well, but really, who gave them the OK to go out and invite all the neighborhood dogs over to the party? And how are they getting in? But as I watched, the visitors scrambled back under the fence into Mr. T's yard by way of the Stalag 13-esque tunnel they had built while we slept. Apparently we are West Berlin to Mr. T's East Berlin.




Anyway, while they were out putting the yard in shape, I was busy in the kitchen because it's the last hold out in the list of rooms that needed to be remodeled. We had decided on a minimalist plan for this remodel. No knocking down or building walls or tearing out cabinets to be replaced with shiny new ones. Our plan was just to sand and paint the cabinets, replace the cabinet doors, replace the sink, faucet and counter top and tile the back splash. At least for a start. Here's the before pic:



But of course, nothing is EASY in this old house. Did I mention that there are no water shut off valves in the house and if you want to work on any plumbing you have to go lie on your belly in the front yard and turn off the water at the meter, which is in a hole in the ground? Did I mention it is now about 20 degrees with a windchill of -30? Did I mention that our mad skills do not include plumbing apparently, because this is now what our faucet looks like? The paper plates are redirecting the water dripping from the not-so-well-installed fixtures.




It's really no big deal to dash out in the nose-hair-freezing day to turn the water on so we can flush the toilets. Hopefully the plumber can come tomorrow and get us all set up. I'm just trying to remember why it sounded like a good idea to start this at the END of a week of vacation.


Oh, and Tessa is scheduled to have her wisdom teeth extracted today. And let me tell you, she is taking it well. She has written out her will and made her final requests and bequests and is prepared to meet her maker. Fortunately she will be asleep during the procedure, and even more fortunately, I'll be in the waiting room. But it was a good excuse for taking the day off of work. I need to prepare the ice cream and mashed potatoes, and prepare to nurse her back to life as she knew it.

4 comments:

tessa said...

My only request is that you go on with life without me, don't let Sadie have my room, and let ang have my Chi bc I think we all know she needs it.

Anonymous said...

Tessa sounds like my 16 year old self when I had my tonsils out. I just knew it was the end of me.

Mark said...

What a BEAUTIFUL kitchen!!! WHY would you want to change anything??? And whoever thought of the BRILLIANT idea of those plates to divert the water must be QUITE A CATCH!!!

Extreme Educators said...

So at first I was flattered that Tess would think of me in her last moments to will me her chi. Then I read on and discovered that apparently "she needs it". The warm fuzzies are gone.