I Worked Hard This Weekend

And yet – looking back at it – I honestly can’t see that I did all that much. My body feels like I got run over by a Mack Truck, however, so I know I did something.


I hadn’t slept well at all Friday night, so after working at the Zoo for two hours on Saturday I tried to lay down for a nap. My girls were quite happy to join me, and even Tommy came and sat near the couch where I lay – as close as he could be without upsetting Thing, who still growls at him at every possible opportunity. I still couldn’t sleep however, so just ended up vegging out in front of the TV for a while.

Eventually Rob came over to help me switch out my bed. I have a double-sized one that I am giving to him so his daughter could use it, and am exchanging it for the queen-sized one that has been waiting for me in my garage for the past few weeks. With my back the way it is there’s no chance of me moving mattresses by myself, but for Rob it was no problem at all. He took the double-sized mattresses down to the garage while I vacuumed and cleaned up in the room. Then he had the queen-sized mattresses up in the room ready for the linens to be put on. It looks really good now, and isn’t nearly as big as I thought it would be (which is good).

I will at some point want to get new linens though. The ones I have now are actually for a king-sized bed: they work, but are a tad bit large. I think I can get one of those “bed-in-a-bag” deals from Bed Bath & Beyond that contains sheets, pillow cases, comforter and everything for a reasonable price. Especially if somebody had a coupon for them that I could use! (Hint, hint)

Sunday was mostly cleaning up my place, getting the spare room ready to be re-painted and re-carpeted. I have all sorts of possibilities in my head, so Rob and I went to Home Depot to see if my ideas are actually do-able and affordable.

We looked at paints and came up with a color scheme: I’m thinking of walls being a dark green with 1” thick light green stripes spaced about every foot or so, a light green ceiling, and trim & molding that is a darkish orange. Trust me; it will look much better than it sounds. I hope it will, at least.

We looked at carpets and got a few ideas on which ones I might want: I’m thinking a nice oatmeal carpet with tiny flecks of green and orange it in.

We looked at window blinds and actually came up with an idea I hadn’t even considered before: I had originally wanted wooden blinds with a pretty valance over the top, but found a really nice woven reed matt that can be used as window shades instead. I’ll still have the pretty valance, though.

We also looked at trim and molding, and have a plan of attack that will achieve the desired end results without having to take out a loan. Rob has all the tools and skills necessary to “make” our own, so we’ll be able to save quite a bit by not having to buy the ready-made ones.

At Burlington’s Coat Factory, I got myself a new shower curtain for the spare bathroom, as well as a good bottle opener. We also looked at bedding while there, but I didn’t really see anything I wanted.

I am not a shopper, so by this time I just wanted to go home. Of course, once we got there, we got sucked in to cleaning some more. Got the binds moved from the spare room into my bedroom. Got the windows as clean as we could get them, both inside and out. Got started on the bathroom, but will need to finish up on that later, when I can get a scrub brush and some bleach to disinfect the walls, ceiling, and flooring with. Rob even went down into the crawl space and came up with a plan to try to stop my house from resettling so much.

Finally I convinced Rob to stop. We still had to get the bed set up in his house, and get all that stuff organized and cleaned up. He had some pictures to hang up, some furniture to move around, and will eventually need to get some sheetrock hung and painted.

But that’s a job for another day.