Here Be Dragons

2008-03-31

My dinner party went wonderfully. We played Guitar Hero and Bowling with the Wii and we discussed the cruise we're going on in October and everyone brought more wine and food. We had crab cakes and jambalaya and King Cake and Birthday Cake and chicken cutlets and chili and sweet & sour chourico and some other rice thingy and some stuff I don't even know what it was but it was all good!

The miracle of it all was that with all the construction of cabinets and plaster walls and ceilings and installation of counter tops I had a thin layer of wood, plaster and quartz dust on everything in the house including the adjacent bathroom and living room. Some of the plaster was still stuck to the floor. I hired a Moose member, a young healthy strong girl, to come and clean. She cleaned for three hours and I cleaned for five along side her and then I went to cook and guess what? If it hadn't been for Fred I would have been cooking for 12 people and washing dishes in the bathroom sink and I would have had to wash my refrigerator shelves in the bathtub. Fred spent three hours that morning installing my new kitchen faucets, which then gave me my dishwasher because we could turn on the water again and then managed to connect up one drain with the old plumbing until the plumber, another Moose member, decides to show up.

Honestly this plumber never showed up and I didn't even have a sink until 6 hours before my party of 12 arrived. Talk about the hair of my chinny chin chin! But everything went well and now I wonder why I was so stressed out beforehand. They all oooed and ahhed at my new kitchen and made me feel great and it was so nice to have something nice that didn't look like cockroaches would climb out of it. It was so nice to have a house that I was proud of. Until noon of that day when I had a sink I was worried but I'm all good now and my home looks so good with the help of Randi that I'm hiring her to do it again every other week. It's 60 bucks but wow is it worth it. She's a cleaning machine!

I wonder now how I did it all when I had kids and cleaning help was not an option within my budget. I not only took and picked up the kids from day care but I worked at least 40 hours a week and commuted almost 100 miles round trip to do it only to come home and clean and cook and do the wash while I fit in school plays and concerts on weekday evenings and softball on the weekends.

How the hell did I do it? This past Saturday I cleaned for 5 hours and did one load of wash and ran the dishwasher three times and then cooked a crap load of chicken cutlets and then I went into the bathroom and took an aspirin for my aching back and changed my shoes because my feet hurt. I guess I'm getting old. You shoulda seen Fred after getting up and then laying down under the sink the umpteenth time. He hurt the next day too. Yeah, I'm looking forward to having a little help.

Hehe .. She even does that little triangle thing with the toilet paper when she finishes the bathroom. She says it's her trademark. All I know is that my house looks better than it ever has in years thanks to Fred and thanks to a new cleaning woman.

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