Weekend Warriors

I just came out of one of the most exhausting weekends of my life. When you watch the extreme home makeover show, you see them build an entire house in one week. I know how they feel. However, we remodeled half our house in three days and there were only two of us, not 300.

Jon had Friday off and bought the linoleum while I was at work. Upon arriving home, I quickly changed into my work clothes (after running to Chris and Kim's to use the bathroom - ours was un-assembled) and helped him fit/cut the linoleum into place. We got all three rooms (kitchen, entry, bathroom) glued into place before going to bed that night. This was the biggest project on our list and we're glad its done.

Saturday we woke up to a bathroom that still had no toilet, made another trip to Chris and Kim's, and then started texturing the bathroom (we wanted to texture/paint before re-installing the toilet). We jumped between several projects all day, starting one, letting it dry, while working on another, and so forth. All three nights, we worked until 11pm and we're still not where we need to be to put the house on the market.

Our hope was to get it sold before leaving town, but its looking less likely to happen this way.

I was really hoping we'd have some friends with extra time on their hands who would be willing to lend a friendly hand, but everyone seems to have a full schedule these days. We are thankful for the help Jason, Chris, and Kim have given us through this whole process. I just wish all these projects didn't take so long to complete...so many steps to get the finished product.

Jon begins his modules today (for the next two weeks he'll be at NTS from 8am-10pm) and I will continue working on our To Do list when I get home from work every evening. I still have lots of painting to do (inside and out), wood to stain, in addition to molding/trim to be nailed to the wall and on top of the counter back splash. There are still a few projects left to be done that I can't do...like installing more electrical breakers, checking the water hose spicket for leaks (in the crawl space), painting the front door, and cutting the quarter-round trim (which is time-consuming and requires a tool I don't know how to use).

I also get to figure out how to dispose of the old garage door and other random large pieces of garbage that have made their way to our house. I'm going to attempt (maybe with Chris's help) to cut everything down into bundles and hope our garbage service is nice enough to throw them into their truck. I really don't have the time, money, or means to make a run to the dump.

After all this is done comes the thorough cleaning our house will need after all these messy projects. I'll need to wipe everything down (dust everywhere) and re-hang decorations in case we do actually get our house on the market before we leave.

And somewhere in there, I planned to have a garage sale to get rid of stuff so we fit in our U-Haul.

Thinking about the daunting list I still have in front of me makes me want to run away and bury my head. Unfortunately, it won't get done on its own.

It's kind of ironic that I can finally relax a little when I get to work instead of doing so when I get home.

I pray I still have time to spend with friends before leaving town. I'm going to miss people.