Work, work, work, work, work...!

Thomas, Lindsey and Brooklyn left early this morning to return to Boise. They arrived last Saturday afternoon. Thomas has my name for Christmas this year, so they gave me an early Christmas present. Of course their visit alone was a beautiful gift (snuggle time with baby Brooklyn was WONDERFUL),

BUT the real gift was to help me finish the painting in the house so we can get it on the market. We work, work, worked! When Brooklyn was up we'd take turns taking care of her. Otherwise we had a paint brush or roller in hand! What a wonderful present. We were able to get all but two closet doors and the living room door painted and rehung.

We'd kind of forgotten about one of the closet doors and one is in our bedroom and we didn't want to paint the living room door while the kids were here because that's where Brooklyn was sleeping and the oil based primer STINKS (no killing brain cells in my grandbabies!).

Besides finishing the doors we got all of the kitchen, dining room and hall cupboard doors cleaned, taken down and all the hardware removed from them. So, today I'll finish 'round one' and start 'round two'. I plan on brushing all of the cupboards, doors and drawers to try to maintain a smooth instead of bumpy look made by a roller. My goal is to finish all the cupboard painting by Friday, then I can move on to refinishing the kitchen and bathroom counter tops and putting up new backsplashes. One of my handymen, Barney Zauss will remove (unless I can easily figure it out) and then install new sinks too. At that point I'll have the realtors come back in to give me market analyses then I'll clean until I drop and get this baby listed!

Oh how I appreciate Thomas and Lindsey coming! I was really having a hard time getting back into the painting swing of things. Progress had been so slow...now I feel like I've caught my second wind and can get the job finished! It was particularly helpful that we got the doors done because Thomas was a pro at rehanging them. That in and of itself was slowing me down.

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment with Dr. Wilkinson here in town. He's an MD who specializes in alternative medicine. I have been suspecting for some time that I'd benefit from bio-identical hormone supplementation, so I have some lab work to test my hormone levels among other things scheduled in the next month.

After my appointment I met Darvin, Lindsey, Thomas, Brooklyn, Grandpa Clement, Thomas's parents and his niece Lexi at Old Country Buffet for a 'quasi' Thanksgiving dinner since we won't be together on Thanksgiving. Then Lindsey, Darvin and I went to Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2. It was nice to spend fun time together, even though the painting was 'calling my name' at home!

Didn't make it to 'round two' today on the painting. I had an appointment at the Firestone dealer to have my tires rotated and oil changed. It took an hour and a half plus travel time, so about 2 hours or more. But I did get two coats of primer on the living room door, our bedroom closet and the trim to the cupboard in the pantry and got the 'recycle closet' door painted and rehung. Overall, I'm not disappointed with my accomplishments for the day, particularly because I used the time while the car was being serviced to work on filing paperwork for tax preparation (another item on my 'to do' list). What an amazing difference a little primer and paint makes!