New home, at last!

We are HERE!  In St. Louis.  In our new home.  What a week it has been to get to this point. We are not completely settled in - which is to be expected - but most of our everyday living areas are livable and clean and somewhat organized.  

Last Monday was moving day number two.  With truck number three.  And, it was quite the day!  It started at U-Haul to get our 26-foot truck.  What a behemoth!  Steve drove it to Premier Moving and Storage to collect the Kawai and I followed in the car.  They loaded the piano onto our truck and strapped it down using their moving straps - everything was wrapped in Premier's blankets and attached to their piano board and they allowed us to use all of their equipment to get the instrument to St. Louis.  So great.  Then, Steve drove to Aaron and Laura Howard's place to meet some church brethren to help him load the furniture and appliances we had stored there for the month while I drove to the duplex to meet Elise and Melanie to clean.  Finally, Steve drove the truck to the duplex to load up what we had brought to Marcia's to store (items that needed to be in a climate controlled environment) and to live with.  And that is when we had our two little hiccups in the entire moving adventure.   And, truly, they were so minor in the overall scheme - we have been so blessed throughout this entire move.  First, as Steve was driving the 26 foot beast down Sonora Drive - which is not a wide street to begin with and people park on both sides of the street, he side swiped an old Buick and took out the side mirror and the trim.  

Understandably, the owner was not happy but he was unreasonably so....for an old, beat-up car!  And, it took up precious moving time to call insurance and start that ball rolling.  Plus, it was very warm and humid.  Ugh.  The second issue was that when the truck was loaded at the Howard's, there was not a concern to pack as efficiently as possible so we actually didn't have enough room for everything at the duplex!!!!  Incredible. And, the day was so hot and we only had Steve and one other fellow from the ward plus Elise and me so we just couldn't fathom repacking the truck to make space.  We did manage to get the big Adirondack chairs and our bed and a few other things on but we had to leave the CD shelves, the tubs of DVDs, the tubs of family history photos, the two slipcovered chairs, and my sewing machine, cabinet, and antique sewing box.  We did this knowing that we were returning to Columbia later in the week for Steve's renal doctor appointment and again in a couple weeks for my permanent crown. By about noon, we were finally on our way to St. Louis and I held my breath and prayed the entire way that we would get to our destination without any more mishaps.  And, we did!  And, on the St. Louis end, we were helped with the unloading by Beckie, Kyle, and the Southerland clan.  It was hot, it was a lot of work, but, it was great.  Noah was a big help.  Lucy and Quinn and Larkin were as helpful as their little arms and short attention spans would allow and the rest of the time, they loved exploring the basement and playing.  Lucy and Larkin found my tub of little play horses and they were in heaven.  Beckie brought dinner - cold chicken curry salad, corn salad, cold rotisserie chicken, rolls and chips, and cookies or mochi icecream balls for dessert.  Oh, and Joe picked up Happy Meals for the kids....

Below is how the house looked early in the week.  First are photos of our basement which has become the catch-all for things we need to go through but definitely not right away (our holiday tubs, packed up knic knacs, etc.) Then, photos of the upstairs.  These were all taken Tuesday morning before Cord Moving and Storage arrived to take the piano off of the truck and set it up.  They also moved the washer, dryer, and freezer off the truck and down into the basement. 

the kitchen/dining area - two views

the library/office

the TV/sewing room

Steve putting together our beds

So, since Tuesday, we have worked to bring order to the above chaos.  The living room still needs has all the boxes of music that I need to sort, cull, and put the rest on a large bookcase. We also have all our boxes of photos and paintings that need to be sorted and hung that are currently sitting under the living room window.  We think our walls are drywall (and not plaster) so hopefully, hanging things will not be a problem.  

The library/office is still the most chaotic.  We need to repair and repaint our two large bookcases before we can put any books on them so dozens of book boxes are still piled into a quarter of the room.  We have another large bookcase that needs to be revamped in order to store our DVDs.  And, all the family history tubs are piled into another quarter of the room.  We did manage to place the "organ desk" in there and all the office stuff is unpacked and organize but we are missing a shelf to help with holding everything.  This desk was truly an organ and our friend, Bob Eschrich, converted it into a desk for us.  This photo doesn't do it justice...

The TV/sewing room is set up and, on Thursday's trip to Columbia, we brought back all my sewing things as well as the CD shelves and the two slipcovered chairs.  We also took the DVD tubs to Elise for her to bring when she comes to visit this Thursday.  

Our bedroom is all set up and organized - with clothes in the closets and drawers.  The bathroom off of our bedroom is mine and Steve has the bathroom off of the hallway.  I keep my clothes in our bedroom closet and he keeps his in the TV room closet.  We cleaned yesterday.  Nothing was really filthy, thankfully, except the floors.  All the feet from all the moving in.  Plus, when the new floor was laid, it was done with a glue that the workers were kind of sloppy with because there were blobs of excess glue that had oozed up at the seams which had dried and then became magnets for dirt and grime.  I was on my hands and knees for over two hours yesterday scrubbing up those glue blobs as well as drips of paint and also the usual floor dirt.  So much work.  But, the floor looks great now!

The kitchen is all put together.  It is small and I was worried about where to put everything so I ordered an island.  It arrived in a box this past week and Steve and I put it together yesterday afternoon.  And, with it, and the two hall closets, and the hutch in the living room, we have places for everything and even some room to spare!  

I LOVE all the new appliances....the dishwasher that sings to me and even opens up the door when it is finished....the refrigerator, which has an ice maker even though it doesn't have a place to get it through the door...and my gas range.  I made pancakes on the included griddle yesterday morning. 

We have not been able to use our washer and dryer yet.  The cold water spigot has an ancient hose that is rusted tight and the end that attaches to the machine is also rusted solid .  And, the dryer outlet is not compatible with our dryer plug.  Our realtor, Alicia, is engaged to Matt who is a contractor and when I texted her for suggestions for a plumber and and electrician, she sent Matt and his plumber and electrician to help us.  Now, we are more than willing to pay for these services but I think, because St. Louis is a union city, that these guys are doing this as "side work" to avoid union prices so they come when they are available after regular working hours.  The plumber and Matt came Tuesday afternoon and they could not get the hose off and I believe we are looking at a completely new spigot.  He was going to return Wednesday but got tied up with work so he is coming today at noon.  The electrician was going to come today as well but then remembered an out-of-town soccer game with his daughter so he won't come until NEXT Sunday!  In the meantime, our dirty clothes kept accumulating so we found a nearby laundromat called "Wishy Washy" and washed clothes Wednesday night.  Hopefully we can get the washer going for this week and all we will have to spend money on is the dryer.  

Also on Wednesday, we had a locksmith come.  At closing, we were only given one house key which went to the front door.  The sliding glass door clearly had a lock but we had no key.  And, there is a dead bolt device for that door as well.  The locksmith was able to make a key for both the doors but she is having to order the deadbolt.  

Thursday was Columbia day - We dropped off the piano moving equipment, gave Elise our DVD tubs, retrieved the side parts of the guest bed we accidentally left at the Howards, Steve saw his renal doctor and got a good report, I taught a cello lesson, and I saw the dentist for a brief check on my temporary crown.  Finally, we returned to the duplex to load up the Element with as much as we could.  Happily, all that remains will easily fit in the car when I return for my permanent crown on September 10th.  

We attended our new ward this morning.  It seems like a great group of people.  Crazy enough, Naomi LaFond Buell and her husband are in our ward.  She is the Relief Society president!  We met a fellow named Matt Morgan.  He will be easy to remember!  (Susan and Juli - our Columbia Bishop is also named Matt Morgan).  

So, at the end of our almost full week in our new home, I can say that we are more in love with the house than ever and are feeling more and more at home in St. Louis.  

 

Moving to St. Louis begins......

 Yesterday was Phase 1 of the move to our new home. Initially, we had reserved just one 26-foot U-Haul truck hold all of our belongings from the storage unit. However, mid-week, Steve got a little nervous about maneuvering such a large vehicle in the narrow lanes of Vonderahaes Storage so we canceled the one truck and and reserved TWO trucks – 15 feet and 20 feet – instead. Smart move. We easily emptied the 10 X 20 unit into both trucks. There were eight people to help and we got the job done in an hour. 

(back row: Ryan Jenkins, Dan Crouch, Melissa & Elder Mack Jenkins)

(front row: Ronald Davis, Ray Stubbs, Steven, Jr, Steve Sr.  already gone: Marty Bailey)

 Steve and Steven (the Steves) drove the trucks and I followed in the car (which was packed with musical instruments) to the new house. We had eight people (four ward members and four missionaries) (Steven was also there) to help on the St. Louis end and they got everything unloaded in an hour and a half. Amazing. 

( The only name I know is the one on the end - Steve Pister)

 What is extremely embarrassing is how much STUFF we have! I sat in a chair by the door and directed traffic (that box to room one, that tub to the living room, that box to room three….) and, as the items just kept coming and coming, I just got more and more mortified at all our accumulated THINGS. And I thought we had purged already. Not by a long shot. Steve and I were talking this morning about this and we know it is going to take us weeks and maybe even months to go through all our things again and sort and eliminate. Returning the two trucks to the designated U-Haul location in St. Louis was a bit of a trick – a bad address and unfamiliar roads – but we got it done. We stopped by Emily’s on the way out of town, caught dinner at the Culvers in Wentzville, and we were back in Columbia by 9:00 pm. Quite the day! We were SO grateful for Steven’s help. We even got to sneak over to say hi to Beckie before unloading. She was preparing to work later on but she donated some cleaning supplies so I could wipe down the kitchen cupboards while we waited for the 3 o’clock moving help to arrive. Next week, I will write about Phase 2 (which will involve a grand piano).

Our walk-through and closing was Friday. The seller got most of the repair requests completed (from the house inspection report) but a handrail for the stairs was still missing so he had to have someone do that while we were signing papers. And, signing papers took forever. First of all, no one told us until that morning that we had to have a cashiers check for the amount (couldn’t just write our own check) so we had to find a Simmons Bank on the way to the title company. Happily, Simmons Bank is in both Columbia and St. Louis! What if it hadn’t been??? Why didn’t anyone email or text me with this requirement before the day we closed??? After it took a ridiculously long time to cut the check, we then had a hard time finding the title company because Google maps failed. And, once we arrived, we had to do all our signing in our car – in the sun – with a steering wheel in the way. We spent literally an hour in the title company parking lot signing our name to a stack of papers an inch thick. And, now we own a house.

Last Sunday afternoon, Steven and Tamara sponsored a “drive-by farewell” for us in the front of their house. They had a little pop-up gazebo and folding chairs and we sat for an hour and a half greeting friends who drove by to say good bye. So nice. A funny incident though was that the very first car came and they brought us a mylar balloon saying “Good Luck” and we had NO IDEA who the people were!!! We just smiled and said thank you and happily, they didn’t linger to talk or what would we have said to them???? Steven was out there with us and HE didn’t recognize them either. But, when we related the story to Tamara later, she said “Oh, I bet they are our neighbors up the street. I told the about this event and she is so nice and I bet they just wanted to show some support.” Ha Ha. One couple came twice – the second time to bring their two Bichon doggies (because I asked where they were on the first drive by).

Steve had a liver ultrasound on Monday and, on Wednesday, he had a visit with his pulmonary doctor. He had blood work done as well and the results that came back looked good – improving numbers on all counts. He got a call from the renal clinic’s office this week and his doctor wants to see him next week – in person – so we will be driving BACK to Columbia on Thursday, August 27^th. Oh, well, it will give us a chance to return the piano moving equipment to Premier Moving and Storage and to close out our P.O Box at the Post Office. I will also teach Ethan a cello lesson. Ethan is going to continue to study with me – we will do two FaceTime lessons per month and then his mom will drive him to St. Louis the other two times! Not sure how long that will last but, hey, if they want to come all that way, I won’t turn them down. I had some dental work done on Wednesday. Two old fillings were failing so I am getting crowns for those back molars. But that meant the dentist had to drill out the old fillings and, OH MY, it was an ordeal. I thought he would NEVER stop drilling. Of course, I was all numbed up but I just felt like any minute I would feel some pain so I was pretty stressed through it all. And, with my temporary crown, I find I cannot bite down on that side without pain so I am worried that my trials are not over. I will call the office next week to ask if it is normal to still hurt.

We managed to watch four movies this week: “Enchanted”, “Glory Road”, “Deep Impact”, and “Phantom of the Opera”. The MU college students are back in town and they are in every store everywhere. Traffic is crazy. I am ready to stop driving and eager to stay put and go through boxes and more boxes…..

The calm before the storm

 It was a pretty chill week. I finished up all the “projects” I had planned to do during this four-week waiting period. The biggest one was painting the two Adirondack rocking chairs. They turned out nicely (if you don’t look too closely at the paint drips). 

 

I have decided to hold off painting the wooden folding chairs for now – mostly because I don’t think I want them to be white and I don’t have any other color of paint. And, I don’t know where I will put them once they are painted. I altered some clothes for Melanie and for Steve – both having lost enough weight that their pants were too big. We have decided that in the new house, one of the bedrooms will be the “TV room” since I will teach cello students in the living room with the grand piano. So, for this TV room, we needed chairs (one for Steve and one for me) and we were thinking on the lines of a recliner for Steve and a over-sized chair and ottoman for me. We have spent the week going to furniture stores around town, looking on-line, and finally, at a used furniture shop, we found a very nice used La-Z-boy recliner in a faux leather finish for Steve. The search for my chair was not so easy. First of all, over-sized chairs – also called Plus-One chairs – are ridiculously expensive! Probably because they are the “hot furniture item” right now. I just don’t want to spend a total of $800 for a chair and ottoman. So I looked at in-store chairs, I looked extensively on-line (reading customer reviews, taking width measurements), I tried Face-Book marketplace. I just couldn’t decide. There was one chair at Furniture Factory Outlet that was the most reasonably priced ($329.00 without an ottoman) but I just wasn’t crazy about the style. It DID look comfortable, though, so yesterday, I set out to look at it one more time, to measure the width myself (rather than rely on the salesperson’s measurement which seemed dubious) but I also wanted to check out one more used furniture store, just in case they had one. On my way to the used furniture place, I saw that our gas tank was down so I took a slight detour to fill up at Gerbes (which gives rewards members a .03 cent discount per gallon) and I noticed the furniture store next door. Hmmm, I wondered if they might have what I was looking for? Well, they didn’t have any Plus-One chairs but they DID have a small love seat with a width just slightly more than the largest chair I was looking at. And, it was only $220! I sat it it, I walked around it, I thought about it, and I bought it. Even better, it fit in the Element so I didn’t have to pay a $65 delivery fee! And, I have already picked out a nice storage ottoman on-line with colors that will bring my love seat and Steve’s recliner together nicely. Success….

We got the inspection report this week and our realtor helped us compile a list of what we want repaired from the seller. It is a bit more bold than I would have asked and a whole lot more bold than Steve would have asked so we will see what he is willing to do. There are some obvious repairs – the plugged-with-tree roots-water line, the two mis-wired sockets in the living room, lighting that doesn’t work in the basement, the three windows that won’t stay open – but we also want the siding repaired on the garage as well as a new garage door installed. We haven’t heard a response so we are kind of on pins and needles. I don’t believe any of it will be as expensive (or as extensive) as what our buyers wanted us to do (remember the electric panel?) so we will see what happens. We just hope that whatever is done won’t interfere with the plans to sign papers and move in next weekend.

Additional news from this past week: We were asked to drive a long-time friend from Church to the Kansas City airport on Thursday. She moved to Colorado almost twenty years ago so it was great to have time to catch up with her life and the lives of her children. And, on the way home, Steve and I stopped at the Russell Stover factory outlet for a little chocolate treat.

We enjoyed dinner and Scrabble at our friend, Elizabeth Crippen’s house Wednesday night.

Thursday afternoon, I met Tamara and fellow ward member Kari Bailey at the church to give them a brief inservice on playing the organ. Both Kari and Tamara are pianists but have never dared try to play the organ. I really don’t consider myself an organist – because I don’t do the foot pedals. When in high school, my piano teacher, who was also an organist, tried to teach me a little about the organ but I never took the time to learn the pedals. My sister, Juli, had the same teacher and she DID take the time to learn pedals and she has become a good church organist. Right after Steve and I were married, my first church assignment was to play organ for sacrament meeting! Being at BYU full-time, I didn’t have time to go to the church during the week to practice with the pedals so I just played without them and have been doing it that way ever since. So, I am really not a great organ teacher but I did tell them the little tricks I have learned over the years. And, they both seem excited to try.

And, of course, Steve and I watched movies. This week, it was “Independence Day”, “Minority Report”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Rescuers”.

From The Internet Desert

 I never realized how much I have come to rely upon being electronically connected to the world until I was NOT connected. And that is how I have been for the last two weeks and will continue to be so for another two weeks with the exception of my cell phone. Which is so teeny and it doesn’t have a decent keyboard and sometimes talk-to-text refuses to work and I am using up so much data on my plan. Ugh! And, I miss having a printer during a time when we are inundated with all kinds of documents related to moving.

We are also not well connected to the world in a non-digital way. Our mail is wonky. We obtained a post office box for collecting mail during this four-week interim only we hardly get any mail! I filled out the change-of-address from 3305 Parker St. to P.O. Box 7503 to start on the day we closed on the house – July 24^th. What the postal worker failed to tell me, though, was that it takes TEN business days for the change to take place. TEN!!! Why didn’t she tell me to make the start date for July 14^th??? Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to include our P.O. Box on the papers we left for the new owner with the request to forward any mail. But, I didn’t count on the “I’ll get around to it” attitude of the nineteen year old son of the new owner. I finally sent her a post card with my cell phone and a request to please contact me if we had any mail. Thankfully, she texted me and we were able to go back to the house, to meet her and her two sons, and pick up some of our mail. But, two bills and two magazines are still missing in action! Also, we are in this kind of address no-man’s land because our current physical address is 1545 Sonora Drive so our temporary renters insurance and our car insurance needs that information. We will be living at 4018 Bates St. but we cannot receive any mail there yet so we are having deliveries made to Steven and Tamara’s house on Yellowwood. It is so confusing….

But, on the positive side – yesterday, we got to look at the house on Bates St. again. It was the day of the inspection and we met Mike, the inspector, after he was finished so he could walk us through the house and point out any deficiencies. And, there are some but nothing too monumental. Some of the windows not staying open and not enough attic insulation are probably the biggest. But, it was so nice to return and see again all the features of the house and the yard. Things I had forgotten were the two cedar-lined closets in the basement, that the master bedroom is larger than I remembered, the other two bedrooms are not the same size, and that the living room will easily accommodate the grand piano and still have room for other pieces of furniture. I had also forgotten how teeny tiny the kitchen and eat-in dining area are! Wow – it is small with hardly any counter space and NO drawers! Happily, I have found a kitchen island on-line that we can buy, as well as a baker’s rack to set by the refrigerator and, with those additional items, I believe it will be fine. There are two pantry-like closets in the hallway and I measured the one that backs up to the bathroom and it is large enough to fit a stack-able washer and dryer so I hope that will be something we can do in the future.

After the inspection, Steve and I drove the approximately three miles to Tower Grove Park and met Beckie and the Southerland clan for a lovely picnic under a large tree. We were socially distanced, as you can see....

 We will be living so close to Beckie! (who is over the coronavirus completely) And, so much closer to Emily, Joe, and the grandkids. I am really looking forward to this new chapter in our lives, even though some aspects are rather daunting. We have lived in Columbia for almost forty years. And, aside from our two daughters, we will be starting from the ground up as far as knowing people in our neighborhood, in our church. We will need to find doctors, a dentist, an auto mechanic, a handyman, a local hardware store. (happily, I have found the closest Aldi). And, I have never lived this close to a city center with all its diversity. I want to be a good citizen and I don’t want to blunder into awkward situations. Bottom line, this “old dog” will be learning new tricks as we start a new life in St. Louis.

Wow, this blog is getting long. This past week, I finished Elise’s quilt top. I finished sanding and cleaning the chairs and now I am ready to paint them. I made five see-through masks for my sister, Juli, and I have five more waiting to be ironed at Tamara’s place today so I can finish them. (I am SO READY to have access to ALL of my stuff again – like my iron. So much has been packed up for over three years and all of it, including the stuff we used this past year, is in the storage unit.) Steve and I watch movies most nights. This week, we saw “The Scarlet and the Black” (a made-for-TV movie from the eighties that starred Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer. It was based upon the true story of a priest who helped hide allied soldiers in German-occupied Rome during World War II. REALLY good), “A Walk In The Clouds”, “Willow”, “Ender’s Game”, and “The Court Jester”. Every morning, Steve and I walk around our temporary neighborhood of El Chaparral. It is an older subdivision – mostly built in the seventies – and so many of the houses have fallen into various stages of neglect and disrepair. So sad. Our street is comprised of just duplexes and it is particularly bad. Some landlords just don’t do anything to their properties. There is one duplex where the central air conditioning units are broken and, rather than buy new ones, the landlord has installed window units!!! Another duplex has had a pile of moving-out type trash sitting on the roadside for as long as we have been here (two weeks). I discovered a huge gash in the siding of our duplex the other day as I was straightening the junk under the rickety deck.

 I sent a photo of it to our landlord and he had no idea it was there! Although, to his credit, he has replaced our broken dishwasher this past week and he is in the process of having new gutters installed since he also just had a new roof put on. So, on a scale of 1-10, our landlord is a 9. I will close with photos of our temporary neighborhood…

this is looking up Sonora Drive

here is our duplex.  We are on the left side.

the neighbors on the right have a green thumb

the view from our back door...

the view of the duplex just south of us.  The trash that has been there for two weeks!

the subdivision has a small park with a pavilion and basketball standard

Just a pretty sky photo to finish out the blog

Our Self-Quarantine Week

Our BIG news is that our offer on the house at 4018 Bates St. was accepted! We close on August 21^st. We found this out Monday morning so, throughout the week we have been working on moving logistics. It is going to take two 26-foot trucks to get all our stuff to St. Louis and we are going to have to do it in two days because piano movers only work Monday-Friday (unless we want to pay overtime – no, thank you). This little house is so perfect. It is “move-in” ready. We were prepared to do painting and fixing up with whatever we bought but now we won’t have to. It is like a reward for all the hard work we put in on the house on Parker. It has 1100 square feet which is basically the same amount of square footage of the upstairs of our old house. And, the basement is SO much nicer than most of the basements we looked at. It is clean, dry, painted, bright and it will be perfect for Steve’s model train set-up, storage, and our guest room (which is already over half-way completed). And, since it is a full basement, we are basically moving into the same amount of square footage we came from! The yard is VERY long and deep (typical of many St. Louis lots) and is just grass so it is a blank canvas for me to create upon. We will attempt fruit trees again but not so many kinds this time. We will put in raised beds for vegetables. And, that crazy deck needs something – maybe a pergola?

Last Sunday, I reported that Beckie had been to urgent care that morning and had tested positive for Covid19. We had been with her four days earlier so Steve and I started our self-quarantine right then and there. We were tested last Thursday, July 30^th and our results came back yesterday as “negative”! I consider it a small miracle that we didn’t catch the virus from Beckie because we were with her all day on July 22^nd – eating two meals, working side-by-side as we loaded and unloaded the truck twice! We will continue to quarantine until Tuesday evening when we plan to drive to St. Louis to be present at the house inspection.

Boy, it was hard to be in lock-down mode because, honestly, neither Steve nor I had really done it since this whole pandemic started. Yes, we curbed some of our activities but we continued to go shopping when we needed to, we continued to visit people we were assigned to minister to, we had Sunday family dinners. So, this past week was a challenge. Elise and Melanie graciously did emergency shopping for us. We still went to Steven and Tamara’s Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings but we wore masks and didn’t interact much – just did our laundry and used internet.

So, we watched a LOT of movies this week. We couldn’t use our internet options (Disney+, Netflix, Prime) so we dug into our own DVD collection and watched “Galaxy Quest”, “The Muppet Movie”, “The Big Country”, “Persuasion”, “Wizard of Oz”, and “The Prestige”. We also watched Jeopardy every day as well as both local and national news. I took long naps. And I worked on projects.

Brick project – while working at the Music Suite, I was constantly having to push music books back upright in the various bins and shelves. Pat had a few covered bricks to act as bookends but not nearly enough. Emily found twelve unused bricks in her back yard and I brought them home last Saturday, cleaned them up a bit, and then covered them first with brown paper, then with music note themed paper (old paper bags that Pat used to put store purchases in), and finally, clear contact paper. This is how they turned out….

Cleaning – Melanie gave me some Magic Erasers and I cleaned crayon and other marks off of many of the walls of our temporary abode. (wow, Magic Erasers really work!!!). I cleaned doggie nose and kiddie finger smudges off of windows and mirrors. And, I cleaned the fish tank! Those poor guppies had been swimming in sludge for at least five months (Marcia left in March) and the tank sides were covered with algae. I confess that some of the guppy babies didn’t survive the cleaning – just too fast and too many – but all the other fish seem to be doing well in their newly cleaned home. And, from the experience, I also know that I don’t want a fish tank of my own.

Elise’s t-shirt quilt – I tacked down all the assorted pieces while watching movies. Next up – zigzagging around all of them

Covering chairs – Last fall, I salvaged two chairs with cracking vinyl from the side of the road in our neighborhood. Aside from the damaged seats, they were very comfortable to sit upon and worth keeping so this week, I made slip covers out of a nice black and white patterned fabric. We also had two matching cushioned folding chairs that needed recovering because, unfortunately, I had set a hot iron on one of the seats a few years back. I had extra black and white fabric so now they look brand new.

Adirondack chairs – in the mornings, during the time I had previously set aside for yard work at the Parker house, I went into the garage and worked on cleaning and sanding the two rocking Adirondack chairs we brought from our back yard. I am almost through cleaning them (MANY years of dirt had accumulated on them. We got them second hand about five years ago …..no idea how old they are). And, once I have cleaned and sanded down the Adirondack chairs and the two wooden folding chairs we had on our front porch, I will paint all four. This past week has been unseasonably cool and rainy so working in the garage has been pleasant.