The past two days have been busy and productive. After my son and I arrived home early Sunday evening, the wife and I discussed chores and projects we wanted to focus on. Monday morning, we set to work.
We had made arrangements for someone to come by Monday afternoon to take our old washing machine off our hands (hooray!), so we had several hours before we could really go anywhere. We started in on some much needed spring cleaning and were making progress until the wife made an unsettling discovery. Behind the buffet in the dining room the floor and the wall were wet and moldy. We moved the furniture out so we could clean up, all the while trying to figure out when and what might have spilled back there. After removing some molding, sweeping, mopping, and treating the area with mold and mildew killer, we set up the dehumidifier to dry the area out. It was obvious the damage was due to something more than a simple spill. We suspect that it is the result of a leak in the wall from the plumbing to the bathroom on the other side of the wall that happened a year and a half ago. I dread the thought of climbing under the house to investigate, but it's going to have to be done.
We had just gotten the water damage under control when the people showed up for the washer. We got it loaded up, they were away, and we headed into town. Part of our inspiration for spring cleaning was the gift of a swanky, new sewing machine from mother-in-law. The machine came with a sewing table, which means reorganization. In the course of the reorganization discussion it came up that the wife's serger needed to be looked at because something wasn't working correctly. Our first stop in town was the sewing shop. After considerable poking and prodding it was determined that the machine was going to require a service -- and the service wasn't cheap. We agreed to put the serger on hold.
Next stop was to the watch repair for a couple new batteries, a new watch band, and a watch band repair. While waiting for our watches the wife and I wandered through new appliances, our new, super efficient washer fresh in our minds, and dreaming of future upgrades that use less resources.
From there we stopped by REI. While I was out of town I had lunch with a friend who began running about a year ago. He tried to persuade me to try doing a couple of 5K runs with him this summer and my interest was piqued. The biggest roadblock to running for me is proper shoes. I don't own any. I have fantastic backpacking/hiking boots, dress shoes, work boots, and farm boots, but no running shoes. I still had my 20% members discount available, but only for a couple weeks, and had found some shoes that interested me online. It was just a matter of trying them on and deciding which ones to go with, if any. Long story short, I found my shoes. The bad news is, the shoes I chose had to be back ordered (no instant gratification for me); the good news is, I got them for 20% off. I really need to start getting back into shape. It's been a rough winter in that respect.
After we got home the wife and I attacked the collection of boxes in our son's closet that we haven't really thought about since we moved almost three years ago. We found a handful of things that we thought were lost or were otherwise glad to recover. Mostly, we found a lot of charitable donations and dust.
Before going to bed we got online and ordered heirloom seeds for the garden.
Today we started with errands -- gas, bank, grocery store, library, produce stand, and the thrift store. At the thrift store we dropped off several boxes of stuff that had been taking up space in our son's closet. Then we went inside and made a very tiny dent in our ongoing effort to replace the kitchen plastic with glass, metal, and wooden items. I also found a pair of running shorts for $3.
When we got home we put the groceries away and I headed outside while the wife washed the dishes. I picked up the piles of straw and chicken manure around the yard, turned the compost pile, amended the garden beds with ripe compost, and turned the soil in the garden beds.
We still have a lot of spring cleaning to do -- the water damage discovery in the dining room was something of a setback.
Still, all in all, it was a productive couple of days!
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