Whistle while you work

-Insert appropriate whistle here -

Yup, it's a cold. Yup, I feel puley (rhymes with dooley). I went to work anyway. I was wishing for a hot cuppa tea and a binky by the TV on my way home. But the sis was already at my house hanging wallpaper from where I left off Monday night. I had gotten almost halfway before I had to crash. Whoops....rewind.

I took Monday off as I wasn't sure how the day would go for me, being our anniversary. It was bleak. That's a good word for it. Except Best Girl had me ripping down wallpaper Sunday and on Monday I had my Sis and the mom coming over to start hanging. Mom was strictly for her entertainment and support, aka stupidvisor. Sis was for extra hands, I thought. Turns out it was for her unflagging energy and goal oriented attitude. Seems Mom was for the donuts (requested one, got a whole BOX of rolls) and the sloppy joes.

I started out at the door in the morning. I washed and scrubbed and goo gone-ed the melted sealer someone had used on the glass. I had picked up a cleaner at the going out of business hardware store and decided to try it on the windows. It really worked. I got the picture window on the east and then people started to get there.

We got mom unloaded and started cutting and hanging. Mom sat in my dusty and only one left living room chair and kibitzed. Best Girl and Grand1 showed up part way through all this. I sent him for my hired help that hadn't showed up. She got there and I remembered I told her not to come! I had wanted to be alone. Well, I wasn't. Mom, Sis, Best Girl, Grand1 and Hired Girl all pitched in and I directed over my shoulder while sis and I hung.

They hauled. Best Girl packed. Stuff was going home with them, like tents and sleeping bags and knickknacks and such. More was leaving any way I could get it out. I decided to not worry about giving away the couch. It was pretty ragged anyway. I had Grand1 and Hired Girl haul it to the dog shed. The dogs were the only ones using it most of the time anyway. Grand1 took a cabinet from the shed out to the burn pile to make room and they did it. I was impressed.

Then he took out my trash to burn, (put a bag in without being told), moved this, took that there and all without a single whine. He continued to be useful by locating the tent, sleeping bags and roller blades for the next day's load. Best Girl was done packing and hanging with us by then. We got about a wall and a piece done before they had to go, not bad for three hours work. With the couch out there was a lot more room to work, too. Hired Girl started dry scrubbing the barnwood and we hung more.

We got about a wall and a piece done before Mom and sis had to go, not bad for three hours work. I piddled along at it until midnight and got a long wall with a big window in it done by myself. I puked out at the front door after fighting to fit around the door top, a light switch and the round wire grommet for the antenna - all in one piece of wallpaper. I called it a night.

I had been too busy to cry and that was the plan. I was too tired to move and slept well.

Now, back at the beginning - Sis went over before I got out of work Tuesday and got the other side of the door and the endwall done before I ever got home. Yes, Tuesday night is bible study. So Mom showed up again. And our new visitor Shyshe. And Best Girl and Grand1. Sis brought bean soup and homemade bread. But we were cutting paper off the kitchen counter with a board clamped to it for extra length. The table was buried in tools and cleaners and such.

The phone rings and it's a pair of friends with a fading cell phone warning that they are going to stop in. Right.

The front door opens into the north east corner of the living room's long wall. The living room is a long rectangle. The orange brick tile 'landing' in front of the door leads to the ten year old, now totally ruined by life and the last two days work used to be light brown carpet. There is real barnwood wainscoating (inch thick boards) with barnwood trim on the doors and windows. The remenants of 14 layers of wall paper remain on the walls in an assortment of patterns, from birch trees to teal stripes. One desk chair, a tall, narrow wood bookcase, one treadle sewing machine covered with odds and ends, one living room chair, and a piano bench with two lamps, all shoved any which out of the way, and all covered with heavy dust from the peeling and scrubbing of the wood, clutter the center of the room. A haze of wood dust hangs in the air and you can see it well because of the two large windows heartlessly letting the setting sun beams drift over and highlight the whole mess. The golden glow reflects off the knotty pine, tongue and groove ceiling.

Add seven people, scrubbing, hanging, clearing tables, finding utensils and heating food then tell me again that two of my friends I haven't seen in six months are coming over. I thought I would throw up. Then I flung up my hands and went back to wandering around aimlessly trying to find things we just had a minute ago.

Obviously, I lived through it. The friends came and thought I was moving. Ha! I said "If I was moving someone else would be doing all this!" They did only stay long enough to be introduced around and let the sun get behind the trees, they were headed west for dinner on the bike. It was a nice night for a ride. I wished I was, then remembered I'd be third wheel and went back to hanging with the Sis.

With all the wonderful help, Shyshe helped set up the meal and cleaned up the dishes, the kids brought extra chairs, the Sis cut the bread, I grabbed bowls and spoons, Mom swiped the dust off the table, we got fed and back at it. The kids and Best Girl left with another load of stuff. Mom started clammoring for study time before Shyshe had to leave and Sis was most of the way down the last long wall and didn't want to stop. But we did. We all needed the break and we had interesting discussions, too.

About eight thirty Mom and Shyshe left. Sis went over the top of the entryway to the dining area and got back to the last corner. I thought she'd leave but then she started pounding nails back through the trim boards wanting to get it all back up! I finally just told her that between the cold, the twice I had messed up the same knee on the step stool and working all day that I had to call it quits. It was just more than I could deal with. I think it was about ten when she went on her way and I sat down to a quiet house.

I can't keep up. I hate it. I just don't have the stamina to go 24/7 on a project like I used to. I keep forgetting to keep my eyes on the job at hand and start looking at what I still have to do and get tired thinking about it. I whine. I pout. I complain. And I keep moving but so much more slowly than I used to that I feel like a turtle where I used to be a pacer. I could trot all day. I never got up to lightening speed but I never stopped. Now I have to and I hates it.

But it's getting done. I tidyed up the kitchen and ran a load of wash so I would have clothes for work then made the coffee, let the dogs in and the cats and fussed over getting Buck tucked into a blanket for the night. He was shivering again even though it wasn't cold, really.

Then I rewarded myself with a dish of ice cream, read my book while I waited for the cold medicine to kick in and went to bed. I have been sleeping propped way up on pillows because of my cold. I rested fairly well, I thought.

When I got up this morning though my brain must have still been in neutral. I started doing something at the sink that involved running water, went out to fill the dog buckets and came back in to find the kitchen in need of a mopping. I tossed a throw rug in the small pond, turned off the water, took a sip of my coffee and realized I had to leave for work. I left without looking back. I should have stayed home.

At work my first call was from a customer on the east coast who got his hot order in a very timely fashion early last week. When they opened it today it was the wrong color. I spent the morning looking for powder coaters in his area or figuring out what it would cost to ship seven hundred pounds of steel overnight tomorrow. While we got lucky it is still going to cost us money and the boss hates that. The error was not mine, thank goodness, but he is going to be so cranky tomorrow that I don't want to be here. Time spent on that was not spent on sales, either.

And the sis is probably at the house banging boards back on the wall and sweeping up the mess. Bless her heart. I have to keep right on going now. I need the dining room wall paper stripped before the new carpet comes and the wood in there scrubbed, the painting done and such...wow.

It sounds like such fun to say "I am getting new floor coverings and furniture." I remember now why we don't do this often.

Bored? Lonely? Come on over.