In The Final Stretch

Daleen and Colin are going to be home on Thursday morning and man, I have a lot of work to do.

Things are looking good though and I think I might be able to finish everything I wanted to do with time to spare. The laundry room project is in it's final phases of construction. The room itself is painted and the new tile floor is down and it really looks amazing. I have the new cabinets painted as well and those are installed along with the trim. All I have to do now is install the new countertop, deep sink, and faucet and tidy everything up. It has been quite an odyssey though. I made such a mess of our house that I'm glad Daleen wasn't here for it.

Here is our kitchen and dining room when I was putting the floor in (all the stuff in the laundry room had to go somewhere). It too bad you can't really make out the washer, dryer, and the hot water heater in the lower left corner of the first picture. Those took up a lot of space:

Here is the old laundry room floor:

And then here is the floor with the ceramic tiles glued down (I still have the tile spacers in and the grout hadn't been laid down yet, but you get the idea):

The worst part of the whole project was tiling the floor. It is a very slow and tedious process. It wasn't so much the work that was the biggest problem. What was my problem was that I had to turn off my water and take out my hot water heater (because it resides in the laundry room.) Not having running water for a few days wasn't a very festive experience. I went to my parents house every day to shower and fill up my gallon jug of water so I could brush my teeth in the morning (somewhat important) and make coffee (extremely important). Needless to say I am very happy to have my water turned on again.

So, now that the project is coming to an end, the next phase of my time alone is beginning. I am now turning into my own Dept. of Sanitation and it's time to get the house cleaned. While the paint was drying today, I started on the bathrooms. The burning in my eyes from all the Tilex and bleach fumes is just now finally starting to subside. I can tell you there is not a single microorganism alive in any bathroom in my house. Ever been to an indoor swimming pool where they use enough bleach to kill the bacteria and all the swimmers? Yeah, its like that....nice and sterilized.

Now that I have my water turned on and have my washer and dryer back in place, I have also started back in on the pile of laundry that has been building up. Luckily, I have a bit of ironing to do and have already been thinking about what movies I want to watch while I tackle that.

Once the house is clean, I still want to change out the water filter for the house and I need to replace my heat pump filter. Also, all those leaves I got up the other week? Well, all their little buddies have now leapt onto my lawn and it looks like I didn't do anything. If I have time, I'm going to try and do something about them.....well, actually I think the leaves are just going to have to wait. I doubt Daleen will be dissappointed if I don't get them up.

I went out yesterday and got Colin a little welcome home gift and I still need to run over and get Daleen some flowers before Thursay morning arrives. When they get back, I want everything to be just right so they can simply come home and relax. I told her on the phone that people were worried about me cooking while she was away, and that there is a popular belief that I'm sitting at home, in the dark, in front of the TV, subsisting on Hungry Man TV dinners. I then joked that I was going to get some of those TV dinners, and when she gets back we'll have to lay low one night in the dark in front of the TV, so I can at least see what I missed out on. She replied that she would rather I go and pick up some Allen's Chinese instead..... good idea.

So wish me luck on getting everything done in time. I'm off from work tomorrow so I should be ok. I'm actually hoping to be done early tomorrow so I can have one night to just relax and go to bed early. I have to work Wednesday and I have a work function that evening so really tomorrow is going to be it for me.

I've said it before but the past four week have just flown by. I knew they would. Daleen said her time with her family has gone by quickly too. Colin is doing much better now and is almost completely over his illness. When we spoke today, I could hear him in the background going to town on my brother-in-law's piano (do you think there is some musical talent there??) Daleen says they're ready to come home now and I'm definitely ready for that too.

I would like to say thanks to all my friends and family who have helped me out over the past month. I had enough invites to dinner that I probably never needed to buy groceries. Thanks for the help with my home projects, for hunting trips, and for being around to talk to. Thanks to my sister who put on Thanksgiving at her house this year. I can honestly say, I don't think I felt lonely for even a moment while my family has been away and that has really been the best help anyone could give.....