Making Your Mark

I am slowly resigning myself to the fact that I have to work and cannot spend all of my waking time working on my house.  Thankfully though, the kids aren't back yet, so I was able to leave school this morning and meet the A/C repair man.  Perseverance prevailed and after a $60 call fee, it was deemed that my unit did need a charge and it was possible that it COULD have been working when we signed the papers.  He did tell me that it would take a while to cool the house down and get all of the heat out of the walls.  I was also told that my unit was a ton and a half too small for the house.  It will work, but it's going to work it's little heart out for me.  If anyone has an extra 4.5 ton A/C unit, preferably American Standard in honor of my Papa, I'd be glad to take it off your hands!

Tonight Cas, Mom and I headed over to the house to work.  (I would like to throw an honorable mention in for Rach.  She was ready to work yesterday, but I was taking a nap...  She had to make supper tonight, so couldn't come.)  Cas and I tackled the master bedroom.  I started to wipe down the closet, think beautiful green covered in a tea/nicotine stain.  While I was working on that, Cas dirtexed the walls.  Dirtex, a cleaner used for wall prep is the last step before priming, so that is a huge leap.  When she finished that, we both worked on the closet, taking down the shelves and trying to get the layers of nicotine off.  After scrubbing the walls down by hand, scrubbing them again with the mop and then a final hand scrubbing by Casey, I can pronounce the entire closet clean enough to prime! 

We tackled the closet and Mom took on the green bathroom sink.  It looks FABULOUS!  Somehow she got rid of all of the rust stains, hard water deposits and general yuck on the sink.  I am so impressed and thrilled to have a clean place to wash hands. 

As we were finishing our chores for the evening, my "dollar dealer" came over and gave me another installment.  Thanks Jon and Feli for all of the effort.  I really appreciate it. 

So far, Thursday I am having the rest of the house treated for termites, next Monday evening meeting with the window replacement people and tomorrow meeting with my contractor to see about the laundry room and other odd jobs.  I'm still waiting on the roof.  Jack, my contractor, hasn't received word back from the roof guy yet.  I think that just about covers everything. Slowly but surely I am making my mark on the house. 

Speaking of making my mark, we took Elvis with us this evening to the house.  He had a ball sniffing all of the new smells and barking at the leaves in the bark yard.  As long as the bad guy is wearing leaves, I'm safe!  Anyway, apparently one of the spots in the guest room was left by another animal.  What does an animal do when it smells another animal's scent?  Marks it's territory!  Darn dog!  Now I have another spot to clean up.  It's a good thing Elvis is cute.  I've attached some various pictures of the work so far.  Enjoy!