Aja and The New Windows

Time for another Aja update.  

I don’t think I have ever done this with any of my previous cats ... regular updates to share adjustment progress.  Nope!  But all those cats came to us as kittens - moldable as clay!  No big deal.  Aja came fully formed with a life and experiences before us ... and as such, she has been evolving on her own schedule with every month that passes! And, of course, she had an owner who loved her before and wanted to know how she was doing!  She is doing great! 

 

And then I threw a sledge hammer into that delicately built relationship we have worked on.

 I decided to do something very big, very messy, very noisy and somewhat cold!  

The big event that happened this month were window replacements - all 10 windows in the condo were ripped out in what appeared to be a very noisy demolition.  See, I got this great idea in October (when the weather was moderate) that a major home improvement project during a pandemic made perfect sense.  But what I didn’t count on was a January instillation.  

All ten windows were removed at once - letting in all the wonderfully cold January air (not!).  And, of course, there was noise!!! Lots and lots of it.  And there were 4 strange men walking in her condo, walking in her sacred bedroom where even the dog isn’t allowed.  And they were making very big holes in her bedroom walls.  And they were here from 8:30 am until 3:00!!  And it was cold.  

As this was all going on, all I could think was ... we are going to lose all the ‘brownie points’ we had accumulated with our little Diva, and we would be starting ALL OVER AGAIN!  Sigh!

You can’t see her but she is hiding behind the laundry basket.

After all, we had achieved a lot ... “lap time” on both our laps!  Yes, she had even taken to visiting my husband - the blind guy who stepped on her the very first night!  Whatever was I thinking when I scheduled this back in October.  Well ... what I was thinking was that the windows would be installed as promised in early December when it would be warmer.  And I sincerely didn’t understand that ripping out old windows was such a destructive process. 

As the work was going on, I started to worry that Aja, who was hunkered down in my husband’s closet might decide to come out and sit on the window sill - where there WASN’T A WINDOW THERE ANYMORE.  I was fixated on that thought. My God.  She could fall.  I tried to encourage her to come out so I could put her in our bathroom - where it was warmer, and had litter, had food and her comfy cube bed. Nope!  She wasn’t moving.  In fact, she looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was!! My husband assured me that Aja was definitely not leaving her hiding place to sit on any window sill - not with all these men and the noise!  

The condo temperature surprisingly didn’t drop below 50 degrees.  We sat around in our coats freezing but the temperature really was reasonable.

New and Improved.

When all was said and done ... the job was completed, the 4 men left, the heat was back on and the quiet returned ... out she came!! Like nothing had happened!  All was right in her "Diva World!"  Amazing.  How she recovers from stuff is one of the measures I have used to see how she is really adjusting and how confident she is.  How well she “recovers” from a trauma.  In the first few months any interruption in the routine took a day or more before we saw her again.  Now ... within the first hour ... she struts out like she is reclaiming her kingdom!

All in all - I think she has decided this is definitely her home

and we are definitely her servants!  

And she is definitely right on both counts!!

Prep work begins - the kitchen.

I have to get better at doing before and after pictures.  There are no before pictures in this posting.  Sorry.

In preparation for new floors and painting this month, I began a thorough clean out of all areas.  Decluttering of stuff has been a happy, positive activity for me.  I always feel lighter and more content when I am reducing the "stuff-layer" of my life.  Clear open spaces are less stressful. A related goal is to free up floor space by moving a few pieces of furniture out.  We have too many road blocks for a person with visual limitations.

With home improvement contractors arriving in 2 weeks,  the time is right to declutter.

I started with a small problem area of my kitchen.

Imagine a 3 foot high by 5 foot long shallow 3 shelf book case along this wall.  It was filled with cookbooks and animal foods.  The top held baskets of clutter-catchers.  Try to imagine why someone who does not enjoy cooking would have 5 1/2 feet of cookbooks.

So I emptied the shelves of everything putting it on the table and dragged the bookcase to the basement.  It will go to a new home or the dump - which ever comes first.  Now I have this lovely clear floor space.  And when the walls are painted, who knows what will hang on the walls.  Maybe nothing.

Of course, now I had a table full of stuff.  Hmm.... I gave half of the cookbooks to Good Will.

I then turned to the pantry.  A "pantry purge" was in order.  It is a small space, but once I cleared out the expired items, the duplicates and the stuff that I never use, 2 spaces were clear:  the top shelf and the floor.

The top shelf now holds my essential cookbooks. (Still considering if they are all really "essential."  I think not!)  I hate the stacking of books on top of books.  But the remaining books will need a more careful review before I get rid of any of them. The floor holds the animal foods (dog food and bird seed.)

Some canned and boxed foods are housed in our basement.  I don't understand why 2 retired people like us need that many food items.  But that is another problem for another time - food hoarding!  I am sure that "hoarding" is not quite the right term, but my habit of buying extra of things that I find on sale is counter productive if the items expire and I throw them away.

In theory, I love the idea of a nice large pantry close to the cooking area, but the reality is that I don't preserve home grown foods and I have easy access to a grocery store.  So the fact I even have a pantry is a luxury.  When I was growing up, we didn't have a pantry - just found space in the limited cabinets to hold canned and packaged foods.  I guess the expansion of large pantries and multiple kitchen cabinets is an extension of the growing sizes of houses in the 20th Century - and our habit of acquiring lots and lots of stuff.

I am very pleased with this one kitchen solution right now.  My eat-in kitchen is fairly small and adding a bookcase years ago was a bad idea.  It just ate up floor space and encouraged stuff gathering.

Of course the next step is to box all this up and move it to the basement - because the whole area will be painted - but that is 3 weeks off so I have time.

So it begins ... the carpet requiem

After almost 30 years we are finally replacing the carpeting in the main part of our townhouse.  The contract is signed and within the month, we will see this carpet ripped out and carried out the door.

Yes, this carpeting is 29 years old in July of this year.  It is the original carpeting that the builder put in and it was the best thing we chose when we selected options for our new town home those many years ago.

Many vendors who have passed down this hallway (carpet installers and professional carpet steam cleaners) have told us this is excellent carpeting ...  that you can't buy this quality carpet today no matter how expensive you go because carpet manufacturers don't want you to have carpet that lasts 30+ years!!  Planned obsolesces, they call it.

It is silly, but I get attached to "things" - things that have served me well and that I have owned and used for a long time.  And this stupid carpet is one of those "things."  I didn't shed any tears when we replaced the xyz things (refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, front door, glass door sliders, storm door, washer/dryer, water heater, roofing, deck, bathroom flooring, toilets, bathroom sinks, furniture ... it is an extensive list ), but for some crazy reason, pulling the carpet out makes me a little sad.

But everything wears out and this carpet is ready to go to "carpet heaven."  After all, it has been walked on, run on, spilled on, peed on, vomited on - you name it ... it has happened.  Even red wine.  It all came out - there is not one visable stain or wear path, but I can't get it really clean any more ... down below the rug surface into the pad where it really counts, and on humid days ... well, you get the idea.

The replacement?? ... No more rug for us.  Hard wood floors!  And it will be a dirty, noisy, intrusive  job for about 2 days.  Upstairs hall way, two and half flights of stairs and the first floor area - all hard wood.  No more hidden areas I can't clean.

And when they complete the flooring job, we are contracting to paint about 60% of the interior of the townhouse.  So the *#@%$ "fun" will just continue.  But it has been almost 20 years since we painted and that is also long over due too.  May as well get all the pain out of the way at one time!

I feel pressured to move forward with these jobs ... they are well passed due by many years and I now have this window of time without a mom-related emergency.  Really, for the last 7 or 8 years I stalled at doing anything ... couldn't handle "just one more thing, don't want to disturb mom, too tied up with her assisted living care, need to focus on nursing home transition, etc. etc. etc."

But now the environment of my house is causing me stress and it is a problem I can do something about.

All I need to do is write the check!

Oh, yes, the check!  There is another stressor!  These folks don't work for free.  But no matter.  It has to be done.

We are doing it this summer!

And I will be joyful at the end!  :-)

January fleeting

My gosh!  January is over.  I wrote this post 2 days ago hoping to get pictures attached.  Then January just slipped way - all because I waited for pictures.

I am posting without pictures!

I haven't been idle.  Here is a fast update.

My new guest room and yarn room and husband den!
With the departure of my son and daughter-in-law in October, once again I was left with a town house that is too large for our personal needs.  And then I got to thinking.

"Self ... you aren't moving somewhere else because living here is cheaper than anywhere else."

"Self ... you always wanted a guest room where the beds were ever-ready for guests.  Why not do that now?"

"Self ... you are outgrowing your current yarn / craft space (because you can't seem to stop buying collecting yarn and fiber tools.  But you didn't hear me say that out loud.)  Maybe it is time to fix that."

"Self ... your husband needs to have his own space - his own den - because his wife is becoming less of a sharer as she get older."  (someday insert a grumpy picture here of an aging grumpy woman - maybe even my picture. LOL)

"Self ... you have the space now to spread out and get what you want.  What are you waiting for?"

"Self ... you aren't getting any younger and before you know it these stupid stairs will become a barrier for you and you will be forced to move.  Stop wasting time."

"SO Self ... stop talking and get busy."

And that is exactly what I did.  Here are the pictures to prove it.

(Ha!  My space saver for pictures!!  No pics!  Use your imagination here.)

Thanks to my son, daughter and daughter-in-law for helping to move all the big pieces of furniture around and make this move possible.  Now I can stop talking to myself!

*****

Ocean City
And then there was the trip to the ocean that seems to be a regular event with the cousins - it is where we sit in the condo, look at the ocean, knit, weave, spin, laugh, eat, drink wine, and generally enjoy a weekend free of life's responsibilities all while never getting out of our pajamas.  I didn't take pictures this time, but pictures from the last visit would look exactly like this visit.  So here is the link to that post.

*****

Exercise
Staying active, walking and exercises, are going slowly.  A leg injury and outside temps near 0 have slowed me up considerably.  I am still wearing my FitBit pedometer and I will calculate my January step average this weekend.  My February goal will be to beat my January average.  Sadly the February goal won't be too hard to achieve because I suspect my January average will be embarrassing low.  But it isn't about today or tomorrow or next week.  It is about the long view.  The long view includes spring and I am getting fit for spring.  :-)  At least that is what I tell myself.  My back and knee exercise routine is created and sometimes done.  But again, not as regularly as I need to.  I have posted a calendar in my yarn room where I can easily see just how inactive I am.  The statistics should be posted in the local newspaper and tattooed on my forehead for maximum embarrassment, but I will settle on this simple calendar.  I will say that my arthritis in my knee is much improved.

******

Knitting
I am back to knitting every single day.  I had fallen into a slump.  Not a good place to be when you have a room full of beautiful yarns.  But I had hit a skill-level barrier with one project and the stall trickled into all my knitting.   Until I figured out how to work around the problem, I had lost my knitting mojo.  Back on track now.  I have three jumbo sized projects on the needles and I need to keep moving.  Pictures??  Ha!  Not today.  Whip out the imagination one more time.

******

Lap Top
I got a new Mac Lap Top computer this month.  After 5+ years of excellent service and several falls, my old Apple started doing wonky things.  That darn thing continued to work, however.  In fact I thought I was heading for a new computer in November of 2012 when it fell from my kitchen counter onto my hard tile floor, and here we are in January 2014. It still hasn't totally failed but it was time.   I will never never never own anything but a Mac!  It is a work horse and it is worth every single penny of addition money it costs to own one.

******

Mom
She has had mostly decent days.  Winter is hard on the elderly.  Yesterday, however, was a bad day.  Her ability to provide self care is slipping noticeably on some days.  When I arrived she was sitting in her wheel chair, her hearing aide batteries were dead so she wasn't responding.  When I reached her I noticed that a bathroom accident was evident all over her and she didn't seem to be aware.  It had not yet  been discovered by the staff so she was in a sad state - unable to help herself and has long since lost the ability to consistently ask for help when she needs it.  It was a very hard morning.  When I left things were back to normal.  But I left with a heavy heart.

*****

So that has been my January.  Although I haven't blogged a lot, I've been busy and I have been visiting with many of you.  You keep me inspired to put my fingers to the keyboard here.

I have some plans for February - but that is for another post!

And maybe even a picture or two!!

The Toilet Tale!

I have 4 of these in my house.  

Yes, 4 toilets.  

Three full baths and one half bath.  

I believe I have an embarrassing abundance of toilets. 

In my next abode, one toilet, one bathroom will be enough - well ... let me amend that statement.  After living for 3 days with just one toilet, one full bathroom and a powder room will be enough.  But I digress!

This little toilet above is sitting in my eat-in kitchen.  Didn't you always want an eat-in, poop-in kitchen??

This little toilet should be in my half bathroom on the first floor - but because we are replacing the bathroom floor, the toilet had to be removed from the plumbing and put somewhere else while the work was being done.  It now sits where all my guests can see it!

This second little toilet is sitting in my bathroom tub.  I guess that is an improvement over the kitchen because I could always do my business on it and at least it wouldn't leak out onto the floor!

The third little toilet in the second full bathroom looks just like this one.  I won't bore you with that picture.

So for anyone who is counting, we have exactly one functioning toilet and it is located in the basement (my third full bathroom is there.)

I guess this is an improvement over going outside to an outhouse to do the deed, but our bedroom is located on the top floor and our one functioning toilet is located 2 floors down.   My husband and I are both 66 and cannot be too far from the bathroom for those random visits in the middle of the night.  You old fogies out there get my drift, I am sure.

So my dear husband and I are sleeping on our pull out couch that is only one floor removed from the one functioning toilet!  Our bladders are happier about this, but our backs are less than thrilled.

All of this inconvenience is because my 28 year old tile floor was broken and ugly and it needed to go!!!  So without thinking about the ramifications of doing 3 bathrooms all at once, we scheduled the work.  The picture above shows the tile - minus the grout.  Tomorrow, they say they will finish the job.

I can't even just close the bathroom doors and pretend everything is normal ... because the bathroom doors have been removed and are propped up in my dust filled third floor.  (Did I tell you just how dusty ceramic tile instillation can be? I don't think my allergies will let me sleep up there until I do a complete cleaning.)  My back may be happier in my own bed, but my sinuses will create a major conflict of enormous proportions if I try to sleep upstairs right now.

My bladder, my back, my sinuses ... all so that I can have new bathroom floors.

I suffer so!

:-)

"Resorting" to launch 2012

Resorting ...

that is what my life seems to be about now.

A lot of time has been spent resorting

... like space ...

our upstairs den is a good example. It used to be mom's sitting room, but now it is my craft room.

The desk in this picture is mom's desk. We tried to get it into her assisted living room, but it wouldn't fit. So it now resides in my craft room. I use it to file mom's important papers and to do her minimal bill paying and bookkeeping.

There are no before pictures, but here are some after pictures.

This closet shows only half of the space my yarn stash occupies. Slide the door to the left and the other half is just as full - floor to ceiling. I was feeling pretty good about squeezing all the yarn into this closet ... very good, until I found another pocket of sock yarn stash that isn't in this closet. It looks like this ...

Yes, that is all sock yarn! Enough yarn to make 80+ pairs of socks!!

Where that bunch of yarn is going, I haven't figured out yet, but the closet is full up!!

Right now it is sitting on the floor of the craft room

making me feel guilty for having so much stash.

All my knitting, crochet, spinning and weaving books are gathered together in this new craft space. That feels pretty good. Easy to see and use.

On top of that book case is my weaving loom all folded up. Once the dust settles on all this stuff shifting, I want to set up the loom again. Beside the loom is a stack of magazines and patterns that need to be sorted and filed.

My filing system is loose leaf binders sorted by project type.

There is probably a bunch of stuff in there I could get rid of

given the time to sort through it all.

And my spinning wheel is now housed safely on a round table near the yarn and the fiber.

It is dusty and I need to give it a little loving attention. But it is nice to see it out where I could easily use it without interference from the various pets.

This picture also shows the other side of the overly full yarn closet.

And I still maintain mom's bedroom - the room that now houses most of her earthly belongings. It is ready for guests - since mom probably can never sleep there again. It still makes me a little sad when I walk in knowing that she doesn't reside there anymore. But she has adapted fairly well to her new room and home, so the "problem" of occupancy appears to be mine alone. It will fade with time I know.

But I fear the hole left in my life and heart, while smaller, will always be there.

I am spending a lot of time moving other stuff around as well.

Although I am not a hobby cook, I do cook every day.

My cookbooks have never had an adequate home.

Initially they were in a book case in the living room, then in a book case in the basement (a worse location), and then stacked in a kitchen cabinet ... closer to the action, but hard to see and harder to use. Our eat in kitchen no longer needs space for a walker,

so I brought up an old book case from the basement.

And for someone who doesn't care much about cooking, I have a lot of cookbooks.

I am "resorting" my alone time. I have really missed my walks. It is alone time and thinking time. So for the umpteenth time, I am heading back to walking. My little walking icon at the top of my blog doesn't show the 1.4 miles I walked today! I guess I am not working the app right. Or maybe the little person on the graph is bent over in laughter at the 1.4 miles I logged and can't catch her breath to show the total ... after all the goal is 1,000 miles by December 31, 2012. I only need to do 998.6 more miles! Only!! :-)

Other alone time is also changing. I used to value the hours between 8:00 pm and midnight. My mother and husband would have gone to their rooms for the night and I would putter around doing this and that. Now I find my body slowing down and settling into the quiet before sleep - around 10:00 pm. That evening time doesn't seem as precious as it once did.

Maybe I am focused on "just keeping busy" so my mind doesn't settle on stuff I can't control. Maybe I am finally free enough to do some long over due stuff.

Maybe I am resorting my empty nest to change the look and feel and push away emotions.

All I know is that at the end of the day I am very tired from all the "resorting."

Welcome to the new year everyone.

Welcome 2012!

What was I doing?

Well, I survived my blogging break.

I really didn't think I would be faithful about taking a break.

The first few days were tough. But then life filled the void - and for a change it wasn't filled with any illnesses or trips to the hospital with mom.

First, it began with the vertical blinds that cover the kitchen slider. The top cap spontaneously fell to the floor missing me by inches. Just popped off - weirdest thing. In fact, the blinds began to fail weeks ago when they wouldn't close or open without muscle. These are the new ones.

The kitchen door slider was not to be outdone. While measuring for the new binds, I noticed the frame of the glass was bent in the slider. The door has been hard to close for months. Guess the frame was bent from all the effort. Time to replace this old door of about 20 years. This is the new door.

Then I noticed that the white wood interior frame they put in around the slider was essentially unfinished! We didn't have any paint from the original paint job in the kitchen (from probably 15 years ago). So I purchased a lovely green color called Dusty Leaf that I thought we would use in the future and painted the frame.

Then I realized that it doesn't take a gallon to paint the frame, so I started painting a few other surfaces that were just a total mess. We desperately need to paint the whole interior, but a few kitchen surfaces might spruce up the look until I can forced myself to experience such a disruptive activity. Have I told you how much I hate painting?

But I did this.

And this.

But truthfully, we need to paint because the other old paint surfaces look so sad next to the freshly painted ones.

I am sure you can see how this is developing ... and I know that NO ONE is surprised.

When I bought the paint I also picked up color swatches of a companion color called Lush Shade. It is an off white with a hint of green in the same color way as Dusty Leaf.

Next week - a trip to Lowe's is on my agenda. I may as well pick up some caulk so I can repair the fine cracks between the wall and the counter.

And while I am there I might casually check out the materials for new counters, 'cause once I paint the walls, I am sure the counters will start screaming about how pissy they look!

*sigh*

And still, I will not do more than a few painted surfaces! :-)

That statement is a true one - because this old body can't do even this little bit of painting without complaining loudly each morning.

I do love the new look of the kitchen. The all white appliances and white counter look so much better against a darker color. And the simple changes made things look a little cleaner and inviting.

So that is one thing that has kept my fingers busy.

I'll check in with some other projects that have filled my life during the break in a few days.