Category: Glimpses of Life

With the arrival of our furniture and all of our possessions from Seattle, we are getting to the point of feeling overwhelmed with everything there is to do. Part of the problem is me. I’ve started projects that probably could have waited but in anticipation of getting them out of the way, I decided to slowly begin.

Most of the boxes are opened but with things still in them. I’ve decided to paint the 3 bedrooms on the second floor. The master bedroom is barn red and the other two smaller bedrooms are a grayish blue. I have yet to select the master bedroom color but one of the guest rooms will be yellow. I’ve decided to put chair rails in both of those guest rooms also which should spiff them up a bit.

The master bedroom has been partly primed – mainly the ceiling edges. On Tuesday, I hope to complete the priming with Wednesday being the day that the room gets the new color. Unfortunately, one wall has to remain barn red since we have to decide on draperies or blinds before we take down what is currently there — vertical blinds. They are pretty dirty and can’t be cleaned.

A strange problem we’ve noticed is that the laundry room smells like a laundromat. Every time I wash clothes (which has been a lot since all of our packed clothes smell musty) this smell permeates the laundry room. At first I thought maybe the septic was having problems with the detergent I use but my husband said he didn’t think so. He’s cleaned up an area behind the washer where the hose goes down towards the septic. We hope it works.

Last evening I wish I had had a “night” camera. I couldn’t sleep and got up around 1:30 in the morning and made my way slowly in the dark to the family room. Looking through the window, I saw hundreds of stars in the clear sky. It was so beautiful and within the hour I was asleep.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I use an application on my cell phone to read different Bible devotions. Last night took me to one in Psalm 127, verse 2 which was very appropriate. It says:

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat
for He grants sleep to those He loves.

I couldn’t turn my brain off from everything that I had to do. I had risen early and here I was staying up late. Then I said to Father “you’re supposed to grant sleep to me because you love me, according to the verse I just read.”

His response was “If you wouldn’t drink coffee at 7:30 pm you wouldn’t be awake now.”

Okay, okay — He’s right. I know not to have coffee at night and it’s rare when I do. I can’t remember why we had dinner so late either.

Tonight I’ll sleep like a log — I wonder where that phrase came from as logs don’t sleep.

When we first came to look at the Lake Elmo property that we just moved into, there was a huge trampoline in the backyard. Now that the previous owners took that with them, we have a sand box. It’s a huge sand box.

I can remember when I was younger going to the playground and playing around the sand box. I never played in one though. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to experience one.

I’ll have to get some sandbox toys for, of course, the grandkids.

The Mayflower truck pulled up yesterday morning. I was happy to see it but hesitant as I couldn’t remember everything that I had packed. The truck looked small but it took 3 hours to unload. I was given one task — check off the inventory as it was called and taken off the truck. Easy enough.

The workers would pull the dollies up to me and say “where do you want this?” The worst part about all of this is that the boxes I bought all had the labels on the top. So, unless I had a note on the side (not usual), I had to have them move the boxes so I could see where each one went. After awhile, the workers did that work themselves once they had a feel for where things were going in the house.

Then they left. I thought – alright! Now I can start unpacking. I walked into the house and was a little overwhelmed. Where did all these boxes come from?

The first room I wanted to tackle was the kitchen. All the kitchen boxes were lined up for me. I started out unpacking one box at a time but then I thought “I should open each one to see what’s inside and then unpack.” So — knife in hand — I opened each kitchen box.

The plethora of kitchen utensils was daunting. I had just come from an apartment where I had 4 pieces of each type of silverware, one large spoon, etc. It appears we have quite a few of each item now. Hmmm … what happened to downsizing?

I’m happy to say that half of the kitchen is completed. The other half will be finished today if all goes as planned. Only 2 kitchen items were broken – a quiche plate and a bowl.

Since I had used some towels as buffers when packing, I picked each one up and smelled them. They smelled musty – probably from being in storage for 5 1/2 months.

As a matter of fact, all of our clothes smell musty and must be washed. I’m not sure how much a water well can handle between the dishwasher (I like things rinsed out) and the washer (things must be clean before hanging).

I decided that since we’ve lived with our current clothing “allowance” for 5 1/2 months, we can do without more clothing for a little while longer.

We did have a moving accident. One of our dining rooms chairs was cracked when we examined it. So far, not too bad in terms of what is damaged.

By the end of the day, my calves and feet complained mightily since I had been in slippers all day. From now on I’ll be wearing my gym shoes with orthotics.

I regret not having hired a cleaning person when I moved in. That’s something that should have been done although the house was fairly clean — just not clean enough. I figured I had all week to do that work until I found out that the furniture was coming this week. Now, before I put linens away, I have to clean.

Oh well, live and learn.

The windows under the kitchen cabinets allow light to come in and we can see outside to view the trees and any wildlife that may be passing by — such as wild turkeys that seem to run, well, wild. They cross the street at the worst times. Then there are the deer, although I think they like our property as they stay away from it. I wonder if that will continue once I actually plant some shrubs and flowers outside.

Our property is very treed so it looks beautiful when we look through the windows.

Our new house has some features that feel a bit dated. Like a surround sound intercom radio speaker system. In 1993 it was probably pretty good looking. Now, it just looks white, dated and we haven’t been able to figure out exactly how it works yet.

I’m sure we’ll figure it all out. After all, my husband always tells me “we don’t have to throw things out that are dated.”

Good words of wisdom — as sometimes I feel dated.

Tomorrow, we’ve been told, at 8 am sharp, our belongings from Seattle will arrive. That’s about 1 week earlier than what we were expecting which is good.

On the flip side, we have to decide where to put everything, at least initially. We don’t have enough furniture to fill the house yet. Guest beds haven’t been bought and we’ve never had a family room so that room will need furniture also. Then there’s the screened-in porch and the large deck — whew!

It will be a slow process as my husband and I have ideas that are a little different. I think that’s common for most married folks though. A friend of mine once told me that he gives his input to his wife and then let’s her decide on anything that has to do with the house.

What wise friends I have!

How nice to open the front door to our new house and find a package carefully placed inside the screen door by our new mail person.

Taking the package inside, we carefully opened it. It was from our North Dakota family. And — it’s a bird house.

How appropriate! Today after I started prepping the master bedroom for painting, I looked outside towards the balcony and there flitting around in the trees was a bird I had never seen before. He has a yellow underside and a semi-pointy head. He looked like a miniature blue jay — well, except he’s not blue. I wonder if the music I was playing attracted him near the balcony?

We took our new gift and placed it outside on a hook over our bird bath to see if any of the local birds will avail themselves of it.

Then, looking up, we saw a bald eagle soaring overhead.

It can’t get any better than this.

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The new house has chandeliers. When I first looked at them, I thought they were from the 70’s but the house was built in 1993. It is possible the previous owners went and bought older chandeliers.

In any case, they will be replaced soon enough. It’s not at the top of our priority list, especially since the foyer one is so high up in the vaulted ceiling.

The one in the dining room looks just as old.

We like more of a modern look so once things settle down, we’ll go hunting for the right one.

Having no furniture yet, we slept last night on the shag carpet in the master bedroom, one twin air mattress and a camper’s twin pad underneath us. I conked out rather quickly as my bones are tired. I think perhaps we can only make one more move in my lifetime as moving is a lot of work.

When I awoke, I noticed that our balcony faces east.  Sun rise. Very nice. After getting ready, I headed downstairs and noticed that the sun was shining on the screened-in porch and you could see the buds on the trees just beyond.

It looked surreal – as if it was from a postcard.

After driving my husband to work, I returned to await the carpet cleaners. I called two companies and only one called me back. So – Daisy Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning was the recipient of our business.

A young man called about 20 minutes before coming out. When they arrived they explained everything that they would do and after each room was completed they asked if I wanted to see it in case there were any problems. After the first couple of rooms, I didn’t really need to see any more.

They were quick and efficient and I was happy that my carpets were now clean.

I put in more shelf liners and filed some paperwork away.

I then decided to clean the master bedroom balcony. It was filthy. I decided to use a mix of Pine Sol and a gallon of water. It worked fantastically and the balcony is now ready for furniture.

Next, prepping the master bedroom walls for priming before painting as the walls are a dark red. I usually use TSP, trisodium phosphate, with water to clean the walls. Normally one can use TSP to take away the glossiness from the walls as it makes it easier to paint along with cleaning it well.

Unfortunately, with a septic system, one has to be very careful what kind of chemicals they use. So, I decided to go with a tablespoon of Pine Sol and a gallon of water instead. This worked very well to get the walls cleaned.

In order to reach near the ceiling to clean, we went to Menards (similar to a Lowes or a Home Depot) this weekend and purchased a step ladder. This ladder is great because you can put your whole foot on the step so that your feet don’t ache at the end of the day.

The proper equipment is so important.

I noticed that the previous painter (I’m assuming the seller) left a few paint “drip” spots that I will have to sand down before I prime the walls.

This happens when one puts too much paint on the wall, gets distracted and forgets to check their work. A lot of people will not go back to correct this, especially if they’ve put all their tools away.

Tomorrow is another day — I will be pulling nails from walls and filling the cracks, taping and then priming so that the old red paint color will not seep through to the new one. Hmmm … I wonder what color we’ll be using.

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