tuesday afternoon…

…and it’s warm.  very warm.  i’m thinking about turning on the air conditioning, but there are many windows that have to be closed first and that would involve getting up and the warmness is making it hard to think about moving at all.  plus, when i do finally get around to turning it on, this room won’t be cool anyway because it’s the office (really mostly just a room filled with boxes) which is in the OLD part of the house and the air conditioning is only for the NEW part of the house.

the old part of the house, which includes this room-o-boxes and a bedroom and bathroom, has a window unit air conditioner in the bedroom.  if i turned on that air conditioner it would take a really long time for it to cool off in here, and i’m sure i wouldn’t be sitting here anymore by the time it got even remotely cool.

the new part of the house has a new air conditioner but kevin said it’s NOT BIG ENOUGH FOR THE HOUSE, which means that the upstairs part doesn’t get as cool as i’d want it to.

aside from that, things are fine.  except for the large swaths of weeds which need tending to.  the problem with weeds is that once i start tearing them out and cutting at them i can’t seem to stop, and then i exhaust myself.

it did feel good to get gobs of weeds pulled this morning (only a TINY FRACTION of the ones that need to be done) but now i could use a nap.  or maybe i’m sleepy because i’m awfully warm.

the other night randy invited me over for dinner, and then he wanted to take a walk which seemed like a good idea except i didn’t have shoes on that were good for walking.  WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE WALK? i asked him.  we walked anyway, but i complained a lot about my feet bleeding from all the walking.

whenever randy calls me he whispers something like “my old bank was filled with quiet people doing quiet things,” because that’s the gist of the latest radio commercial i did for My Security  Bank.  he claims now that i say something about it being romantic but i think he must have that commercial confused with somebody else doing a commercial for something else, because what exactly is romantic about banking?  he was pretty insistent about it, though, so mabye i did say something about romance even though it makes no sense regarding banking.

sometimes people ask me if i’m doing any shows or anything this summer and i say NO I’M JUST MOVING.

because that’s really all there is time for, and there’s not enough time for all the moving stuff.  i still don’t have many of my pots and pans and had to borrow a big one from amy to make potato salad, and then i had no red wine vinegar but she went to her basement and dug around in the one remaining box of foodstuffs that we have over there and found my red wine vinegar.  she’s a very thoughtful person, my sister.

i would bring that last remaining box of food over here but it weighs about 500 pounds.  i thought about putting some of the stuff in a smaller box and making a few trips over here with the little boxes.  but then i got all caught up in the neverending weeding.

if you’re ever bored you’re welcome to come over and help with the weeding.  or the carrying of boxes out of the garage, but then again do we really need the stuff in the garage because we’ve lived without it for so long?

except my pots and pans and vinegar assortment.

ok then,

tuesday grace.

a beautiful wednesday evening…

this is how my week started: monday morning, amy and i took our dogs for a long walk. i had many many other things planned for the day, and when i got home i looked for my glasses; i’d been wearing my prescription sunglasses. it’s hard to look for things wearing your sunglasses unless you’re out in the sun. fyi.

i tried not to panic. because had i stuck them down the front of my t-shirt so i could put them on if it got cloudy? and then dropped them somewhere during the walk? i couldn’t remember if i’d had them on or not. you’d think i could have remembered if i had them with me since we had JUST TAKEN A WALK.

i went over to amy’s house and she “you’re wearing your glasses,” but of course i wasn’t; i’d found an old very scratched pair that i could barely see out of.  she said not to panic, that we’d find the glasses. she said last year she dropped her phone in the field and she’d ridden her bike over and found it.

first i had to dig my bike out of the garage. it was in the back, of course, and i had to lug a bunch of boxes out of the garage in order to get to it. WHY ARE ALL THESE BOXES HERE? i kept saying to myself. angrily. amy said we needed a pump and i called kevin and said WHERE’S OUR ELECTIC PUMP? and he claimed it was in the garage but of course it wasn’t anywhere. WHY ISN’T IT RIGHT IN FRONT WHERE WE CAN FIND IT? i said to myself again, angrily.

luckily i found the other pump (because we have at least two of almost everything) and we got on our bikes and headed back through the fields. i kept saying to myself “did i really wear my glasses? did i put them down somewhere obscure in the house and that’s why i can’t find them?” and i figured that if i had lost them on the walk, i’d never find them.  amy kept saying “we’ll find them,” and “they’ll be right on top of the grass,” but i wasn’t convinced.

we reached the place where we had turned around; we turned around at that particular spot because the dogs had encountered another dog and there was a general bit of pandemonium and of course at this point i had to reach down because two of the dogs were off their leashes…and THERE WERE MY GLASSES.

a monday morning miracle.

but then my phone still wasn’t working, or at least not the 5.  it wouldn’t work, but then it would start randomly speed-dialing randy.  and sometimes i couldn’t answer it.  and sometimes it wouldn’t turn off.

amy looked up phones online and found what she thought was the best one, and i looked at it and saw that they also had it in purple, so i ordered it.

meanwhile this computer of mine was having many bad issues with the cord in the back and i know it’s on the way to breaking.  i wanted to call a computer repair guy, but the card i had for a computer repair guy had a five in the number, so i couldn’t call.

things have gotten better as the week has progressed; today i got my lovely new purple phone and i’ve already taken a bunch of pictures with it because i can, and tomorrow maybe i’ll have time to call the computer repair guy.  i haven’t lost anything in the past couple of days, either.

and right now the temperature is perfect and i’m sitting outside on the deck typing and THIS is why i need a laptop.

ok then,

wednesday night grace.

speeding through the first week of july…

i don’t even know where my computer is, for one thing.  we went to bed at 10 tonight, ridiculously over-tired, but then i couldn’t sleep because i’ve been thinking about everything in the world, plus more.

today…kevin FINISHED THE ROOF.  this really needs some fanfare, because that roof has taken a very very long time to complete.  i remember last…october? when he forced mom and randy to help him finish one bit of it, before it rained or snowed, i can’t remember which, and it was absolutely dark out by then.

it wasn’t done then, of course.

now, though, DONE.  not to mention the siding attached firmly all over the house.

plus, today we painted the inside of the garage.  overkill?  i don’t think so, because now it really looks good, whereas before it was only half-painted and looked dirty and bad.  we also dragged almost everything out of the garage, so it’s also nearly empty.

then we washed the awning in the back.

it all took much much longer than i thought it would.

yesterday…just a blur, yesterday.  i planted a bunch of flowers in what used to be the vegetable garden, after already planting other flowers that dad had given us a couple of months ago so of course those flowers were looking very droopy and sad and i keep hoping that they’ll magically perk up.  the flowers i planted yesterday didn’t look so great either - they were on sale at lowe’s, because all the plants are on sale because summer must be about halfway over by now although to me it feels like it’s just begun.

i planted lots and lots and LOTS of marigolds yesterday, and some flowers called “feathers” and they actually looked good when i bought them but today many of them were kind of droopy so i kept watering them in between painting and doing other things.

i’m hoping that tomorrow they’ll all look fabulous.

OK, here’s the link to the house tour.

there’s going to be an OPEN HOUSE NEXT SUNDAY, so please go look at it if you want to, tell anybody you know who might be interested in buying a very lovely, neat and clean house.

TOUR OF OUR HOUSE FOR SALE!

anyway, at least i got to see some fireworks on the 4th of july.  well, we saw a few of them down on the dock on the 4th, but last night, the 5th, mom and i went to the motor boat club and saw a bunch of them up close.  we couldn’t get anybody else to go with us, but next year kevin WILL GO WATCH THEM WITH ME.

i love fireworks.

something happened to my phone; there seemed to be something wet in my purse although i couldn’t figure out what, and for a while none of the number on the front worked, but then they all worked except for 5.  so i can’t call anybody with a 5 in their number.  randy is 5 on my speed dial, but now i can’t speed dial him.  i also can’t call him because there is a five in his phone number.  luckily i can look him up and it will dial for me, because otherwise it would be hopeless.

tomorrow morning i have to go buy a new phone.  everybody around here seems overly pleased about this; yes, it’s an old-style phone that doesn’t even TAKE PICTURES but why would i want to take pictures with my phone anyway?  plus when i drop it it always works anyway.

but with no 5, now is the time to buy a new phone.

the thing is, i feel that i’m so ridiculously overly-busy trying to do way way way too many things, that the last thing i need is to try to figure out how to work a new phone.

but like i said, now is the time.  five-less.

overly is clearly the word of the night.  it’s hard to type here in the dark, but the only light in this room right now is an overhead light which would injure my eyeballs i’m sure.

next weekend we’re going to GO TO THE MOVIES.

if i write it in all caps, somehow i feel that that will make it so.

i think i actually fell asleep a half hour ago.  perhaps maybe if i go lie down again i won’t wake up till morning.

ok ok ok already,

sunday night grace.  IN JULY.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!!!!

i wanted to be the first one to wish randy a happy birthday!

ok, i guess i wish i wasn’t wishing him happy birthday at 4:13 a.m.

i would rather be sleeping.  but for some reason i can’t get back to sleep. so here i am.

did i mention that we’re having a big birthday dinner for randy here tonight?  i thought it was just going to be immediate family people, but instead there will also be some people who have never been to our house, and they will see it littered with boxes and not much furniture.  maybe we should send them over to our old house to see how clean things COULD be.

i wanted to put up a link here to the website with the photos of our house for sale, but i can’t figure out how to make a link on this new website.  when i tried it before, it just put the stuff over there on “blogroll.”  so if anybody has an idea about how to do that, please let me know.  our old house looks DAZZLING.  plus kevin spent the entire livelong day on saturday putting up the new siding on the back of the house, and it looks great.  he sent me a photo of it that he took with his phone, but i don’t have the energy to look for that photo right at the moment.

maybe tomorrow.  after i finish trying to make the house not look like such a huge huge mess.

it’s raining again; it rained on and off all day yesterday.  we just got our latest power bill from the old house and it had gone up more than double what it had been the last month, and david pointed out that the water rates have gotten really high.  i feel that we should get a big rain barrel and save all that rain and then we could wash the clothes in it.  i also feel that i’ve spent the last two weeks constantly doing all kinds of laundry, so our water bill for this month will probably be thousands of dollars.

a rain barrel, i bet my parents left at least one around here somewhere.  i’d wander around outside and look for one but it’s much too wet outside.  plus mollie has been snuffling around like there’s some wild beast out there, and i wouldn’t want to get eaten by it.

i’m going to attempt to go back to sleep now.  good luck with your monday.

ok then,

technically almost asleep grace.

never give an obsessive-compulsive a power washer

last weekend i went back over to the old house to continue with the cleaning and last-minute things to fix the place up, and there were still many things to do.  when i got there, kevin and hank, our friend and realtor, were there signing the papers for the house-selling.

and then i was informed that the house was going to be listed on MONDAY.  this was a rather enormous surprise, and it meant that instead of doing a few more things so that hank could take photos of the place, we basically had to do EVERYTHING.

not a pretty weekend.  i was still trying to get over being sick, which now involved coughing a whole lot.  saturday was all about geting the inside of the house done, and that was a good feeling, finishing up.

but then sunday, as i was somehow feeling worse instead of better, we tackled the outside.  amy and jim and mom and david came over and helped, and if they hadn’t i’d probably have been crying  because of the sheer volume of stuff that needed doing.  so much pulling weeds and pouring down mulch and it was a flurry of stuff but the yard kept looking better and better…

later in the day everybody else had left but kevin and i were still there working.  dad had given kevin his power washer, to clean parts of the siding that were especially dirty.  kevin did this in the front yard as i toiled in the back yard, but then i came out and he was power-washing the driveway.  it was kind of dirty, but kevin was bent over the power washer nozzle, holding the amazingly powerful sprayer approximately an inch from the driveway.  this made an even more intense spray and it was incredible, how clean each little inch got after the force of the spray cleaned it.

it seemed a little…tedious to me, though.  couldn’t we just power-wash the driveway with big strokes, getting off the dirt, not worrying about somebody wanting to eat off the driveway?

after a while kevin had to return to the roof to continue repairs up there and i volunteered to take over the power washing.  it wasn’t so bad for a while, but i knew that if i didn’t spray it an inch from the driveway like kevin was doing, he’d then later go back and do it himself.  i didn’t want him to work that hard..but I WAS THE ONE FEELING SICK.

i kept power-washing and more power-washing and soon i was ready to start sobbing.  i was covered in mud and water, my t-shirt was soaked, i was ready to collapse, and then soon it was too dark to continue so we finally stopped even though nothing was finished.

we got in the car, as i whined a whole lot, and kevin said we had to stop at meijer.  to get cat and dog food.  WE CAN BORROW SOME FROM AMY AND JIM i said.  he was very insistent about buying it, though, so we ended up going to wal mart which was closer, but as i trudged around the store, looking more like a street person than ever before, even more than a couple of days before when i realized that i’d been shopping at meijer with paint coating the bottom inch of my pony tail, feeling sick, wet, wearing old tennis shoes with no socks because the pair i’d been wearing were of course utterly drenched, and i kept thinking WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY and WILL THIS EVER BE OVER?

if i was the kind of person who ever got in a fight about anything, i think we’d have had a fight that night.  i had asked kevin why we couldn’t call hank and wait a few days before listing the house, but he said it was too late, but that didn’t make any sense to me.

now, a week later, it is done.  well, it’s not really done - kevin is over there now, putting the siding up on the back of the house where the window was replaced.

i’m not going back.

monday morning, after spending most of sunday night coughing, i went to the doctor and he diagnosed me with bronchitis.  i’ve spent the week trying to rest and also trying to empty some of the boxes that litter this house we’re now living in.  things are looking a little less chaotic at least, but we don’t have much of our furniture in the house yet, so there’s no place to put many things.

i’ve lost my eye shadow, for some reason.  i brought my other little  bits of makeup over here - eyeliner, powder, mascara - and i can’t figure out why i wouldn’t have also packed up the eye shadow with the other stuff.  i must have packed it earlier, thinking that it wasn’t so important since i don’t wear it very much.  tuesday night the women where i do massage took me out to dinner because it was my last week there, and i realized the eye shadow was missing.  i know it’s a trivial thing but it was making me a little crazy, looking for the stupid eye shadow, but i think i’ll just buy another one.  i’m sure it will turn up someday, along with the myriad of other little things that have disappeared in the move.

i would apologize for not writing all week, but quite frankly i think it’s a miracle that i even survived it.

i hope your weekend is lovely and stress-free.

ok then,

saturday morning grace.

“here we go gathering nuts in may…”

christine commented on the song i sang for her, and she couldn’t remember it, only the last line which is “so early in the morning.”

WE HAVE INTERNET CONNECTION!  more importantly, my computer is actually not lost, unlike most other things we own.

saturday and sunday was a BLUR OF MOVING AND CLEANING AND UNPACKING, i can’t remember any specifics except that i worked way too long, as well as monday, and THEN I GOT SICK.  the weather was glorious but i was huddled in one old green sweater that used to belong to my late friend alison’s grandfather, freezing, chills, every muscle in my body aching.

not a good time to get sick.  it’s never a good time but this was PARTICULARLY ANNOYING.

i’m feeling kind of better now except i should be resting quietly because i have a busy day tomorrow.

cleaning at the old house, then massages.

i bet i have a lot of spam e-mail messages.  maybe one or two from actual friends who write to me, but maybe not.

it’s hard to sit quietly when there is a staggering amount of stuff to do.

i’m going to find the camera (i’m pretty sure i know where it is because i used it to take pictures last night at jim’s birthday cook-out ((HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIM!!!!!))) and take some photos of the chaos.

once the stuff in the house gets put away, then there’s the real work to do, the two garages worth of stuff plus all the stuff in jim and amy’s basement that has to go somewhere.

it’s too much to even think about.

must rest now.

ok then,

thursday (i really can’t believe it’s already thursday) grace.

ok, just one somber note here on saturday…

i was shocked and saddened to hear about tim russert dying yesterday.  he was only 58.  here’s an article about him, in case you want to read more.

chicagotribune.com

Tim Russert 1950 ~ 2008

Common touch, powerful reach

Respected newsman loved political arena

By Matea Gold

Tribune newspapers

June 14, 2008

NEW YORK

Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune

p.s. CAUSING CONTROVERSY WHEREVER I GO…

i checked my e-mail, feeling that maybe it’s for the last time because who knows when the internet will be working at our new house; it’s just like all my stuff that i put in boxes and then i feel that i’ll never see any of it again.

christine wrote to me.  on thursday evening i called her and just sang a little song i made up when pushing her number on the speed-dial on my cell phone (OF COURSE IT’S NOT SPEED DIAL but i can’t think of the term for it on a cell phone right now because i’m still actually fast asleep enjoying my weekend).  i can’t remember exactly how the song went, except it was something like “bagels and doughnut, bagels and doughnuts…” i can’t remember anything else about it.  it was about the fact that every friday morning they get FREE BAGELS AND DOUGHNUTS there at standard & poor’s where christine works.  i’ve become entranced with the whole b&d fridays, and have wished i could work at a real job where i’d get a free bagel or doughnut but i’d only want to work there on friday mornings.  and just go in and get my free B or D and then leave.

anyway, so i’ve written about the DEEP CONTROVERSY i seemed to have caused because of my cheerful barack obama video.  it seems that i’ve stirred up yet another broohaha over my simple little song that i can’t even remember.

here’s christine’s e-mail (is it ok if i put this up here christine?  i knew you’d say yes):

i deklare!

that i’m still connected!  we’re a little uncertain about when our cable and internet were supposed to be switched, but we pretty sure they were going to be gone yesterday and hooked up at our new place today.  but i’m still at home enjoying one little minute of calm before all the moving stuff today, and i’m still plugged in.

yesterday, MOVING DAY for mom and dad, was also friday the 13th, in case you missed it because you spent the day lolling around in bed.  we got in the car to drive to their house and the rain started coming down IN BUCKETS.  a kind of inauspicious beginning to moving day.

but then the rain let up and the big strapping mover guys moved all the heavy stuff and all was good.  but then mom and i spent the afternoon loading up the last of the canned goods and the pots-n-pans and the many many dishes and silverware and glasses and then tried to get them to all fit into the new cabinets and by that time it was after five o’clock and we were both surly and tired and dad came in and said “grace, you and your mother should stop now,” and i said BUT WE HAVE TO FINISH THIS.

because we were a little bit obsessed.

today, more moving, more putting away, but at least allegedly there will be other people there to help, instead of just me and mom putting things away.

i got up at seven this morning even though i wanted to sleep for at least a couple of more hours because i HAD TO MAKE BANANA BREAD.  i have this great banana bread recipe that calls for five overripe bananas, which is a lot, and i had three of them and had been ripening two more and was gonna make them earlier in the week but then it was today and so i HAD TO MAKE THE BREAD.

it is now in the oven.  it takes an hour to bake and so i don’t have to rush around too much until i have to go out and go to a massage ethics class for a couple of hours, which i know isn’t great timing because of the move, but i need to have 24 continuing education hours by the end of the year and the class is today so i’m taking it.  i feel that it will be infinitely boring but at least i’ll get to sit there quietly and not move anything or put anything away.

ok then, theoretically the next time i write it will be from our new house, except i’m a little bit skeptical about that right now because the internet shouldn’t be working here but since it is it it’s likely that it’s not going to be working there this weekend.  not that i’ll have free time after my banana bread comes out of the oven to do any writing or anything at all.

ok then, please try to have a totally relaxing and fabulous weekend including sleeping really late and going to a movie and out to dinner and lots and lots of lolling around and a cocktail or two.

saturday moving grace.

starting the day with entrails..

this morning i stepped out on the porch to add water to the lovely glass of roses sitting there (we have no more vases here, they’re all packed away somewhere) and, in my bare feet, i stepped on something wet. i looked down and it was…ENTRAILS. two of them to be exact, one with a long stringy-looking thing attached to it, the other looked like a liver or a spleen or a heart.

next to these two lovely bits of stuff was yet another entrail, also looking like a spleen or a liver or a heart.

so i’m thinking that honey the killer cat is now carefully dissecting animals, maybe because she’s studying to be a doctor. a surgeon, of course.

FISH DAY was a success; dad actually has three fish tanks, not two, but we moved two of them PLUS quite a few lamps. there’s still the one fish tank and many many more lamps to move, but dad claims that we’re now ahead of schedule. considering the mind-boggling amount of stuff still left in their house, i sort of wonder about this, but at least everybody was getting along today.

i got another comment on my barack obama for president video, and i blocked the cretin and deleted him, but i feel that i must share this comment with you right now.

in his description of himself, he’s a 19 year-old from the US. his name is BRANDODESTRUCTO07. here’s his incredibly thoughtful comment:

“OBAMA is a shit head that didnt even know wut Memorial Day was……hmmm wats that mean he is a dumb piece of shit like all those wanting to vote for him….i mean how dumb can u be he insulted us white ppl and u still vote for him u r so dumb if u do i mean he hates america and he wants to meat with the president of iran so wtf is up wit that so idk america is gonna come to a end if he becomes president!!!!!!!”

i wonder what “idk” means. “i deklare?” “in dat kase?”

my favorite part of this is about obama wanting to meat with the president of iran.

i also think it’s funny that after this nasty incredibly stupid-sounding rant, when i looked on his personal page, my video was listed as one of his favorites.

do you ever think about how many truly stupid people there are in the world? i try not to think about them and luckily the only time i have to even think about them are when they write a really retarded comment on my video.

other than that, life is good. lamp day tomorrow, except since we’re ahead it’s also going to be drawer day and maybe even dishes and canned goods day although that’s just my idea, i don’t want to spring it on dad because that might upset the equilibrium.

ok then,

wednesday evening grace, confident that america is not going to come to a end.