Anyone Got a Stretcher Weekend Recap

Howdy y'all!  Does everyone else remember going back to school around this time when you were a kid?  These days?  They've been in school for 2 weeks already!!  A friend of ours has a third grader and posted the obligatory list o' facts pic their first day of school two weeks ago and I said I was so glad they didn't send us back that early and he heartily agreed!

Saturday was off to a low key start but waiting for a small weight rack to replace the mondo one we had down there.  They were dragging their feet so I watered the plants front and back and we went out for a little bit then drove through the old hood.  We drove past my high school besties house as well as ours.  This is the second time we've gone there to reminisce and within 30-60 seconds people roll up on us like they notified the po po of the new car in the court.  Lord forbid I look at my childhood apartment for a few minutes so we left since it didn't feel safe.  There's nothing sadder than watching your old house and haunts turn into places you probably wouldn't feel safe walking by yourself or at night.  Sigh.  I swear it feels like my "old" life is trying to boot me out of it.  The Mr can go back to his hometown and it is 96% intact.  Me?  Maybe 20% and that's being generous.

When we got home, the rack still hadn't arrived so we started work on the basement a little and got the old weight rack moved upstairs and into the car to be donated.  The Mr got to drilling in some 2x2's but it was getting late so we decided better to wait until Sunday for the rest of it.  Oh and look at that, Walmart's delivery of the new rack is delayed.  Shocker.

Sunday morning we watched a little tube with coffee and a banana before getting started for the day.  Down to the basement to continue where we left off.  

I was tasked with removing the brad nails left in the back of our frankenboards with our nail puller.  

He had an idea to use magnets for those instead of having to keep removing them if something needed checked behind the insulation.  (Wetness for the last issue, again when the spigot pipe burst and I don't know how many more times of prying those babies out we've got.)  While he worked on that, I thought I should, you know, unpack my Christmas presents!  They've been sitting in Mom's tote since January and it was like Christmas morning all over.  When I got that empty, I started silently crying.  (Actually it was a bad weekend for that all around.)  I put it aside to pull myself together so the Mr wouldn't see and went on to work on cleaning out a little nook between the craft catch all table and laundry table.  I pulled out crap we didn't need right there, vacuumed and moved our AC filters over there which took up a lot of room in a space we didn't really have any room.  I pulled out stuff from a cube in our Kallax (similar to this but with the IKEA doors added and I put furniture feet on it to keep it raised since it's by the washer.)  I was able to rearrange some stuff to fit our water filters and fridge filters there so they're not taking up extra space we didn't have.  

I went through some picture frames that were from Pictures Plus in Hawaii that I had spray painted back in 2017 so I could use them in the bathroom.  I remember how proud we were with every picture we bought from there.  We love the watercolor reproductions we'd get that made the house feel so relaxing and tropical.  

If we had an extra bedroom, I would absolutely decorate it that way again.  We were talking Saturday about how we don't know if we'll ever get back to Hawaii again.  We've heard a lot of really bad things about how Maui has changed since the fires that leveled Lahaina.  That was our spot we loved hanging out in and we don't know that we could handle it.  There is also a massive short term rental fight going on there and nothing says when you book the trip that it'll still be rentable when it's time to get there.  People have literally shown up and been told their place isn't available...oops...here's a refund.  They said the aloha spirit is pretty much gone where visitors are concerned and that breaks my heart.  It was already heading that way in 2016 when we said we weren't sure about going back as it was starting to feel like Oahu which is our least favorite island because it feels too much like the mainland.  Now we feel like Kauai will change from the low key island to pick up Maui's tourists and we think it might be better in our memories.  Sigh.  We could always change our minds but the outrageous tourist taxes they're charging and other fees has basically priced us out.  I can't fly anything but first class because of my effed up legs and I'd need to have a LOT of weight off before I could get crammed in coach again if we get bumped like last time.  (Not like they covered the $2500 extra we had to spend in physical therapy and chiropractors to fix me after that.)  So going through those frames really ripped at my soul a little.  Then you throw in me needing to get some more wrapping paper for the Mr for my last gift and I looked at some in Mom's wrapping paper box stash and I lost it crying especially when I saw the plastic she tied around a roll.  Just to know she touched it and how I do the same thing, it was overwhelming.  I guess at least it flushed out the dust that was accumulating in my eyes.

He finished up his part and went out to the garage to put the leftover insulation in between studs in the attic and I stayed downstairs.  He'd put together the new rack and I moved it over to where it needed to be and re-stacked the weights.  It's so wittle compared to what we had.  I moved all of the electronics (router type stuff) that we had in some sliding baskets under the electric panel and vacuumed then moved the aerobic steps, which are very long, over to that spot and they fit perfectly.  I basically got all superfluous stuff off the outside wall which will be very nice to have that open up.  Vacuumed everywhere, got a lot of stuff in the trash which was a brand new bag, started a new donation box, got flattened boxes either saved for Christmas or ready to go upstairs.  I found a set of Pottery Barn white sheets I got years ago that was in the laundry center so I washed those up and they're ready to be backups so I can get in a rotation of changing the sheets and not waiting to wash the ones already on to be done.   Did I wear my watch?  Nope.  But I knew when my body broke and started swelling after 3-4 hours down there that I was not going to be getting that strength session in.  It would've been dangerous with how depleted my body felt to try to hold 15-20 lbs over my head per hand.  Even with under-logging "light cleaning" in Cronometer for 90 minutes,  I burned 400 calories so I was happy with that.

I cannot begin to tell you how badly I wanted Cane's.  The last thing I wanted was to stand in the friggin' kitchen when I could no longer stand 30 minutes earlier and cook dinner especially with the horrible headache brewing from my shoulder after lifting a 35 lb weight and tweaking it a bit.  I had to fight HARD to not say screw it but I set the oven to 450 and cut an entire bag of red potatoes in half and put some cooking spray down with maple seasoning and let those roast for 30 minutes while I did up 4 small, fat trimmed pork chops in the skillet then put them on hold in the bottom oven, cut brussels sprouts and after the chops, I finally cooked up some shaved steak for lunch bowls in the pork juices and cut up jalapeno to go in the flavor bits.  When the potatoes were done, I got out 4 glass bowls and portioned out 5 oz of potatoes, 3 oz of steak, a 10g sprinkle of reduced fat cheese and jalapenos for two lunches this week and two next week.  I didn't buy any crutch lunches this week so I didn't have a choice.   Then I put together our dinner and wanted to cry I was in so much pain.  I couldn't wait to go upstairs and have a lava hot shower.

That put a fork in us for the weekend.  🏳️

How was your weekend?

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