Getting Things Done

I have such a supper supportive husband!  I told him that I wanted to keep my schedule of getting to bed by 9pm and getting up about 5am.  And he agreed to do it and has been encouraging me when I'm a little slow to bed.  Sometimes it's a little hard to sleep, but I've been waking up slightly before the alarm goes off.

And I've been super productive with my writing.  Most days I've gotten 1000 or more words written. I finished my Financial Advisor's email series including edits, and we may move forward on another letter. I also have two other people wanting me to do work. Akk. I hate to turn down interesting work. I think/hope I can do it all.

I've also been going out to the house most afternoons. It's interesting. When you start a renovation, the mess just grows!  You end up with piles of debris from junk in the house now cluttering up the garage-- old bathtubs and shelving, broken tile and drywall. Then there's new stuff to go into the house-- new doors, flooring and tile.  And the house itself is full of dismantled things-- doors off hinges, appliances moved from their traditional spots, baseboard lying in the middle of the floor to be painted, cabinet doors on saw horses getting painted or leaning against walls awaiting rehanging.  Shelving and door knobs and hinges and paint cans and cleaning supplies, rags, buckets, stools and tools... the clutter makes it such that you can hardly walk around the house.

Then "slowly by slowly" as the Kenyan's say it, things start to improve. Doors get rehung and shelving moves back into newly painted closets. Blinds get rehung or put out with the trash. Cupboard doors get replaced on newly painted cupboards. Paint tarps get folded or trashed. It's like a tide receding.  At first you don't believe it's happening.  Then, you can walk through the rooms and down the hall.  The new house begins to shine through. This is the gray paint with the various shades due to the light.

When I'm tired of seeing the mess, I look at the beautiful white fireplace against the crisp gray wall.At this point, we have all the house painted... er, except the new garage and back doors and trim and the laundry room cupboards. But the uniformity of wall paint and the contrast with the white cupboards is delightful and satisfying!  Tom also worked on tiling the tub surround. It turned out well. We will tile the floor then grout it all. He's been bagging up trash and putting some out at the house we're working on and bringing some home to add to our trash, so the piles in the garage are diminishing. Mostly it's just the flooring left. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.



I think it will be a beautiful house.  I hope the realtor and buyers agree and we get a nice price for it.  Tom has clocked over 300 hours of work on it. (I contributed some few hours of that.)

We've had amazingly warm February weather. It's been in the 60's at night and the 70's during the day.  The plants are confused.  It looks like spring.  The fruit trees and bradford pears are in full bloom.  Daffodils are up along with crocus. The grass is greening.  But the last two days the temperature fell below freezing at night. I expect that means no fruit from the trees this year. Sigh.  And likely March will go back to winter.

Here is a gratuitous picture of Athena who was outside when I went to take the peach tree picture.

I did some visiting teaching this week.  I invited my hairdresser to come to church with me and she did!  That was nice.  I also went and worked on clay on Friday.  I'm making clay hearts for my RS Retreat.  I finally finished the RS newsletter with information about the retreat and the Nauvoo trip we are planning on October 5-7. Anyone want to come with us on that?

Saturday Tom took some new converts to the temple to do baptisms.  We have some wonderful new members. They are a delight to know and apparently they had a great trip there and back and a spiritual experience at the temple.


Last night my friend Tanya and her daughter Maddie came to visit and spend the night.They lived in Mountain Home 11 years ago, when Maddie was born and have kept up on friendships here. So they went to church here today to connect with special friends..Today at church it was fun to listen to the hymns and the speakers through the eyes and ears of my friend sitting next to me. I think she enjoyed it. The spirit was there.