Well, my little pay back period last week only lasted a day. Yay!
The rest of last week, I spent doing… well… stuff. Wednesday, in spite of feeling better, I kind of loafed most of the day. That evening, Scott and I had dinner with Dad. Thursday, I had an interview with the firm I alluded to in my last post. It’s looking good; I just have to wait to hear one way or the other. I spent that morning doing research, getting prepped for anticipated questions… that never materialized!
This past weekend it was time for Scott and I to do some work around the house… work that cropped up while we were gone.
First, was the matter of our kitchen. It had gone in excess of 3 weeks without any attention. I scrubbed down the counter tops, throwing away trash that Gary hadn’t bothered himself with. Put the countless empty soda bottles in the recycling bag. All in all, it didn’t take too long. Then again, 45 minutes cleaning the counter was pretty unnecessary.
Then after sweeping the floor which had numerous dark spots from unwiped up spills, I began the task of mopping. I started in the “Pet Feeding Zone”… and area that we’d kind of let go for even longer than the 3 weeks mentioned. Our kitchen floor is tile… 1 foot by 1 foot square with a quarter inch grout. I got about 4 of these tiles mopped and realized that they needed a little more attention that a mop. So I got down on my knees to work on a few spots… and that’s where I spent the rest of the day. The entire floor needed hand scrubbing.
The tan grout had turned black. And as each tile was scrubbed, it showed up the tile next to it as overly grimy. Frankly, I’m not used to that kind of scrubbing. I’d do about 9 square feet (9 tiles) and have to rest my arms! By the time we finished that evening, my arms were so sore! Aspirin didn’t help! They hurt all day Sunday too! Yeah, I know… poor baby. To be honest, I was quite shocked to just how out of shape I’ve become, and even more so at how weak my arms have become!
In the meantime, while I cinderfella’d my way across the floor, Scott was working on the shower. The hot water faucet has been loose for some time, and in our absence had become even more so. It was to the point that we could turn on the hot water, but not turn it off! At least, not without lots of work. And every time I’d finally think it was off, and released my grip on it, the water would start flowing again.
So, Scott tried to remove the handle, only to discover that the screw holding it on was stripped and wouldn’t come off. We tried EVERYTHING. Eventually, after several hours of trying this and that (including those magic tools advertized on TV for removing stripped screws) Scott was able to saw off the handle without damaging the underlying stem. But that stripped screw was stuck in the stem. We’re now faced with that old standby fix… the vice-grips on the stem trick!
Since we are planning on ripping out the bathroom, all the way down to the studs and subfloor, we opted not to take out the stem and replace it. We can get by on our little fix for a few weeks, or months.
Sunday, we went to one of the local casinos for Palm Sunday brunch. We had a marvelous time with 4 of our friends from church. And I didn’t gamble $1!
Now a new week dawns. And I wait… well, KIND of wait. I need to get going with other job apps while I await word from the latest interview!
On The Road II 