While the cat's away ...

This mouse is playing. Well, okay, working. Brenda is in Utah visiting most of our children and all of our grandchildren. I was the chauffeur and drove her there over the long Labor Day weekend. Since returning home the day after the Monday holiday I have been trying to accomplish many things on my “to do” list before she comes home.

For example, I have arranged for companies and contractors to come in and do some long-needed work on the house. Today one fellow installed a new lock on our sliding patio door. We considered installing a new door, but in the end I decided refurbishing our good Andersen door made better sense than trading down to a newer, but probably less well-built, door. After more parts come in, he will be back to replace rollers and a weather seal. Our door will be like new, but at a fraction of the price.

Tomorrow I will be inundated with workers. In the morning I am having a new high efficiency furnace installed. For the last three years I have been “warned” by service technicians to think about replacing our furnace before it gave up the ghost. Because it kept working, I held off. But the tax credit available this year is a tremendous incentive to upgrade. My next door neighbor, Steve, will inherit our furnace for his shop. He’s been looking for one since his quit working and I’m happy to let him have ours … he’s helped us in so very many ways.

After work I’m meeting with the company that replaced two of our three basement window wells last spring when we had trouble with water backing up and coming into the basement through the window. We have one more window well to replace on the north side of the house and I want to get this done before new siding is installed.

I also have an electrician coming over in the evening to install several GFI receptacles, add a switchbox in our downstairs storage room, and bring some amateur wiring up to code. This man is a member of our ward who previously has helped us with electrical work. Each time he refused to accept payment and suggested I make a donation to the ward in the amount I would have paid him. I told him I wouldn’t have him do any more work for me unless he would be paid for it. He just smiled, so I’m not sure what to expect.

I scheduled some work in our bathrooms for Thursday and Friday. Over the years our tub has been chipped in several places as a result of items being dropped during showers. Also, a few years ago the handrail in the side first became loose and then came out entirely, damaging the tub surround in the process. In the other bathroom, our shower has several holes along the edges where the glass shower door once was attached. I’m replacing the shower door, which always leaked and I could never keep clean (I really HATE bathroom mildew and mold!), with a shower curtain. So the chips and holes need to be repaired, then both tub and shower will be refinished. I am also having installed a large, heavy duty hand rail to help Brenda get in and out of the tub safely.

Now, it sounds like I am hiring all my chores done and not doing any actual work myself. This is not all that far from the truth, but I am doing SOME work on my own. Last weekend I mounted my ladder and with trusty reciprocating saw in hand trimmed many branches from the tree in our front yard and from two trees in back. This is especially important to do while Brenda is gone, because we have different definitions of what “trim” means. Actually, it was pretty clear how much needed to be done because I have to get overgrown branches away from the house and roof before new siding and gutters are installed next month. We had reached the point where our fierce storms caused branches to scrape our walls, windows, and roof, and where gutters in front and back regularly became clogged with falling leaves and twigs. I didn’t cut away as much as I thought should be done, but probably took more than Brenda would have allowed. Still, I think the trees look better. Once Brenda gets over the initial shock, I think she will agree.

Finally, I braved the basement long enough to move boxes from the guest room and set up our old bed. Now I have a cool place for naps in the heat of the summer. When Brenda comes home we will work on sorting through all the boxes to see how much stuff we DON’T need anymore. There is still a lot of work to be done to recover from the flood earlier this year, but we are making (slow) progress. Like I always taught my children, I'm not as worried about velocity as I am direction. Someday we'll get the basement put back together.