August 02, 2009

7:30 p.m.

Saturday Night at Home

I found the DVD player.

After all the dump runs and hauling large objects from Fam�s other house all afternoon, I came home and steamed the counter and cabinet fronts in my little pantry. Let me tell you it was gross. It�s beautiful hardwood and will be nice when refinished. I put a folded-up plastic table cloth on it for now.

Anyway the pantry looks a lot brighter.

After a bath, I cooked dinner and set up the DVD player with the television. I actually watched a MOVIE in my house! With my new comfy chair and coffee table, I created a tv nook at the front end of the living room, which of course is still stuffed with all my STUFF. I got the clever idea to put the shoji screen behind the chairs, so the rest of the chaos is hidden. How nice to have another little piece of the house to use. There is still so much of it unusable as yet.

This is a really big place.

I watched Blow Dry, incidentally, which had Alan Rickman in it. I just love him in everything.

Now I�m completely tired. Time for bed.

Sunday Night, Next Door

More steaming. Doors this time; all around the knobs is grimy, and cat grime about 10� off the floor on every door and corner. Then I tackled the long mahogany banister. �Oh, good,� I said, �a job where I can just wipe something.�

Not.

Steamer, please. Three-dimensional black hand grime that doesn�t just melt and come off � it ROLLS off like bits of latex paint, which you then have to vacuum up, once they dry. Decades of people going up and down those stairs and not washing the banister. AAAAAAGGHHHHHH. What once was black is now brown.

I Pledged it finally, and Marc recommends a light sanding and sealing with WaterLock. Anyway now I�m not skeevy about holding the railing when I go upstairs to the dark, electricity-free second floor.

Marc also explained how I could mix up the rest of the cement and finish that little sealing job without him. He was SO TIRED today after a full weekend of emptying their old shop once and for all, and then suddenly a cheap used fridge showed up for me and he helped haul it to my house and get it inside. For $75 I now have a wonderful, only slightly dinged huge refrigerator, just when I had started to complain about having to use the tiny one which holds about two sandwiches and a boiled egg. Whoopee!! Now I have to go grocery shopping.

That and a bath are all I accomplished. Had dinner with family; I hear dessert going on in the next room so must investigate.