Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The Little Engine that Might Get It All Done but be exhausted when it's over.

I am failing rather spectacularly at this posting-every-day challenge.  Things have been so busy that by the time I get a little recreational computer time, the best I can manage is a little FaceBook cruising.  Sometimes not even that.

I had this marvelous list of things I needed to accomplish before Thanksgiving.  The plan was to go down the list and check things off.  So far, the plan has gone horribly awry.

The first thing that happened was that my son got sick.  Sneezing and coughing - to the point of not being able to sleep.  By last Thursday, I finally said "Fine, stay home."  I had planned to take Friday off to get things done, but I wound up taking Friday off to take care of my boy.  Trips to the drug store, the cooking of food, temperature-taking...  and I cleaned his room.  That was actually on the list but it got bumped up to number one because the dust couldn't be helping matters.  I hauled one large bag of trash out of there, organized his shelves so that the closet doors could be closed, changed his sheets and vacuumed EVERYTHING.  It definitely made a difference in how the room felt in addition to how it looked.

Then the plumbing decided to act up.  A severe clog somewhere down in the wall was causing the water draining from the master bath sink to back up into the hall bath sink and it was nasty.  Black sludge was really more like it.  And of course the water that might be run in the hall sink sat there for hours before finally disappearing.  We pulled the p-traps off both sinks (nothing).  We ran a snake in and after some difficulty getting it to take the downward turn, finally hit the blockage.  The snake would go no further, so we pulled it back out (with a tiny tuft of slimy, black-coated hair on it.  At least we knew what we were dealing with now.  This house was built in the mid-60s and is of the same vintage as the rental house we were living in before this.  That means cast iron pipes which may be pretty brittle at this point.  We had two pipes rust through at the other house and it was a very expensive fix.  Hoping to save those dollars, we set about finding more gentle ways than shoving a snake or pipe bladder down the hole.  A friend suggested just repeatedly flushing the sink with boiling water (you can only do that so much when it makes its dirty reappearance in another sink five feet away).  We resorted to super-Drano.  Poured it down and then about an hour later started flushing it with hot water.  Still backing up, but draining a little faster - so we're making headway.  Treated it again the next day and flushed with lots of hot water.  This morning (four days later), nothing's backing up and it all seems to be draining normally.  Hurray!  Still, it required a lot more of my time and lots of trips up and down the stairs to make it happen.  And it was never on my list.

I spent Saturday out at the farm.  My parents have a lovely large basement with a bedroom area in one corner and a bath with shower down there.  It is also chock full of stuff.  Sewing stuff.  My grandma's old stuff.  A desk full of official stuff.  My brother's stuff (from when he moved back home for a few months).  Books.  Clothes.  It was almost literally wall to wall stuff.  And my mission was to turn this into liveable space for my brother and his wife to occupy while visiting from Korea.  I admit to feeling briefly overwhelmed but this is the kind of thing I do very well.  I had to shoo Mom off, who was inclined to look in every box before doing something with it.  I explained that if we did that, it would never get done and I had no other days I could give her.  Saturday was it.  So she helped organize for a little bit, then went upstairs and stayed there.  I wish I'd had my camera.  Only a before and after picture could adequately tell you how things went.  I was rather amazed myself - but I got it done!  I did wind up stapling a sheet to the ceiling to make a false wall to hide some of the stuff, but overall it came out surprisingly well.  Not perfect, but comfortable enough to live in for a week or so.

Sunday was kind of wasted.  Darling Man, after caring for the Boy all day Saturday while I was gone came down with a different version of the same illness.  The Boy was all sneezing and coughing with a slight fever.  Darling Man had a full-blown fever with chills and a bad headache.  I changed his sheets, cleaned his fan and vacuumed the hell out of his room as well - but that was all I accomplished on my list that day.  I am falling seriously behind.

Monday I managed to catch up with my sister-in-law who is spearheading the Thanksgiving dinner preparations.  We talked a bit about plans and headcounts (21!) and where to get the best deal on what.  I went grocery shopping and discovered that the turkeys were down to fifty-nine cents a pound.  Down from $1.79 a couple of weeks ago.  I have to go back to get them as my freezer is full of food at the moment - which will be cooked this week. 

Tuesday was a long day at work.  I accomplished much but other than going upstairs to get my lunch (which I had decadently delivered), I didn't leave my desk from 9am to 6:15pm.  By the time I got home I was brain-dead.  I sat in front of the TV and watched "How I Met Your Mother" but I can't tell you anything about it.  At 8:30, I turned off the TV and went upstairs to bed where I slept like a rock until the alarm went off at 5:30 this morning.

The Boy finally went back to school today (after nearly a week of being sick) still coughing some but feeling more human.  Darling Man went to work briefly but went home and to bed for the majority of the day.  I worked at my desk again but left early to get The Boy and Kylee from school.  When I got home, I took a shower and finally looked in the mirror after a couple of days of ignoring it and realized my eyes looked like they were bleeding because they were so tired.  That didn't stop me from going to the church for a dinner and discussion, which was awesome but I didn't get anything on my list done.

Time is running out.  I need to make three costumes, get my house in order enough to have company for almost a week, finish my last brother Christmas present - AND get my work at the office DONE through to the Monday after Thanksgiving - all this week and weekend. 

Oh, and blog every day.  What was I thinking?

1 comment:

Jill said...

just copy this line of text and put it in for every day up until the 30th
"this is my blog post for today, because all my family is sick"

then if you don't get back to it, you've still blogged for the day, but if you do, then you just erase that line and put something real in. Done!

ps I hope you get everything necessary done!