Top o' the final Monday of September to you! I know everyone is yammering about how fast each month/season this year has passed but seriously, is it just me who feels like they blinked and we were out with horsies for my birthday and suddenly it's basically October???
Twas not my best showing this weekend. I desperately needed a bit of a break this weekend because my mental state has been in the pooper on the grief front the past few weeks. The Mr said something about getting breakfast goodies in the morning the night before so I kind of had my sights set on that and maybe driving somewhere to see the state of the leaves. He woke with wicked heartburn, which he rarely has and started getting a headache. I got my panties in a snit because I felt like there were things he could've tried that were at the top of a internet search and could've relieved his pain much quicker. My interpretation was it fell on me to make him better and I'm at a point where I don't want to make one more effing decision for anything ever again. (Though a slew of them are waiting.) So yeah, it wasn't fair but that put my mood straight into tantrum town especially when the things I told him to do seemed to bring quick relief on one front but then having to wait until 2pm for the rest of it to clear out just felt like 'welp, can't 'start' our day now so there goes the weekend I needed.' Yes. I know exactly how that sounds. Not proud of it. But I can lie if you like or leave that crap out but who does that serve? No one. We sat there at one point staring into space and I said "well, let's get to the newel post then, we should get something done.' He started on that then I did my part on it
But then I needed to get out of the house like pronto.
We drove to get something to eat and my already sour mood turns to silent crying as we got closer to Mom's place. (Well the place before her last place which will always be home as far as we're concerned.) I couldn't take it. I just wanted to go sit in the parking area, stare at her townhome and bawl but I took care of the bawling on my own as the Mr desperately tried everything to get us out of the engulfing traffic jam that comes with being in the area. There is nothing on that side of town that, when in the wrong frame of mind, doesn't bring back everything we've lost. Her home, my childhood, where she suffered, where she died, where she's buried. All of it in a 3-4 mile radius that just hurts to be in some days and that was one of those days. I did apologize to the Mr later a few times and he did say he was panicked realizing the ghost of what will never be just seemed to be all around us and he wanted to get the hell out of there. I think much of it comes from several things. 1) I'm using work and reno to not think about it all. 2) I can never show her what we did and she'll never see this 'new' home we've been putting together since the pandemic started. 3) It's because of some of the money from her passing that we can even do the bathroom conversion and there is guilt and general ick associated with that. I don't want her money, I want her. So all of those things along with facing what used to be my favorite time of year without her and being past that initial shock of last year and that this truly is our reality has made for very bad mental weeks. It was very hard to pull myself out of the inner turmoil I was feeling. I wanted to cancel my therapy appointment and never go back. I wanted to pack everything and move somewhere else. I wanted to just burn it all down figuratively because there's nothing left here but everything I've lost. When you don't have a mortgage, 'just moving' and gaining one 3x of what you had for the average house isn't feasible also the Mr's job basically has us geographically trapped because they're flaming jerks so we feel incredibly caged.
Yep. Good times.
Sunday we had a hodge podge breakfast and got to working on the newel post again a bit. The Mr cut a piece of trim needed for the top of the stairs. There's this part of me that wonders if we should just paint the stairs and get those treads I mentioned since we're spending more than intended but I don't know how to feel about that. It'd be a lot of work and I really wanted everything done before the holidays but I doubt that's possible now. I did order an undermount sink and faucet for the bathroom. They can't template the countertop until it's installed again which unfortunately means we've got a month (minimum) before we can get that part scheduled and that was if we were SUPER on top of our game and the second the new shower is installed we miraculously got the paneling and floors installed too (not impossible to do over a weekend but still). Then it's a month out from that before the counter would be in and ready to be installed. Dangerously close to post Thanksgiving time.
Oh! Did I mention about that "woodpecker" noise? We thought it was the sump pump since Helene dumped a whopper on us and the noise went away for two days. Welp, it is confirmed it is our just over a year old water heater. The Mr caught it in action when he was down there after we already put in a work order for the sump pump. (It needs replaced anyway, it's almost 30 years old and with all of the rain we're finally getting, it only flushed out twice and that thing runs non stop with similar rain amounts.) So now we're awaiting a call back from the people who installed that/re-piped our house last year. I love being a homeowner.
We went up and moved the vanity back into the bathroom to get a measurement on where the junction box should go and thank God we didn't use our mirror as the center point because it would've been off a few.
But he got it all patched up and ready for the drywall skimming by our shower guys.
I'm so proud of him! Especially since we've always been terrified to do anything ourselves but sometimes we (he) can do stuff!
I attempted to put wood pre-stain on the newel post but it laughed at me and said 'yeah, you're not getting to do this part the easy way either sister." But I found a couple of spots that needed wood filler touch up so that was going to have to wait until today. So I'll need to sand those spots to see if I need a little more. If not, I'll have to tape off and prime everything then I have get to work at the other stuff. I still have to scrape and paint the vanity which is going to be a little arduous with the countertop still on it. My goal is not to have to a crap ton of touch ups but I'm hoping I can get it the best I can and then when we move it back in for them to template that we can score the caulk and then when it all comes off for the new one, we can take it off for them and have some control over the situation. Those jackals come in like they don't care what they nick or destroy and mama will go off after all of this if they do something because they were careless. So I ordered the undermount sink (we've had vessel for 15 years so time for a change) and a faucet so they'll have everything they need when the time comes to make a proper template. So nerve wracking! I ordered our wallpaper and I'm going to tell you right now that if you'd ever told me I'd be paying what I did for it, I would've laughed in your face. Painted Paper is who it's through so I'll let you peruse that site to get an idea of the insanity. (Not like I've ever had to price wallpaper so maybe that's normal but yeah, small anxiety attack ensued even with a 10% discount.)
Somewhere in there I need to get my shingles shot too and it took the Mr down for 2 days. I'm thinking maybe Thursday because who wants to be down on the weekend??
What did you do this weekend?
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