Busy. Busy.

We've been busy today. We went through the last little bit of stuff in the workout room that was still in boxes. We only kept about half of what was left, and the rest went in the trash. That was a nice little surprise. It's such a relief when we can get rid of stuff as easily as we did today. 


We somehow managed to remember how to set up the TV. I'm amazed that we got it together on the first try, but I'm thrilled, too. It's one of those little 13'' TVs that has a DVD player in it. We had to hook it up to a VCR, so we could play either type of video in there while we're on the treadmill, if we want to watch something, and then we had to attach it to a converter box and an antenna, so we could get something on the TV itself, if we don't want to watch a video. All of it is sitting atop the small entertainment center we took down there a few weeks ago. The height of the screen is absolutely perfect. We won't be straining our necks in order to see the screen when we're on the treadmill. 


It is just all coming together so well. Yay! :)

Laundry, hooks and court dates. Oh my!

Today was a good day. It feels good to be doing something again. It's like the fog has lifted in my brain, and I'm back to working on dehoarding and being productive once more. 


I was able to get 6 loads of laundry done today, and I got one more thing crossed off the list I made the other day. I hung up a set of hooks in the workout room in order to hang the packs Hubster uses when he runs. I can't believe how much better it looks, and it feel so good to know they have a permanent home, and we'll be able to find them when we need them. We may hang another set tomorrow, so he can hang some of his running clothes when he gets home from a run. It will be nice to have an actual place for them, too.


I am happy to announce that the spam filter is working once again on my blog. Hopefully, it will continue working, and I won't have to put the word verification back on anytime soon. 


And the best news of all? The attorney called, and we finally have a court date for mid-May to finalize guardianship for the girls. 


It will be so nice to be done once and for all.

Feeling productive.

I'm exhausted tonight but quite satisfied.


Hubster and I were able to get the small entertainment center down to the workout room/Hubby's library today. There's still a little to be done in there, but we are well over 90% done with the room. There were only 4 boxes of books that weren't sorted, because they were either my books or they belonged to the girls. I'll have to get to them eventually, but I'm okay, if it takes me awhile.


Once Bugster has a quick look-through on the books and takes out what she wants, Hubster will take care of them. I'm not sure, if he'll try to sell some of them, or if he'll just donate them. The big thing is that after being boxed up for 3 years, (almost 2 in the storage pod on the driveway, and 1 down in the workout room), the books have been sorted and Hubster will be able to get to them whenever he wants.


He was funny when we were unpacking them. He just kept getting excited over seeing a book he'd forgotten that he had. He was like a kid in a candy store with unlimited credit. It's going to take awhile to do, but he's going to write down each book he has, so he knows what's there. He said he's really looking forward to 'shopping' in his books when he wants something different to read, instead of buying something new. 


I think the most exciting part for me with the whole thing is Hubster's excitement. I'm so glad that he has access to all his books after 3 years of them being stored away. I have a small inkling whathe feels like, since I've gotten some of my craft things sorted. 


I'm looking forward to getting to the point he is with his books with my own things. It's going to take me awhile, because I don't think there's much Hubster can do to help me. He could move boxes and such, but he can't really help other than that. 


I wonder, if I can talk him into doing dishes from time to time, so I can have that extra little time to work on my stuff...

Steamrolled.

Scooter was a trooper when she had her blood drawn today. She glared a bit, because she wasn't happy to be there, but as soon as she was done, she was happy as could be. All was forgiven, and she was nothing but smiles.


She makes me happy. :)


When we got home, and I kicked my shoes off, I could hardly walk. My feet were so incredibly sore. I don't know, if it's the shoes I was wearing, or if it's still the IKEA shopping from a couple weeks ago that had my feet feeling bruised. I took the gel insoles out of my tennies and stuck them in my slippers. It helped. I'll take to wearing the slippers with the insoles for a few days until my new shoes get here. 


I decided to take my sore feet to the carpeted workout room and rest them up a bit. It's amazing how much carpet can soothe the tired soles compared to hardwood floors. I decided to kick off my slippers and let the carpet work its magic.


In December of 2010, we cleared out the storage pod on the driveway and took several boxes of books to the workout room. Even though it's been over a year since we emptied out the pod, we haven't unpacked any of the books. As a result, the only workout equipment we've had access to is the treadmill, and its accessibility has been sporadic at best. 


I really need to get some use out of the equipment that can help me with my back, and I can't use it when there are boxes piled all around. So I worked on getting some of the shelves on the simple case we made to hold some of the hundreds of Hubster's books. I was able to unload a couple boxes, but I realized I had no idea how Hubster wants them arranged, so I called it quits. It was time to stop. I'd completely soaked my t-shirt as my fever broke, and I knew it wouldn't be long before I got the chills again. 


Hubster and I will be doing what we can to get the boxes unloaded and the contents put away this weekend. At the very least, we'll get enough emptied that we can actually workout on some of the equipment. 


I'm motivated to get some dehoarding done. It's been entirely too long.


Now, if my body will only cooperate and kick this fever...

Of logs and meadows, crown moulding and stripes. Oh. And pictures to boot.

I'm tired tonight, but I'll sleep like a log. A very restful log with moss growing on it in the shade of a warm and sunny meadow.

I worked for twelve hours in the basement today. My elbow has rug burn on it from having to paint the caulking that bled into the paint above the baseboards. We tried using clear caulking, but it didn't look like we'd used it at all once it dried, and where we could see it, it turned yellow. So we had to go with white instead. The only problem was that it bled into the green.

Bugster and Frank came over last night and volunteered to help out. They helped with some of the touch up painting that needed done, and I'm so very grateful for the extra hands! Bugster painted the bottoms of the dark stripes where they meet the baseboards, and Frank painted the tops of the crown moulding where it met the ceiling, because the caulking dulled the finish of the paint. It was really obvious when the light shone on it just right, and it would have driven me nuts, so it was nice having it done.

You can see in the picture how crisp and clean the top of the wide stripe to the left looks compared to the other two stripes. That's the difference it made to cover up the caulking that bled into the paint. And as time consuming as it was, it was so worth doing. It makes the entire room look so much better.

So while Bugster worked on the bottom of the stripes last night, I worked on finishing up the light green stripes today, doing both the top and bottom of those that weren't finished yesterday. I also did the entire workout room today. It took several hours, but I'm so glad it's done.

The workout room is as done as it's going to be until next Spring, when we can get the oak door with the windows in it stained and hung. If we have time before my surgery, we'll put the trim around the windows, but I'm okay, if we don't get to it. The rest of the workout room is done, and it's nice to have it out of the way.

The corner boxes were a bit harder to deal with. And although this picture isn't the best, you can get an idea of how they look before and after, with the left side being the before and the right being the after. I'll post more pictures later on. I just wanted to get these up to show what we did today. One other thing we did today was finish covering the television cable, so it blended in better than just having a black cable line hanging down the wall. Most of it will be covered by the bookshelf/entertainment center, but I still wanted it to look nice. We may not always use that bookshelf as an entertainment center. We used some white plastic cable covers that we'd gotten a year ago. The cable originates upstairs on the far wall, goes through the floor upstairs, through the ceiling downstairs, and is hidden under the crown moulding until it comes out at the opposite end of the family room. I love the fact that it's not on the floor with us having to trip over it or try to hide it behind furniture. And while it's a bit of an optical illusion and looks like we have a raised board in the edge of that section of wall, we're pleased with how it looks.

I'm hoping we'll finish up the family room and hallway completely tomorrow. I'd love to get the cubbies hung up above the refrigerator and stove tomorrow, but it will be fine, if it doesn't happen. Once we're done downstairs, I'll be able to concentrate on getting the kitchen and living room cleaned up again. It has been sadly neglected while I've worked downstairs, but it will be done in time for us to enjoy Thanksgiving together around the table.

Tonight?

I have a date with a warm meadow and a little bit of shade.

Just a stressful day in the neighborhood.

The Hubster helped me on the porch today. He helped me get the bookcase/entertainment center dry fit together. We won't put it together permanently until we take it downstairs, but I'm thrilled, because it gives me so much more room on the porch for other painting projects. I didn't get around to putting the last coat of paint on the pieces that needed it, but I should be able to tomorrow, and it won't matter that it's dry fit together. The last few places that need touched up are just on the face of the bookshelf and the drawer, so painting them will be a snap.

I am thrilled that we got even more of the porch emptied off today. The Hubster has a workout station he can use to do pull ups and dips and other such exercises. The thing is a monstrosity. It's huge. It stands 7 ft tall and takes up an area on the floor that's over 3.5 ft square. I've had to work around it on the porch, because he uses it several times a week, but it's really been a bit of a nightmare.

Well. Nightmare no more! We took it apart today, because there is no way we could have taken it downstairs in fewer pieces than we did. While it was apart, I used a bucket of hot, soapy water and a scrub brush and scrubbed every nook and cranny. It was pretty muddy and dusty from having lived on the back porch the better of 3 years. Surprisingly, we only saw 1 spider, but I'm sure there were more lurking in crevices. So while the individual pieces were laid across the clotheslines to dry, he sprayed the thing with bug spray to hopefully keep any spiders from coming in and making it home for the next 12 months or so.

Once it was dry, Hubster dragged it downstairs piece by piece and brought it into the workout room. It took some finagling to get the holes lined up to get the bolts back in, but we finally got the thing together. When we were done, he took the Ab Lounger out of the plastic it's been stored in for the last couple of years and put it in the only remaining floor space in the workout room. We will now be able to use all of the workout equipment we have, such as it is.

I'm thrilled. Seriously.

After doing the dishes this morning, I boiled the rest of a 10 pound bag of potatoes. Unfortunately, there were a few that had started to go bad, so they went into the compost bin. The other 7 pounds or so were boiled, peeled and either diced to use for breakfast burritos or made into a potato salad for tomorrow. It's really nice to have them out of the way. Besides. The tater salad tastes good. Looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

It doesn't sound like a lot was done, but we were busy all day long. I even got in a few crunches on the Ab Lounge and 15 minutes on the treadmill.

Oh. And we got the call from the appraiser. She'll be out on Tuesday.

I may just use that time to go get my expired driver's license renewed. It needs done before the refinancing happens anyway, and it would get me out of here, if my stress level gets too high.

It's already on the rise.

I loves me a heating pad!

So today was good.

Got a couple loads of laundry done, the dishes done, and most importantly, we got the rest of the crown moulding put up in the workout room downstairs. (It's back spasming work, I tell ya!) We also finished getting the treadmill put together. At this point, we'll be able to use the treadmill, even though the rest of the room isn't quite finished. That will be nice.

Tomorrow, we have a big day planned. It doesn't sound like much, but it seems to take forever! We'll be filling all the little nail holes in the crown moulding and baseboards, caulk around the edges, and paint any part of them that needs it, so the patches don't show. Then we're going to get the mat down under the treadmill and put it in place, and clean up hubby's pull up machine thing that's out on the back porch and bring it downstairs. We're also going to try to cut some extra shelves for a thing we got for him to use as a bookshelf. I don't know, if we'll get to the point of rewiring the outlets and putting up the light fixture or not, but we'll have plenty to do, and we'll have a room that will be ready to use! We're both really looking forward to it!

I asked my husband, if he would mind me sharing this, before I started writing...

This morning when I went in to wake my husband up I decided to count the books he has on the dresser. He said he realized he feels like he needs to have his books around him-that he doesn't know when he'll need the knowledge contained in the books, and he wants to have it at his fingertips. There were 56 books on the dresser. He also keeps books in his work truck, on his work desk and in his locker at work. We're both hoping that having a floor to ceiling area to keep his books will help. And I'm thankful beyond thankful that books are his vice, instead of alcohol, drugs, porn or other women. :)

We're now going to spend some time together relaxing.

Me with my trusty heating pad.

Him with the remote control ... and a book. :)