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comma
October 21, 2013, 7:39 P.M.
I rolled it over. My quit has a comma in it.
1,000 days.
Who'da thunk it?
The weekend:
Now that Spouse has Fridays off, he was awaiting me eagerly when I got home from work. He'd had a busy morning, doing about one tenth the amount of housework I would get done in the same amount of time. And not understanding (after nearly 18 years!) that you don't mess with my Friday afternoons, he decided we needed to go do a WHOLE bunch of errands and shopping, all over town. And then we could come home and I could put it all away!
I think it took me all of ten seconds after the last item was on the shelf to get my nap on. And I slept for a good 90 minutes, before he woke me up by yakking loudly into the phone. To be fair, he was talking to Auntie, and making her day. And he'd already started dinner. But it's going to be an adjustment to have him underfoot on Friday PMs.
We made tacos for dinner, cleaned up the kitchen together, and I mellowed out a little and made caramel apples for dessert. He had gotten roughly a load and a half of laundry done, plus cleaning half the bathroom (he never cleans the shower & tub) and doing some tidying, dusting, and doing a once-over-lightly on the floors. So the house wasn't perfect, but it was pleasant and comfortable. I finished the two loads he'd started, and we just had a quiet evening.
Saturday morning was chilly but very nice. I slept in a bit, then got up, had coffee while Spouse to the bullet for me and talked to my mom on the phone, and did some more wash--and cleaned the tub and shower. After I got cleaned up and dressed, Spouse told me he had an idea--we needed dog food, so why not take the B to Petsmart with us, then drive down to the lake for a nice walk in the park? Turns out he meant that B and I would walk, while he sat on a bench and smoked a cigar, but I say it was his loss. B and I enjoyed ourselves! We picked up a new leash while we were at the pet store; we got a 16-ft. retractable for our park walks. It is a lot easier on me. B likes to walk out in front a bit, and enjoys wandering off the path in search of trees and various smells. The new lead allows me to stay on the sidewalk while he explores a bit, and solves the problem we had of him pulling me off my center of gravity. So we had a good time; B had a grand adventure full of shopping and riding and walking and meeting new people, I got some fresh air and exercise, and after we made a quick stop to pick up some prescriptions, we came home and had grilled Polish for lunch. Then Spouse took a nap while I read and pottered around, cleaning strawberries and doing yet more laundry.
Before we went out in the morning, Spouse had started a slow cooker full of Korean-Style BBQ short ribs, and we had those with Basmati rice and a nice tossed salad. Hardly any work and simply delicious. Strawberries and Angelfood cake for dessert, and another quiet evening at home. Still trying to live cheap until his new job actually produces a paycheck, so it's inexpensive home dinners for a while yet.
Sunday morning, we got up, Spouse made a nice breakfast (sausage, eggs, toast & coffee), and I cleaned up the mess while he went back to bed with a warm compress on his eyes. He had a bit of gunk in his eye and it needed to get dissolved.
I didn't mind--I had the first productive putter I've had in a long time. Bleached and scoured the kitchen sink, scrubbed and polished the counters and stove, and even gave the toaster a thorough cleaning, washed a load of rugs, and then emptied all the wastebaskets and took out the trash before jumping in the shower. And since I was dressed and rolling before he got off the bed, I took B for a walk around the neighborhood while he got himself in order. It was nearly noon by that point, and we still had to tackle the big project, which was closing the pool. So we ran to the pool store for some shock, made a quick stop at Aldi to pick up some stuff for a food drive, and booked home to get to the big job. Just in time for it to start raining Well, drizzling...
We went ahead and did it anyway. And I even kind of took the driver's seat, because he was having a kind of a fuzzy day. First he was fussing because of all the leaves in the bottom, so I showed him how to hook up the vacuum OVER the filter basket, and deal with those in a snap. Then he was all worried because our backwash hose was too short to reach the front drive, and with money tight, he really didn't want to buy a new one. His inventive wife pointed out that with the two vacuums we have, there is more than enough hose--as long as he could connect them. He lit up at the suggestion, and dug up a hose clamp. I also showed him that if we took a few of the extra lengths of hose from the doodlebug vacuum, attached them to the manual vacuum head for weight, dropped it into the pool and connected the other end into the skimmer, we could pump out easily and not have to worry about it running dry and burning out the pump. Lastly, I calmed him down and took over the cover cable, patiently untangling a brand new cable after he'd tangled it into a thousand knots by trying to unwind it from the wrong end. Finally, I took charge of threading it through all the way around so he didn't have to stroke out over that. I don't normally get that involved in the process, but like I said, he was having a bad day.
Once we had the water pumping out and I had some time, I went in the house and put a big pot of homemade vegetable soup on to cook. It was so cold and damp out and we were working so hard, I couldn�t have picked a better meal to make for pool closing day.
Once we were finished outside, it was lovely to come in and have something hot to drink, and cozily relax for a while with the inviting smell of soup in the air. I was so tired and achy that you would think I�d have conked out in nothing flat, but sleep was hard to catch and harder to keep. I had a crappy night.
And today wasn�t any better. But I�m saving those details for another entry.
Reading: Mary Cary (1910), by Kate Langley Bosher
Listening: TBOM cast album
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