Pacing out a regular day - with not much happening

Thursday, January 05, 2017 @ 8:36 am

Good morning.  This is us.  It’s now the next day and we are writing again AND it’s still in the morning.  Linda signed on and left early because she was going to an all-day quilting event with a friend.  Us, another day home with the cold.  Rich decided to stay home today instead of going to Ohio.  That trip now looks like it’s going to be next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. He had to stay because he has a new job coming into one of his Chicago shops.  I don’t know then if he won’t be going after a while.  He’s been back in his office all morning – except, the part where we each took our separate showers and he made me an omelet.  Yay!

The electrician stepped outside for a second, so we got up and got some frozen mountain dew and the box of leftover chocolate candies.  Oh yeah – you can see what kind of day this is going to be.  We put easy pop on and am finished with emails and Facebook.  Yup, yup time to move on … Let’s see dog fed, taken out, and medicine … whoops bathroom for me, brb.

Ok back.  Maybe one more chocolate = TWO and then put away *sigh* Done!

We have a picture of the house up – it’s one posted yesterday or the day before. It is the outside one with the new porch – here we’ll put it at the top of the page.   There you go – except on my right screen it is bigger.  We’re still thinking it looks like we live in a mobile home, but Rich suggested something last night that was brilliant.  He said that next spring when we are painting the porch white, we can paint the decorative posts gray to match the shutters.  That made us soooo happy!  I don’t like the white – it makes the whole front look not sturdy and old fashioned.  The gray will be an improvement.  And, it should make the white stairs stand out more.

There!  We just finished talking to the electrician.  He is gone now – he will come back later with new dimmer switches – Rich said that he told them we could put one more over the sink.  So now one for the sink light and one over the kitchen table.  Hehe – Rich just came in the door he forgot the box which was the purpose of his first meeting.  He had to come way back he he.  He’s got 3-4 stops today.  I’m glad he’s getting things done.  We will have a talk with Dr. Marvin today at 11 am.  Maybe we can talk longer this time, but we have nothing the matter with us right now.  Just nice to talk with him.

Now the electricity is pretty much done, the guys putting up the drywall should be here.  Think they are coming still today.  They should work at least a couple of days.  It was amazing how fast the guy fixed all the wires for our stuff.  He said he would testify if we asked about how bad the work had been done before he fixed it.  He said it was a fire hazard.  That makes all the difference in paying to have it done over again … we just didn’t trust the other guys work.

I don’t know if you knew what was going on there.  Basically, we hired a guy named Rich, from Handyman Services Plus.  They took a job that should have been a week and a half and they stretched it out for four weeks.  They then packed up all their stuff and left.  The following Monday Rich came back for another draw – he’d already collected $4,000 from us and wanted about $2,400 even though his original estimate was $3,800.  He said that if we didn’t pay up he’d put a mechanic's lien on the house.  Rich (our Rich) said you have to finish SOMETHING, because they said they were coming back, but in the 4 weeks here, they had not completely pulled out. 

We took pictures and it turned into a document of 86 pages we wrote/pictured of all the problems in the house which he considered done.  We gave it to our attorney and with our permission, he shared it with the other lawyer.  We had heard the other attorney was meeting with the “bad” Rich.  Our attorney has put in two calls since – at least and from what we hear there has been no response.  He said to just let it rest a bit until they decided what they were going to do. 

We did hear from Jeremy, the old supervisor.  He contacted us on Tuesday.  He wanted us to call Sherwin-Williams paint to verify it was our paint on an invoice.  I said I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have the invoice, but I invited him to come over and take a picture of the paint can and that we would sign something stating it was ours.  That was supposed to happen later that day, but didn’t so I don’t know if we were useful or not.  We’ll be ready for it.

AHA!  Just had a thought, so we went out and took a picture of the can (Jeff our new contractor has the second can).  Then we texted it to Jeremy with our verification of it as having been our can.  S/W can text or call us if they want something else.  I think we’re through with that part though.  He might text thanks, or ask a question if there is anything else we can do for him.

AND, now we’ve talked to Jeff – we’d left him that message … his plastering guys are trying to finish a job this morning so they might be over this afternoon.  We’ll wait to see.  Jeff said he’d call again if he learned anything more.  So, our morning is set for free time – good time to talk to Dr. Marvin at 11. 

So, now that our construction issues are taken care of for the time being?  Oh, almost forgot, we went back and took pictures of all the new light and switch boxes.  We’re good, right? 

Ok, are we short medicine or something?  I don’t think so.  It is only 9:43 am now though.  I wonder if I shouldn’t put a small load of clothes in the washer.  I need a pair of pants washed for Saturday.  Hmm, why not!  Hehe surprise domesticity!

Pswhoo!  That was hard!  I’m out of breath.  The pants we were looking for were out of place.  We did find a good pair for Rich or his jeans to add to the load.  We also picked up any strays and started the dishwasher and did the litter box – YEEKS!  That’s the problem with a cold, you can’t smell it!  We just must catch our breath and take out the garbage.  Not too much to go.  OK there that’s done TOO!  Both garbage’s out.  Shoot Dakota now wants out … he’ll have to wait a minute.  Need to catch our breath, we’ve been standing with him.  Shoot he whined again – sense of urgency.

There we are back AND have a new can of pop – sprite this time!  Somehow it helps with the cold.  We’ll take more cold medicine with the other stuff.  I think we’re going to have to gather stuff for this weekend too.  I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but it is a Girl’s Saturday Quilting Day.  Rich is going to bring me, CS has Mark bringing her too, but we think Rich is planning on being away from the girls – just that we don’t have that clear understanding with CS – she’s like Mark is going to want to sew with us.  I think this is because she’s not asking for Mark to spend time with Rich.  We’re guessing that would be his preference.  Rich talked about doing some shopping – probably grocery and that he might want to see a movie or two.  Think that’s more Mark’s cup of tea.  CS has never been direct.  We’ll see when we get there, I suppose.

We’re hoping Linda gets there earlier by 9 am.  That’s sort of the regular time though some of the girls make it 10-11 am.  We are firm.  We’ve not made it every time, but it’s always been a goal to be there by 9 am … And, because Rich is driving we only get to stay until 9-9:30 pm.  We just called Carol and told her we’d have to cancel the room.  She sounded disappointed, but we’ll see her Saturday like the others.  It will be fine.  

Let’s move it on – the good part is that we’ll be with the girls and get to try quilting again.  I’m thinking we’re going back to the art quilt.  It’s been awhile.  I have to think of all its pieces.  Mostly, we should be sewing together the sun and clouds on the right side, and then there is always the cutting of the water.  Pswhoo – that is going to take a long time, but the pieces are all together in the box – ready from last time.  I have only touched quilting about a weekend worth since October.  Now it’s January? That’s 3 MONTHS??!  Am I even a quilter anymore … Just thinking that if the twins or Emily ever had that kind of time, they’d be doing things all over the place.  Ok, maybe we’re learning here not to compare.  Yeeks, Linda is like set on fire and CS isn’t far behind her even with all her surgery problems.  I guess we’re the slug bug.  *sigh*

Let’s not overthink that either, k?  It’s just a perfectly nice afternoon and we’re up to FIVE WHOLE PAGES!  WooHOO!  AND, Dr. Marvin is calling in 40 minutes, plus lunch – yes let’s include lunch group!  Today leftover spaghetti.  Hmm, thinking I might want to do lunch earlier than 11 am.  I can take medicine a little early too – say 10:50 am.  Better keep an eye on the clock.  Ok, we’re not doing too much anyway?!!  HEY, we’re writing AND on the 5^th page hehe.

I wonder why Dakota is looking out the door?  DAMN!  That dog should bark – the UPS guy was out their delivering a BIG package, but it’s for Rich.  I think the one on the phone was Fed Ex, better call Rich.  Hmm, he was busy in a meeting.  He’s going to call me back.  I think the package being now delivered tomorrow is mine because my phone number was attached.  Just a coincidence that I spotted the calls – they both came in yesterday.  We usually don’t check voice mail.  Most people know not to leave a message *sigh*.  The box for Rich is for business.  We just left it across the door – most likely it’s going out to one of his shops.  Not time to check real mail yet.

Hmm, Rich just called back.  He said a nasty word!  Not at me though … the box was supposed to go somewhere else so now he should make another trip tomorrow.  Not MY fault *shining like a star* - it had been a good thing to call and tell him where it was.  He’s got a lot of plates thrown in the air.

@7:02 pm

We’re back again, but thinking not for too long.  We let Rich watch one of his shows while we closed a bit.  It has been a while, but lots of stuff happens about 7 pm like cleaning up the kitchen, taking medicine, taking the dog out, and putting on pajamas.  We did watch one show together.  Chicago Black.  I like when the stories start to slow down.  Sometimes it’s just too much anxiety for me.  After this hour (minus commercials), then we get to watch the GOOD Thursday shows like Sheldon, Moms and 8 pieces or whatever it is called.  Linda still might be at sewing tonight, I’m not sure.  She was out with the ladies today.  It’s a group of people we don’t know.  She gets out like that.

Most of the day after Dr. Marvin, we seemed to sleep a lot.  I think we ate lunch before talking to him, and then we slept about 12:30-2:30 pm.  Then we watched CNN until Rich got home, and then we talked a bit, and then had dinner, and now is now.  There – you got through the whole day.  There might have been some processing of cookies and drinks – mostly water though.

We took care of Dakota too – that was something, right?  We’re feeling a little warm now so have short sleeved pj’s.  Not interested in Lethal Weapon whispering in the background.  Don’t know what to do.  Hmm, now all the shooting … certainly don’t want to look at that.