July 17, 2007

• I keep waiting for my blog to update itself, but I think I am missing the wetware (Geek talk for a connection between brain and computer).

  My days are very full with work the last few weeks, thus the lack of posts. I have a guest arriving Thursday for a week, then the day after they go, our friend Mel and her four kids are arriving from Scotland to spend 3 weeks. So I have been having to sort rooms, rearrange, and plan for everyone to have a place to sleep, bedding, towels, etc. To do so I cleaned each of the girl's rooms out, top to bottom, taking out something like 10 or 11 full black trash bags of junk for trash guy, as well as 3-4 full bags for charity. Well to be fair, that also including cleaning the bonus room, top to bottom and going through some boxes that had yet to be unpacked.

  But darn it, everything is very clean, sorted and organized. Martha Stewart could not have done better!

  On top of our own place, Gene has FINALLY moved out of the house, but in order to do it, I had to hire an attorney and threaten a lawsuit. He found a one bedroom apartment that would take a cat. In order to try to move things along, I went and spent a day packing up the kitchen stuff for him and then the following day, Joe and I rented a U-Haul and helped him move all his furniture over.

  But now, I have the task of the house and trying to get it into some sort of condition to sell it. It is SO gross! It took hours to scrub the guest bathroom so we could have a place to use the toilet and wash up. I don't think Gene had done a thing in that room since I left 2 years ago. There was urine all down the outside of the toilet bowl, on the floor, on the wall behind the toilet... and stuff of a nastier nature that I will leave to your imagination.

  We found that the den had been used as a mega litter box, for god knows how long, and had cat feces all over. That part made me down right angry. How dare he let his own kid's live in filth like that! And of course all the appliances and counters in the kitchen were filthy. I have spent days, going top to bottom over each item, trying to get them clean again, since they will be part of the house sale.  Joe started to pull up the filthy carpets and we have found they are just soaked all over in cat urine. So now we will have to get special chemicals to soak into the cement foundation to get rid of the the urine that has soaked into the it.

  It is a huge project The house will need new floor throughout, new paint inside and out. The yard will have to be totally ripped out and redone, as it has been very poorly maintained and is either overgrown, dead, or weeds, depending where you look. Plus Gene just has junk all over, that he has 'saved'. Things like parts of chain link fence, a broken electric wheelchair, a moped that doesn't run, etc. It will be at least one huge dumpster, perhaps more to get it all out so we can start work inside.

  So, if you don't hear from me, I am trapped in the old house, with an endless project in front of me.

  In other news, we are all well. The kids are enjoying summer and I am glad there is a really nice soaking tub in our bathroom! I am hoping to take the girls to a Harry Potter party at the local bookstore on Friday night, it sounds really fun.

  On Sunday, while our friend Daryl is visiting and the girl's are with Gene, we hope to go to Temecula to do some winery tours, since Daryl is a big wine fan, as are Joe and I. It should be nice and relaxing and I look forward to the break.

  So that is about it. I hope everyone is having a great summer!

  • 3:25 pm
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