Home Again

After a 15+ hour drive, I made it home around 9:30 Monday night.  It took an hour-plus longer than usual as just three hours from home, when I'm tired and most anxious and excited to be getting home, I hit a construction zone.  One hour was spent wasted traveling just six miles.  There appeared to be one fender cruncher a number of vehicles behind me as I saw a smallish rental truck and another car's driver suddenly get out after everyone came screeching to a standstill after flying low at 80 mph with but a couple car lengths in between, or so it seems.  That type of driving is pretty normal on that stretch of highway...scary!  Especially with so many semis on the road too.

I sorted through the mail and bills and receipts yesterday.  Dear hubby took care of such things in my 6-week absence, but he does so only minimally as he knows I like to look at everything myself, and I'm the one who posts all of our info into Quicken.

Monday night, I brought in only a couple of my bags, then unloaded those things I was able to yesterday morning, then after dark (and after it cooled off), Marty and Nick off-loaded the two small, but too heavy for me, pieces of furniture I brought home.  One, a small cedar chest my mom had - I'd filled it with all the Corning baking / casserole dishes Mom had that my dad had boxed up for me.  The other is a small oak / glass front curio cabinet.  Both pieces fit into my Highlander which was then filled with boxes of paperwork, my sewing supplies that I'd taken with me for quilt camp, and all my other personal luggage I tend to haul with me when I'm gone so long.  I made a great attempt to make sure I could still see out the rear of my car via the rear-view mirror as I'm not comfortable with just using the side mirrors....I succeeded.  I should have taken a picture, but didn't bother.

It's good to be home.  Nick was very glad as was Marty, but Raven and Flame took until the next day to 'say' they were happy to see me. 

Flying Time

Nope, I'm not flying anywhere, but time IS flying by, and I see it's been awhile since I updated.  Going back and forth between the states is beginning to confuse my mind.  The first morning back, I awoke and from my bed looked around and I was confused momentarily as to where I was.  I'm sleeping well, and that only happened that first morning.

I arrived home Friday night with the expectation of being here only two weeks, though that could stretch to as much as three - I'd like that, it's nice to be home, even if I was met with loads of laundry, floors to sweep, litterbox to clean, and a myriad of other household chores that seem to be largely overlooked when I'm gone.  I shouldn't complain.  When I'm at my Dad's, he mostly does the normal household stuff while I observe his abilities, take care of his financial paperwork and keep track of his health-related stuff. 

When I was packing to come home, I couldn't find my camera's battery charger.  I was sure I'd had it with me, but could not locate it.  Then I thought maybe I'd left it here at home, but I'm not finding it here either.  I am at a loss.  I likely stuck it in something as I was packing, last minute, to go north a month ago, but now I can't find it.  No bueno!

A few years ago, I had bought my Mom the same camera, albeit a newer model.  I thought I could recharge using her charger.  Nope, they ever-so-slightly changed the battery size and charger to accommodate the new one.  Well, I can use her camera, but I'd still like to find mine as I had planned to give her camera to Nick and mine works very well - when the battery is charged!

Home Again

I arrived home again on Tuesday evening after a 14 hour 5 minute drive from the wet land, which was indeed wet as I left.  In fact, I even hit some snow flurries along my drive as I hit the summit of the Siskiyou range.  It was an uneventful drive otherwise, thankfully, and reaching home was a relief from the tedium of a long boring drive south beyond the central part of the state.

Since Tuesday, I've been unpacking, doing laundry, re-acclimating myself to my own home, updating our own financial records, and cleaning house.  Yes indeed, house cleaning!  It has largely waited for me for the five weeks I was gone on this last trip.  Of course, not much was done during the first five weeks I was gone nor the one week I'd been home in between either, so you can imagine how much there is to do.

During the past five weeks up in the wet land, I have enjoyed the continuing spring blooms and greening up of trees that displayed beautiful arrays of flowers and of course the rains, funny how I forgot how hard it rained up there, but then I really don't remember it ever raining that hard there.  My dad assured me it did, but then his memory isn't superb these days.  I was also able to get his financials in order along with getting him to take care of addressing his need to assign someone to be his power of attorney in general, as well as update his advanced directive and his will - all done!  He, and I, can now relax for the most part. 

One brother stepped up to the plate and took over paying Dad's water & light bill...of course, it was largely because said brother needed a utility bill with his own name on it in order to get per diem payments when he's on far away job sites which, I understand, can be as much as a couple thousand dollars per month, so it's clearly to his benefit and a small cost to him to take over the payment.  And it obviously will help my dad.  My sister stepped in and added a cell phone to her plan so that he can have a phone on him when he goes out for his early morning two-mile walks.  Hopefully he'll truly be able to use it, he's not very tech-savvy.

I'm looking to be at home for at least four to six weeks.  After being largely absent from the blogosphere for three months, getting back to it may be a slow and intermittent process.  My dad's health and abilities is not ideal so the future is a day-by-day thing where I can't make any long-term plans or goal-setting other than in what will likely be 4-6 week increments for the time being and going back and forth on that 890 mile each way drive.

In other news, Marty had taken a temp job for low pay after completing his month-long training in February.  The job began two days after I went back up north.  While I was still up north again, and while still working at the low-paying job,  he'd been having some interviews with a company only a couple of blocks from where he used to work prior to his August lay-off.  They have given him an offer and he is in the processes with having given his sample for drug-testing and filling out an additional application for the parent company and getting a back-ground check.  There should be no issues on any count there, so could be starting a new job within the next few weeks.  This is good news from a financial standpoint, but I'd been trying my best to encourage Marty and Nick about a move to the northern wet land.

And Nick?  Well, his best news is that he now has his driver's permit.  Of course, technically, it isn't valid until he's had his first two hours of "professional" driver's training, which will be on Wednesday, and then he can drive with us.  He will also still need a total of six hours of "pro" instruction.
I will explain in another post about our adventures in his acquiring his permit...I will only say, our local DMV is not on my happy list!

Home !! and Sewing Room Status

Nick and I made it home at 9:20 p.m. Monday after 14.5 hours on the road.  When we got to our exit, it was closed!  That was a bummer because the next off-ramp isn't for many miles and I had to really think as to what would be the best way to go and after 14 hours of highway time, my brain wasn't thinking, so I think I probably took a slightly longer route than needed, but had I taken the shorter route, there was the likelihood that an additional detour would have been needed.  It would have been really nice had they used one of those movable, lit-up highway signs giving warning that the exit was closed...especially since the next off-ramp was so far away.  Despite this last minute irritating inconvenience, I am thankful we had an otherwise safe and uneventful trip from 7/3 through 7/29.

The last couple of days have been spent doing laundry and home clean-up.  I have this weird OCD need to re-wash every piece of clothing from our suitcases even if the item is clean.  I think it goes back to my camping/backpacking days because things just get dusty during traveling.  And when the hubs batches it for 26 days, well, his idea of clean and mine are completely different, so the kitchen got a pretty good cleaning as did one bathroom so far.  

There's still lots to do as Marty was working on that sewing room of mine.  He scraped off the ceiling texture, replaced drywall on the ceiling; he removed drywall on the two exterior walls and added fiberglass insulation and re-applied drywall; he also sprayed the ceiling for a knock-down texture effect and a light spray on the walls.  All of this generated a ton of dust throughout the house as he didn't (seemingly so) put up a plastic barrier at the door.

The stash closet; notice the dust that filtered in - I will have to vacuum with the hose attachment to get the dust out of here, there's way too much fabric in there to rewash it all.

The re-sprayed ceiling.  As a novice, Marty did a fairly good job, but this picture doesn't show the flaws that are very obvious after dark using just the ceiling light...it needs to be remedied so Marty will talk with a construction neighbor to see what can be done.  He gets an "A" for his willing attempt.

This is the wall that normally is my design wall.

This is one of the the two walls where the drywall was replaced after installing insulation.  Window is still taped.

This is the other exterior wall.  Cabinets and a small desk will cover this wall.

And the fourth wall showing the entry doorway and the stash closet door.  I had asked that he tape plastic to the closet doorway before closing it and doing all the work.  I guess he missed that request ;/

The flooring that was under the carpet, and after all the ceiling and wall spraying which splotched it all over.  I had suggested we just clean it well, paint and seal over the paint and I'd be happy, and at such time we sell, we could re-carpet it.

A closeup of one of the 1966 era tiles, they only measure about 9"x 9".  Not bad really, neutral coloration with a bit of striation.  I'd have even been happy with that with just a good sealant / varnish? over it.

This why Marty nixed my idea, there were a number of these spots where the tiles had broken up, so his plan is to remove all the tiles, waiting until all the ceiling and wall issues are done including painting because he doesn't want any of that stuff on the bare wood beneath the tile.  I don't see what difference it would make, it'll be covered with whatever new flooring we choose. 

As you can see, there's still a lot to do and it's likely going to take weeks or months.  In part because there isn't much I can do until the ceiling issue is resolved, I could then paint the ceiling and walls after dusting them. Then I need to decide what to put on the floor.  I don't want ceramic or clay tile, and I don't want carpet.  We may go with just a linoleum and use some throw rugs if needed.  The room is only 9.5 x 10.  What would you put on your floors?  I'm patiently (?) awaiting the finish of this room, not only for quilting, but for genealogy too, and to just get things organized and back into the room that are now taking up space elsewhere throughout the upstairs.