It’s been a year! We survived the winter and now it’s a glorious sunny summer and life is good.
Did we make the right decision? I swing back and forth on that, just depending on the day. There sure are some things we could have done differently, but doing them differently at this point would be more upheaval than I can face, so we’ll just have to deal.
We have the house to ourselves for a month - the kids have gone to Europe for the trip we originally planned for 2020. (Dh and I did not go this time, as a fair number of things have changed in two years, and some of them require our presence here every day.)
I’m using this time to do some deep cleaning and decluttering and general mucking out while there are fewer people to trip over. Or complain… Also, we have three gardens to keep up with. LOL
I would imagine there’s been some challenges with all living together. I bet your grandson loves it. When my kids were little we bought the house next door which worked out well for 14 years. My kids loved it and we had a lot of fun. Eventually when I finished graduate school we had to move for my career.
The kids have a Dyson stick vacuum which is okay, but not really up to the work of a house with 4 cats and 6 people. I told dh it was driving me nuts and as soon as I saw a really good deal, I was buying a full sized vacuum. I have anxiously tracked its progress across the country all week.
So far I have only vacuumed the main floor, and I had to empty it three times. Tomorrow I’m hauling it upstairs, and I bet that will be so much worse.
I’m mostly cleaning, decluttering, and taking a bike ride with dh every morning.
I did many things today and clearly making jam and walking to the library were two things too many because I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck. Also waking up at 4 am means that I’m about ready for bed by 7.
Now it is very hot, but not hot enough to justify the amount of alarmed complaining that people are doing. It’s Florida hot, but not Death Valley hot? But I realize that I am rolling my eyes while in my pleasantly a/c house, so…
Yesterday we arrived at the strawberry U Pick at 7:30 am, and there were a whole lotta people there already. I pretty much spent the rest of the day making jam and freezing strawberries!
Today we took a bike ride pretty early. I’m certainly enjoying this sunny weather.
I’ve also cleaned the toilets, gone to Tai Chi, and then gone to my knitting group, which was fun.
Will water the garden after dinner.
Tomorrow I have to get groceries but after that I’m gonna stay home and sew.
I used to live in Washington, DC which has a much hotter climate than the midwest. But since moving here, I have lived in a rental apartment with no a/c. Twice yesterday I came home from watching live music outdoors and it was 91 degrees inside the apartment. That is an entirely different level of hot than when I lived in DC with an air conditioned home and office.
I think it’s that I did grow up in Florida with no a/c, so I was used to being hot most of the time? I don’t mind being hot but I get chilled really easily.
It was originally predicted to rain this afternoon, but instead it rained this morning and drizzled this afternoon, when the high soared to around 70°.
So this morning I made Chex mix, turkey meatballs, and chocolate chip cookies, since it was a good time to turn on the oven.
This afternoon we went to church to weed the flowerbed we volunteered to maintain, then to garden3 to pull some weeds, and then got gas for the week - price is down! -, then to Menards, and then rain into Aldi for potatoes and wine.
It’s cool enough that we drank hot tea and not iced tea.
The cat who has been snoozing on the porch in the heat came inside to sleep.
Went the Farmers Market, and church, and the poked through Goodwill. Bought a pair of LL Bean jeans for $5. I even tried them on!
Dh and I took another exploratory bike ride. Now we know how to get to Woodmans, JoAnn, a yarn store I’ve never been to, St. Vinny’s, and a fencing school.
Also found two nightstands at the curb on the next street, so we retrieved them. I’ve been looking and was almost ready to break down and buy new. Now I’ve got a painting project! They are both pretty grimy and rough, but seem solid. The weather is going to be great this week, and we just bought a new gallon of primer. Sweet!
I scrubbed down those nightstands this morning, and the one that was in the worst shape really cleaned up beautifully. I rubbed a bunch of wood conditioner into it and put a knob on the drawer. It’s to hold gardening and bird books on the back porch, so it’s fine for it to look a little rustic.
I’ve primed the other one. I need to get a small sized roller, or find where the bin of painting stuff ended up. It’s for the little boys room and we were going to paint his dresser this summer anyone. (I bought that dresser at a thrift store in Miami in 1987.)
I have also done 2 loads of laundry and line dried them, paid the phone bill, ordered a refill of the cat’s medicine, and ordered a bus pass for dd2.
Nightstand painted! I used two colors of purple because that’s what he wants for his dresser. I did have to buy a quart of the darker paint (the lighter purple is left over) and some new knobs. But I spent $30 instead of the $150 that a new nightstand would cost, and this one is cuter and not in the landfill. I’m going to decoupage some sort of cute paper on the top of the shelf part. It won’t really show so it will be kind of a secret surprise.
I survived kayaking and it was fun and I was not the klutziest person there even though dh and I were the only people who hadn’t kayaked before. But dh was the only guy! I dunno what other old retired guys are doing - I though kayaking would have a better ratio. Anyway, the instructors said there would be some trips available next term, so we might sign up for that.
Hauled the nightstand upstairs. It is really cute! Now I need to find a lamp, and I’m trying to decide between something cute (owl?) that he might get tired of sooner than something plain?
Very hot. Watering garden. I picked peas, basil, and raspberries today.
