Our Life...Making You Thankful For Yours Since 2011 Weekend Recap

If you didn't see my Sunday post, swing on by for a giggle.  As we learn to navigate this temporary new normal, some things have changed for all of us.  Things look different.

Grocery shopping looks different:

Walks around the neighborhood look different:

Online shopping looks different:

Then there's our life.

This is going to sound like a whiny rant and

(via Giphy.com)

You know how many of us have to "shelter in place?"  

Well, here's our shelter right now:

That's right.  Nowhere to sit because the couches are in the garage, the dining chairs are stacked in the basement and we just barely got a working kitchen back by the skin of our teeth Friday night.  I say working kitchen meaning appliances are plugged in but preparing food is kind of off the table because it's a dusty mess with spacers on backsplashes everywhere you turn so it's not really usable.

Let me tell you how our week went last week to make you feel better about any cabin fever you might be getting.  Note:  I realize there are people sick with Covid or people going through MUCH worse.  I'm aware.  Yes, I know it could always be worse.  So if you're new here and tempted to make a pissy comment, I can't promise how long it'll be up because I'm that done right now.  I'm here to represent the "it could always be worse without fighting for life and death" scenario for the majority of you.  Just so we've got that out of the way.  😁

As you know, we've had this reno scheduled since the end of January and because we are us, it hit in the middle of a pandemic when you're supposed to keep 6' away from each other.  That's always the best time to have up to five dudes who don't wash their hands after touching their penises to pee running around your house.  In case you didn't know.  The Mr, by some miracle of God, was able to telework last week for training so I was quite glad to have my backup in place if needed.  He was training so he was upstairs with the door closed and I was in the basement.  You know, the remodeled one?  Wanna see it?

To say workouts in the workout room didn't happen last week is an understatement.  So when the dudes went to the bathroom, I could hear the water come down and before it even reached the basement they were already flying down the stairs.  Five minutes later, the Mr would go to the bathroom and spray down every surface.  Look, I know you guys don't give a crap on a good day but we're in the middle of a virus and we're all susceptible whether you believe it or not.  But the fun doesn't stop there.  I'm sitting on the stool in the basement and I hear what I thought was them working on installing the sink, like the sound of a faucet turning.  I was happy because I knew the Mr was anxious about being left without a sink if they pulled the workers.  Then I heard what sounds like a glass of water being poured and I see a stream of water coming from the spigot up front shooting like a hose.  I start screaming "water is coming down here!"  "What?!"  "WATER IS COMING DOWN HERE, TURN IT OFF!!!!"  They run down and look at it and said they'd been using it all morning but the difference that time was they hooked up a hose.  He says our pipes must've frozen (during the mildest winter ever) and the back pressure probably has it leaking behind the wood.  You know, the wood we just installed six months ago in the basement reno?  They went on their way because, not their problem.  The Mr pulled off the wood panel and thankfully no water.  We think it's the weld just before it.  No plumber til Monday.  Oh and the back spigot that we just had replaced in June is leaking too.  (No, we didn't have hoses hooked up to them in the winter.)  Pile it on, yo.

The first two days, when the kitchen guys would promptly leave at 3:30pm, we'd look at it and say "what the hell did they do today??"  I told the owner about adding the smoothing of the ceiling on the first floor and adding recessed lighting early enough that I hoped they would do it in the 3-week gap between doing our kitchen ceiling and doing the kitchen reno.  No such luck.  Instead, they did it all at once so there are multiple people in the house at the worst possible time trying not to trip over each other.  They moved all of our furniture to the garage except for the dining table and the TV armoire.  Do you think they're going to move that back in?  Probably not.  Because the sanding won't happen until today after the kitchen guys leave.

Recap:  The Mr has a heart condition where he can't lift over 50 lbs.

Recap:  We're in the middle of a pandemic where you can't be around other people so calling for backup isn't an option.

Recap:  We're screwed.

Thursday they did a little more between smoke breaks but we were getting irritated especially when we were told it was going to be a "1 1/2" day job when the kitchen ceiling was done, that turned into three days when I was given the schedule and was pushing into four and going into next week for sure with the ceiling but now with the kitchen.

Recap:  Best Buy is scheduled to swap the microwave and stove on Monday...in the kitchen...where the dudes are working.

I send the coordinator an email after I hear the kitchen guys asking about why haven't the drywall dudes shown up and someone called in sick (the guy that had been in our house the day before).  I asked her where the drywall guys were and we needed things wrapped up by Friday because we were expecting deliveries on Monday.  She says she doesn't know "what we need to be wrapped up but they definitely aren't  going to be done Friday."  I don't respond because if I did at that moment, they would not have come back.  We were already worried about this anyway given the pandemic and would they leave us with no kitchen sink in the middle of it?  My lack of response must've been relayed to the owner.  Friday, the guys came into the kitchen like their hair was on fire and did more work in that one day than they'd done all week.

The owner showed up and is always a calming presence and told us everything would be done that day except for the grout and the window trim which would be done Monday.  He was correct about that.  When inspecting the ceiling work, he was puzzled and irritated that they didn't use a 20 minute skim set (so were my nasal passages).

It had been raining all week, like torrentially, so we couldn't even go outside for a walk until Friday night.  I'd been sitting on so many uneven and crappy surfaces day and night that my legs were shot just from that.  We walked the hood for 3 miles and that ended the use of my legs without searing pain.  We were looking forward to sleeping in Saturday as neither of us got much sleep all week.

As I just got back to sleep after a restless early morning, the Mr leaps up and says the drywall guy will be here in 20 minutes.  We didn't know anyone was working on the weekend.  I can't leap anywhere due to my legs and given in the middle of the night I resigned myself to just peeing the bed instead of walking on them if necessary.  (But given the lack of drinking fluids coupled with a few nights of take out, my body could be flown in the Macy's parade and was holding on to every drop.)  The guy's brother comes and starts yammering about conspiracy theories and at that point, we're just done.  We hole up in the bedroom and watch some episodes of Restored, the Mr gets lunch and we're just glad all of the holes are patched in the walls.  They inform us they'll be back tomorrow so no sleeping in for us...ever.

(via giphy.com)

Update:  Best Buy has suspended all deliveries where requiring crossing the threshold is necessary and returns are canceled until April 6th.  *twitch*

Sunday morning, I woke to the first sunny day in a week.  I opened the windows and made some tea.  I started this post and enjoyed the tapping of my fingers on the laptop breaking the silence as I started typing.  I knew it was going to be another day of inconvenience and there would be no break for us.  Another day in the freezing cold basement since it got down to the 20's the night before.  It was the only break I could count on in the day and I was savoring it.  The Mr was kind enough to massage my legs.  I wasn't staying inside once drywall dude left with that being the only day of sun before the Ark starts its journey again this week.  I would need to get outside because I could not take one more fume induced migraine which kindly took over for the teeth grinding ones from earlier in the week.  We ordered breakfast from a restaurant up the street because the kitchen was unavailable with him here.  We got him some cinnamon biscuits for coming by on a Sunday especially since that put us two days ahead from where we thought we'd be Friday night.  We went into the freezer downstairs and ate breakfast while watching Sunday Morning and probably shouldn't have.  We should've taken a Corona break but whatcha gonna do?

We worked on getting our kitchen cupboards back in some kind of working order, at least the ones that won't be close to the grouting being done today while I listened to The 1975's first album.  Then I made the mistake of putting on Kenny Rogers and ugly cried for 20 minutes.  We knew we should probably go ahead and get paint for the living room and kitchen because we want to be done done.  Can I just say Lowe's and Home Depot are sucking hard at this whole Covid-19 response thing?  The most they're doing is a sign on the paint counter saying to keep a 'safe distance.'  TONS of people, I mean like Saturday crowds on a Sunday.  They make you sign for pick up orders with their germy pens.  The younger staff is giving attitude.  It's a sh*tshow for sure at the home improvement stores.  We were huddled in outdoor furniture with our AirTamers on away from people since absolutely NO ONE was giving space.  We trucked it over to the least crowded grocery store and got our produce for the week and pandemic pint of Tonight Dough.  I think we're home for the night and just have to get the counters cleared back off so our dude can do his thing today.  We're exhausted, stressed beyond belief, one of our doors is screwed up and I swear if the woman gives me lip today about the pictures I sent, it will be the last straw for my nerves.  I am just trying to focus on the little "luxuries" where I can now to keep myself from going into breakdown mode.

At this point, my only luxury is this:

The tiny one cup of tea I get these days crammed up on a queen bed trying to maintain my sanity.  I start my day with it on the weekends and end my day with it on the weekdays.  I find myself constantly muttering "I've reached the end of me, Rita" from Groundhog Day because I truly feel at the end of my mental rope.  The Mr was having a mass mental moment all last week because the man started a new job, had the reno and the pandemic all on his plate so I didn't have the option to cry, scream or even get in the damn tub to soak without fear my legs would seize up and I'd stroke out from the pain and call it a day.

Again, I know there are people going through much worse but that doesn't mean it isn't a different kind of hard for us in addition to the new global hard.  (I somehow said hard all of those times without making a dick joke.  Progress.)  But when all I keep seeing are updates from people about how they are sitting inside and are bored, I want to smack them and tell them to sit on their couches because at least they have one to use!

*whine over*

How was your weekend?  

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