Hang on... Has it really only been one day since I wrote last? That doesn't seem possible. Too much happened to be crammed into a single day.
I woke up early, as I promised I would, to keep decluttering before the Merry Maids showed up. I gave myself about two and a half hours before the beginning of their arrival window, and I used it all. I moved things, did laundry (sheets and shower curtains), washed the last of the dishes, and sorted about half of the piles of junk and important papers around the house. I had time to settle in my chair and drink about half a cup of coffee before they arrived, roughly half an hour into the window of opportunity. It was two women, with good attitudes and personable demeanor. For most of the time they were here, I just stayed out of the way. They tackled so much that I haven't been able to do in a couple of years. Sure they cleaned the bathroom and whatnot, but they did everything down to the blinds, ceiling fans, and baseboards. I almost cried when I heard the one lady cleaning the inside of my microwave. If I haven't spoken this part clearly yet, this experience was a gift from one of my closest buddies from college, as a way to support me as I'm coming out of chemo, and I love her so much for it. I'm hoping that when I am completely done with all treatments, and able to go back to work, I can bring back the same team, and have them work on the house at least a few times a year. I have come to admit that with my chronic and acute illnesses, I don't have to shame myself over my inability to keep up with everything anymore. It's okay to enlist help.
Once the lovely ladies finished their job here, I set about making a little bit of a mess, on purpose. Tonight was game night, and I had had dreams of Frito pie, so I made that happen. I made two different crockpots of chili, one with beef (and onions and garlic), and a vegetarian one with mushrooms as a meat substitute (and no garlic for my kid who can't eat it). Both had beans and black eyed peas, carrots, and a gigantic zucchini from my garden. Because my house was in such glorious shape, suddenly it didn't seem like a burden to wash the dishes and wipe the counters as I went. I actually enjoyed that part.
Bad weather moved in while the chili was simmering and Mr S-P and I were downstairs setting up the nearly-done game table. It sounded like someone was knocking over furniture upstairs. We came up to find that it was hailing, and doing it thoroughly. I'm trying to come up with a size descriptor. Marble sized hail, maybe? I stood on the porch for several minutes, watching it hit our cars, willing it never to get bigger or harder. The cars didn't seem to sustain damage. While I was on the front porch, the Mr was running around the back yard, trying to rescue a large handful of raspberries that had just ripened in the last day. For some reason he thought I would be surprised he was doing that. Um, nope. We've met. Not surprised at all.
So I mentioned that we were putting together the table. I don't know how we didn't have a "Hulk smash!" moment. The table was designed to split in half, so we could get it downstairs, and to provide stability in the center, we created a kind of tongue and groove support. It probably would have worked a whole lot better if I hadn't tried to paint it. That was mistake number one. There was also a spot where the support on the bottom of the groove was a tiny fraction of an inch too long, and it kept preventing the whole thing from lining up. I don't know how either of us kept cool enough not to just beat the hell out of it with a hammer. Eventually we ended up filing, sanding, and sawing off bits of it until it fit together well enough. Since it was a table purpose-built for D&D, the only way I could explain it to the gang was that I "rolled a one" for design. However, once the group arrived to play the game, they loved the table. I don't know how we pulled it out, but we did. In one short hour, I went from thinking I was going to turn it into firewood, to feeling like we made something very special for our dear friends. (Granted, I had to take a great painkiller and soak in the hot tub in between those emotional extremes.) I never did put on the trim to finish it up, and I'll wait until I can correct some of the mistakes before I do, but for now, I'm proud of what we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment