This week began in a wonderful way. On Monday and Tuesday, the skies were sunny and blue. The temperatures were warm and pleasant. In fact, you could almost say it was downright hot, in the afternoons. I wore shorts both days, and had the air conditioner turned on.
Ed and I took full advantage of the beautiful weather, and spent both days, outside, working around the house. We painted a few things. Ed mowed grass, cleaned out the flowerbeds and the rock gardens. We hoed in the garden, and we uncovered our fountains. I decorated the yard for spring and Easter. We had a grand old time!
Things began to go downhill, on Wednesday. The weather was still nice, but it became windy, later in the day, as a front began to move in. By then, I’d gotten a mild case of sunburn, from being outside so much, and the yard work was beginning to take its toll on me. Ed persisted in working outside, but I spent more time indoors.
Thursday started out with clouds and rain, and eventually turned into “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”, and since you’re probably curious, let me explain.
Thursday was the day I planned to pack up my St. Patrick’s Day decorations and put them away. It was also the day I planned to drag out four large tubs of Easter decorations and decorate the house for Easter. This is a daunting task, under the best circumstances, but considering the current shape of my storage room, the task was monumental, on Thursday! It involved literally unpacking one-half of the storage room to find the containers I needed, then dragging five large tubs to the living room, while leaving about a dozen more boxes sitting in the pool room. Can you picture the way the house looked? Sort of like moving day.
Strangely enough, our breaker box is located in the storage room–behind all of those stacks of plastic containers. The only way to reach the breaker box is to move all of those boxes. Since I had already had about half of the room unpacked, Ed decided he would do some re-wiring in the breaker box. (We’d thrown a few circuit breakers, throughout the winter, due to overloaded circuits.) Ed’s re-wiring project involved him turning the lights off and on, and running around the house with this little beeping (meter) thingy. Are you getting the picture?
About the time I was packing up, and unpacking decorations (and watching a Hallmark movie), and Ed was running around turning lights on and off while beeping, our daughter and granddaughter came over. She had come to do her income taxes on-line, for the first time, and needed Ed’s guidance. Her [home schooled] daughter planned to do her schoolwork in the kitchen, while her mom filed their taxes. Suddenly, we had four different activities going on, at once! Can you say 4-ring circus?
Two hours later: Ed only managed to turn the lights out, once, in the room where our granddaughter was doing her schoolwork, thank goodness! I gave up on the movie and turned it off. I continued to pack and unpack, however. Meanwhile, our daughter came down with a booming headache, (and shed a few tears) by the time she finished the tax filing process, then was presented with a $71.00 charge for using Turbo Tax! (They normally only pay about $50 for their tax man to file taxes for them, but he passed away, last year.)
Four hours later: Our daughter closed out all of her work on Turbo Tax, and Ed helped her refile, again. This time their total charge came to $106! They did some adjusting, and got the total back down to $71, which suddenly seemed like a bargain, after all! Meanwhile, I’d taken a brief nap, and had resumed decorating. Granddaughter, Madison, had finished her schoolwork, and was playing, but she managed to get one of my curling brushes entangled in her long hair, in the process! Ed had temporarily given up on his electrical project.
Seven hours later: I’ve stopped decorating for the day, and am cooking some taco soup for supper. Ed has resumed his electrical project, and I’m about ready to shove that little beeping meter where the sun don’t shine! Our SIL came over to say that their pool pump isn’t working, and asked if Ed knows anything about how to fix it. Meanwhile, our daughter says she got an email from the IRS saying both of her tax forms had been rejected! OMG! What next?!
Nine hours later: Supper’s finished, and the kitchen’s been cleaned up. Ed’s helped SIL to figure out the problem with the pool pump, but isn’t able to fix it. By now, it’s now almost 8 o’clock, and Ed’s back in the attic working on that electrical project again! He has cut a wire, and can’t figure out which place to rewire it to. (Said something about the kitchen outlet only working when he flips the light switch in the living room!) He’s climbing up and down the attic stairs, with a headlamp on his head, while I’m sitting in the dark in the living room talking to our son on the phone! Our home has been crazy All.Day.Long.
Ten hours later: Hallelujah! Ed has finally made the right wiring connections! The outlet works as it should. We have lights again, and Ed can finally put away that annoying beeping thing. I hope our electrical projects are finished for a long, long time! It’s only a little after nine, if we hurry, we can catch at least one episode of ‘Breaking Bad’! All of those plastic storage tubs will just have to wait until tomorrow before they get put back into storage. Hopefully, tomorrow, our daughter can figure out, with the help of IRS, where they went wrong on the tax forms…
Thank goodness for Fridays!
Reflections...by Kathy 