CED 2008 ~ It's Thursday? Already?

Some days, I wonder where the time goes. The past several days are now a blur, as Don and I continue and somehow managed to accomplish a lot.

On Monday and Wednesday, I had Alexxis during the mornings and into the early afternoon. I'm learning to cherish those days and time spent with her, it offers me a chance to slow down and take it a bit easier, while working inside on our housekeeping tasks. Alexxis is quite the little helper as she loves to run the lightweight sweeper, help grandma dust, and wash windows. Well, as good as a nearly-two year can! She's becoming more and more independent when left to her own devices. These photographs were captured on Wednesday. Here she is! Attempting to fill grandpa's shoes and laughing when I tell her that's a tall order to fill.

Here's another one of her coloring on the floor while grandma finishes up her cleaning. Did you notice the weird angle she has her right foot at? I guess that's what happens when you put one shoe on and leave the other off, LOL! So far she's great with the crayons, only writing on her coloring books. I certainly hopes that lasts awhile!

I promise that our home's floor aren't actually sagging but it appears that way as I attempted to get down on Alexxis's level, LOL! Anyways, when her daddy arrived and after eating his lunch, he helped me move the recliner back out to the studio. Our living seems so much larger since removing it completely out of the way. Isn't it funny how you get used to "putting up" with somethings, even as "temparily" as they may be. For a week or better, Don and I walked around that chair placed in front of the hutch until we had assistance moving it back to where it belongs, LOL!

Don continued working in his garage this week. He's been cleaning, clearing, straightening, and even added some shelving for organizing our stored items. He also moved our deck furniture closer to the garage door --- hopefully, we'll need it really soon. As the weather warmed up here for a few days in Ohio, he spent some time draining our jacuzzi, inspecting our rear deck, and removing remnants of Fall/Winter's debris. He even cleaned between the deck boards, removing debris from the underneath support beams! Of course, the deck will require another good power washing this year before I can begin painting on the faux floorcloth that I was inspired by one of the table's placemats we'll use there. But that's a ways down the road.... as we continue to wait for the weather to improve. I did work on a watercolor sketch of some of my ideas on Tuesday, I'll have scan and upload those soon.

Another item we accomplished, was getting "new-to-us" used tires on the Jeep Cherokee. We knew going into the winter that they probably only make it until February. And we were almost right, as the Jeep's ride began to feel wobbly a week or so ago. Upon changing the tires, we learned we actually had a broken belt on the front passenger's side tire. Now that we actually have some with a lot of good tread we can get it in for an alignment. While Don was gone having the tires changed, I worked on cleaning out the drawer in our hutch. I've been meaning to do for what seems like forever, as I've been desiring to use it to actually store our good linens in. I did manage to get it emptied out, sorted through, and remove all the old receipts and junk like items that somehow managed to get tossed in there for several years on end! A good portion of it was some of home items warranties that can be filed elsewhere and household tools that never quite seemed to make it back to the toolbox. I did refill it with some of the items, as Don returned home and we needed to make our way out to get a water sample for the jacuzzi and then, off to Delaware to pay on the Spiderback chairs we put on hold.

Returning home in the early evening, we ate dinner of lunch's leftover spaghetti before actually working on getting the chemicals put in the jacuzzi. During the evening, we both kept checking the water temperate, wondering if was warm enough to get in. By 10:00 p.m., we gave up and went to bed.

We both were tired when we hit the hay, but come about 2:30 a.m. we both were awake. We got up to use the bathroom, watched the Weather channel, then out to check the temperature in the jacuzzi. It was 103 degrees, so we decided to get in! It was a little cool outside, probably in the high 30's/low 40's, and the clouds were beginning to roll in and cover what little bit of stars we could see in the night sky. But other than that, it was heavenly! Just what we both needed to relax before drying off, putting back on our jammies and climbing into bed. It really must have relaxed me as I didn't wake until after 11 a.m. today and Don had already left for work! So, I'm sort of playing "catch up" today. I chatted with my online friend, Kate, for a while before realizing if I'm going to accomplish anything today, I need to actually get busy! But I wanted to update here first.

Well, I'm off of here.... I need to head out to the studio to grab a couple Priority Mail boxes and labels. I didn't make it to the P.O. yesterday and Don's has already telephoned once to remind me to get them ready so we can take them once he returns home from work. My only other goal is to finish cleaning out the hutch drawer today and spend the evening relaxing. I believe we both deserve it and tomorrow's another day......