Fruits of Our Labors

Mom and Dad left this morning after a whirlwind visit of work, work, and more work. Whenever they stay with us, they like to help us work on projects around the house. Dad doesn’t particularly like to do such work, but it drives him nuts to see things that need to be done, so he gets to it. Mom, on the other hand, thrives on busy-ness. She loves to clean and organize and sort—any time she can take something unattractive and make it look nice, she’s happy as a lark.

So here’s the run-down of what got done here at Echowood over the past 4-5 days:

Dad and Brian….

• Repaired the lawn mower (and changed the oil).
• Installed two sets of shelves and a large pegboard in the garage.
• Installed shelves in the kitchen (for me to keep my cookbooks, etc.).
• Put some kind of drip guard over the kitchen box bay window, to help keep water from leaking into the house.
• Trimmed some trees.
• Made numerous trips to the home improvement store.

Dad….

Dad and some garage shelves

• Used the leaf-blower to get all the leaves and pine needles off our roof.
• Busted up an old wooden planter that had once been attached to the front of the house beneath our bedroom window but had been removed by the previous owners because inspectors said it was prime ground for wood rot—it had been taking up space in our garage for two years.
• Repaired the kitchen faucet.
• Washed his car. (This didn’t really benefit us, but it goes to show how hard-working he is that he would do that even after all this other stuff!)

Brian….

• Mowed the lawn.
• Cleaned the outside of the kitchen box bay window and applied silicone caulking in every nook and cranny to help keep the rain from leaking in.
• Stood on ladder and raked some pine needles off the roof (ones Dad couldn’t get to while using the blower).

Mom and I….

"Crazy Clips Cookbook"

• Cleaned the refrigerator/freezer, inside and out.
• Created a nifty binder book of recipe clippings from the gigantic assortment of stuff I’d cut out of magazines over the past five years.
• Removed all the dust from the living room ceiling fan and light fixtures.
• Made a cute arrangement of cookbooks, candles, and other various items on my new kitchen shelves.
• De-cluttered the kitchen table.
• Went to Target and bought items needed to organize kitchen better.

Mom….

• Cleaned the oven.
• Scoured the kitchen sink and faucet ’til it sparkled like the FlyLady’s.
• Organized the kitchen junk drawer.
• Picked up sticks and raked up loads of pine needles and leaves in the side yard.
• Vacuumed behind/underneath the fridge.
• Made coffee—over and over and over again!
• Played bunches of games with the kids.
• Did several loads of laundry.
• Swept the back porch.
• Used leaf blower on the driveway.
• Brought boxes from the playroom out to the garage to be placed on the new shelves. (We’ve put the boys’ toys into rotation, so they don’t have access to all of them at once.)
• Evaluated our kitchen and wrote up a plan for how we could improve it greatly without spending a fortune.
• Encouraged me to keep going, even when I would have rather sat down and done nothing—sometimes getting a house in order is so overwhelming!
  

  Mom and I in front of the new kitchen shelves.

I….

• Cleaned the kitchen light fixtures.
• Cleaned the inside of the kitchen box bay window.
• De-cluttered and cleaned and organized the computer desk. (I still have one batch of papers to go through but will probably need Brian’s help as they are related to his bill-paying procedures.
• Put several boxes and bins of toys on the new garage shelves.
• Stacked all the boxes of books in the garage beneath one of the sets of shelves, so they can be easily accessed and sorted through later.
• Cleaned the vacuum cleaner brush, unclogged the hose, wiped out the filter canister.

Whew! That’s all I can think of. I’m probably forgetting something. But you see I wasn’t kidding when I said we did A LOT of work!

The challenge for me, now, is to keep up the momentum and not let my exhaustion keep me from continuing to work on the areas of the house that still need work. The yard is a never-ending project; ideally, I should spend about two hours per day out there—raking, trimming plants, picking up sticks, pulling weeds…..even mowing (though really, that is supposed to be Brian’s job). There is much yet to do inside the house as well. Mom says the key is to just do a little bit at a time, not walk into a room and think I have to get everything perfect in one afternoon.

I am so grateful for my parents’ willingness to help us out this way. They are so knowledgeable about home repairs (they’ve remodeled two houses now, themselves). They inform and inspire.

Thank you, Mom and Dad!