Crawling into bed again...

I will still definitely write about the wedding and the list I made the other day, but I fear it will need to wait until Mom goes home. I cherish every moment I have with her, and I just can't bring myself to tear away from our moments to do the blog, so I'll write more later.

We had a very busy day today. It started with a hazy, dark morning that allowed us to not wake up nearly as early as typical. Still...we had lots of fun and got things accomplished to boot.

First, our newlywed daughter treated her gramma and me to tea at a quaint little place downtown. It's a cute little place with a hodge podge set of furniture and mismatched dishes, and it felt like home. It was so very comfortable, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting and looking at the antiques in the place. I will definitely be going for tea with our daughter again sometime!

We met the kids' realtor at the house they're buying. She graciously agreed to meet, so they could show the house to Mom, but there were problems. The kids showed us the backyard, and when we opened the gate, it was obvious someone had tried breaking into the house. The doggy door had been pried apart and there were hunks of plywood from it strewn about. Then when we went all the way into the backyard, we noticed that one of the window screens was bent up and on the ground. Two window screens were missing completely.

When the realtor finally got there a few minutes later, she couldn't get the key to work in the deadbolt, which was locked. She was surprised the deadbolt even worked saying that deadbolts are often disabled while vacant homes are on the market, or if they've been foreclosed upon. It's just added security, so people aren't locked out of the house. The only way the deadbolt could have been locked was from the inside.

She was finally able to get into the house through the side garage door, where we saw even more of the doggy door in pieces on the floor. The only thing that kept the punks from getting in the house was the 2x4 that had been screwed diagonally across the doggy door. It didn't look all that good.

Upon quick glances, it looked like nothing was amiss. On closer inspection, however, it was obvious the kids who broke in wrote on every wall in the place with ink pen and pencil. They'd gotten in through one of the windows in the back. When we discovered that, we checked all the windows, and two of the locks were broken. They got in one of those two windows.

They wrote death threats, vulgarities and just teenage crap on the walls. But they hit every single wall in the house. They went into the crawl space, but our son-in-law went in to check it out, and he said it looked and smelled okay. They called the cops, but heard nothing until after waiting an hour and a half. The phone rang. It was someone at the police station. They apologized for not being able to make it out, but they said they were so swamped they couldn't get away. So they took a statement by phone and gave the kids a case number. Unfortunately, even though the neighbors are sure it was some of the punks in the neighborhood, it appears nothing much will be done.

It could have been SO much worse! There are local stories about feces, paint, or food being thrown around inside vacant buildings at least once or twice a year. This was just ink pen and pencil. However, it also means that every single wall will need to be painted before the kids can move in. We're very much hoping that the sellers will give a paint allowance or send someone in to paint before they close on the house toward the end of the week. Otherwise, it's going to cost a few hundred extra dollars they weren't expecting.

When Mom and I got back to our house, I told her of so many of my plans. She was very encouraging. It was wonderfully fun being able to share my vision with someone who could see exactly what I was talking about! She also told me that I really need to concentrate on what I've already gotten done instead of what I have yet to finish. It makes sense. It is definitely a more positive way of looking at things, and I think it would likely help to keep me motivated.

After showing her around, she insisted on helping me in one of the rooms. We chose to tackle the girls' bedroom. Mom said it reminded her of cleaning out a toy box from when we were kids, but it's the entire room. We got more accomplished in an hour and a half than I'd be able to do on my own in a day. We filled a box that has to be 2' square 3/4 of the way up. We'll finish filling it up tomorrow, and it will go to the car, so we can drop it off to be donated. We also got a big box of laundry out of there and filled a huge black trash bag half full with garbage. We'll finish that room up tomorrow. Once the stuff is out of the house, it's going to be so much easier to keep the room clean! Visiting with Mom while getting things done definitely makes things go faster. I've loved every minute of it!

We stopped for the night when the newlyweds came over for supper and pineapple upside down cake for dessert.

It's been a long and exhausting day, but full of fun and productivity. I fully expect tomorrow to be the same.

I'll do what I can to catch up on blogs after Mom goes home.

Right now..I'm going to drag myself to bed.