A condo with a guest room = guests
Jun. 25th, 2012 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabOne of the reasons I had been working so hard to unpack the condo was that I was expecting guests May 31, which I had. They were here Thursday-Sunday that week, took off for a few days to other spots on the east coast, then back for a few days starting the 7th - just after I had my v-tach episode. So L was able to drive me to one of my follow-up doctor's appointments, very helpful. We had planned this visit of theirs before I even started fixing up the house - in fact, the first bits of this visit of theirs from Austin were before I even thought of selling the house. But much of our planning was during the winter. My thoughts at that point had been, well, I'd be lucky to have the house ready to put on the market by May 1, and of course it wouldn't sell for 3-4 months to get a decent offer, so no problem, they'd be staying in the house with me, and it would actually be cleaner and neater than usual because I'd have stuff in storage while it was being shown for sale, right? Who knew that the house would be fixed and sold and I'd be all moved a month before their visit? So it was important to get at least the guest room cleared up enough to open the bed and for people to be able to open suitcases up in it.
Anyway, that visit done, it was time to address another bit of visiting - I had been planning for several months to go up to NY as soon as the school year ended to visit my friend S (who works in the schools) who lives in the house she lived in when we met in elementary school, and help her do some cleaning and getting rid of stuff. She hopes to move to VA by the end of this year to be nearer her few remaining relatives, and that means clearing a house of several generations worth of junk, replacing and repairing stuff that hasn't been touched in 20 to 40 years, like the carpet, all kinds of things like that, in order to sell her house. Well, since my "take it easy" instructions from the doctor include not doing long drives alone - and 240 miles does count as a long drive by their standards - and since S herself wouldn't hear of me doing that much work for her given that I was already overworked - she came down here instead this past Thursday, and stayed until today, and helped me do some more work on the condo, stuff it would have taken me forever to do alone. Besides being a huge help to me, it's good practice for her, to watch me making quick decisions about keep-donate-throw, keep-donate-throw. We took a lot of stuff to the used bookstore, a lot more stuff to Goodwill, and then she and Cindy moved all the remaining boxes out of my dining room and into some of the clear space in the living room. Then we used S's van to go buy the desk I wanted for the dining room corner - it's the only place to put a desk in here, really - and we got that desk put together.
Now I can take my time moving the computer and printer over to it, and unpacking several of the boxes marked "office" which may contain genuinely useful office supplies, or may contain ancient torn-out-of-magazines knitting patterns, or may contain some of Steve's vast collection of pens, pencils, pencil holders, and spiral-bound notebooks from college, which I managed to get rid of some of before I moved, but some of it got packed because the house sold so fast that I had to finish packing in a hurry, throwing everything into boxes without making any decisions. With luck, at least half of what's in those "office" boxes will be destined for Goodwill or other similar efforts, and only half, or less, to stay here. The quest to unload STUPH continues.
The pets have certainly enjoyed the extra attention that guests give them, Dexter especially. Since S's cat just died last month, she was missing cats - and was glad to lavish attention on Dex. Of course, since she's trying to clean and repair and move, she's not going to get another cat right away. So this was a good "cat fix" for her.
Chippy Chinchilla is getting old - he's about 12 to 13 years old, at least - almost anyone can catch him now, he's slower and lazier. So it's easy to hold him for the fun of scritching his huge ears and feeling his incredibly soft fur. I got a little really short-pile nylon rug for the floor of the critters' room, so that the buns can come out and have a good hop, instead of skidding all over the laminate floor. It's a machine washable rug, really, except for the design I'd call it more a giant kitchen mat than a rug, so it's compatible with being used by bunnies. These guys are pretty good about peeing in their litter boxes, at least, even though the pooping is rather carefree and abandoned. Odor control is a little more difficult in smaller quarters, no matter how often I clean the litter boxes, and I am experimenting with activated charcoal and a few other things.
With laminate flooring and far more hard surfaces than soft, my Swiffer mop and Clorox wipes have become quite useful. Yes, I know it's not ecologically friendly to use so much disposable stuff. But the point is, at least with those shortcuts I get something DONE.
I am still not completely used to the higher dose of carvedilol, but I have had it pointed out by my cardiologist that I am some 9 years older than the last time I titrated up on this stuff, and hey, guess what, adjustments DO take longer when one is fifty-mumble than when one is forty-mumble. So I am being patient, and I'll grant that it's a little better now than it was 2 weeks ago. Some of the heat we had for a few days last week did NOT help, but today is a lot cooler, and I think I'll take advantage of that by doing something exciting like, oh, maybe taking out the garbage!
Anyway, that visit done, it was time to address another bit of visiting - I had been planning for several months to go up to NY as soon as the school year ended to visit my friend S (who works in the schools) who lives in the house she lived in when we met in elementary school, and help her do some cleaning and getting rid of stuff. She hopes to move to VA by the end of this year to be nearer her few remaining relatives, and that means clearing a house of several generations worth of junk, replacing and repairing stuff that hasn't been touched in 20 to 40 years, like the carpet, all kinds of things like that, in order to sell her house. Well, since my "take it easy" instructions from the doctor include not doing long drives alone - and 240 miles does count as a long drive by their standards - and since S herself wouldn't hear of me doing that much work for her given that I was already overworked - she came down here instead this past Thursday, and stayed until today, and helped me do some more work on the condo, stuff it would have taken me forever to do alone. Besides being a huge help to me, it's good practice for her, to watch me making quick decisions about keep-donate-throw, keep-donate-throw. We took a lot of stuff to the used bookstore, a lot more stuff to Goodwill, and then she and Cindy moved all the remaining boxes out of my dining room and into some of the clear space in the living room. Then we used S's van to go buy the desk I wanted for the dining room corner - it's the only place to put a desk in here, really - and we got that desk put together.
Now I can take my time moving the computer and printer over to it, and unpacking several of the boxes marked "office" which may contain genuinely useful office supplies, or may contain ancient torn-out-of-magazines knitting patterns, or may contain some of Steve's vast collection of pens, pencils, pencil holders, and spiral-bound notebooks from college, which I managed to get rid of some of before I moved, but some of it got packed because the house sold so fast that I had to finish packing in a hurry, throwing everything into boxes without making any decisions. With luck, at least half of what's in those "office" boxes will be destined for Goodwill or other similar efforts, and only half, or less, to stay here. The quest to unload STUPH continues.
The pets have certainly enjoyed the extra attention that guests give them, Dexter especially. Since S's cat just died last month, she was missing cats - and was glad to lavish attention on Dex. Of course, since she's trying to clean and repair and move, she's not going to get another cat right away. So this was a good "cat fix" for her.
Chippy Chinchilla is getting old - he's about 12 to 13 years old, at least - almost anyone can catch him now, he's slower and lazier. So it's easy to hold him for the fun of scritching his huge ears and feeling his incredibly soft fur. I got a little really short-pile nylon rug for the floor of the critters' room, so that the buns can come out and have a good hop, instead of skidding all over the laminate floor. It's a machine washable rug, really, except for the design I'd call it more a giant kitchen mat than a rug, so it's compatible with being used by bunnies. These guys are pretty good about peeing in their litter boxes, at least, even though the pooping is rather carefree and abandoned. Odor control is a little more difficult in smaller quarters, no matter how often I clean the litter boxes, and I am experimenting with activated charcoal and a few other things.
With laminate flooring and far more hard surfaces than soft, my Swiffer mop and Clorox wipes have become quite useful. Yes, I know it's not ecologically friendly to use so much disposable stuff. But the point is, at least with those shortcuts I get something DONE.
I am still not completely used to the higher dose of carvedilol, but I have had it pointed out by my cardiologist that I am some 9 years older than the last time I titrated up on this stuff, and hey, guess what, adjustments DO take longer when one is fifty-mumble than when one is forty-mumble. So I am being patient, and I'll grant that it's a little better now than it was 2 weeks ago. Some of the heat we had for a few days last week did NOT help, but today is a lot cooler, and I think I'll take advantage of that by doing something exciting like, oh, maybe taking out the garbage!
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