Counting Down

I only have ***15*** days of actual work left. December 15th is my last day, and I'm feeling a fair amount of unreality now. Friday (the day after turkey day), the Hub and I went to our bank and made the LAST payment on our mortgage. We actually paid it off 11 years early, having moved in here in Oct. of 1980 with an interest rate of 12 and one-quarter percent (not unusual for those days), and having re-financed it twice to take advantage of the much-lower interest rates, and to put an addition on the house. Starting Jan 3rd, the kitchen remodel will begin (already paid for), replacing linoleum with tile, and Formica countertops with Corian, and a Corian sink, new disposal, etc. Keeping the original cabinets, which need a little touch-up here and there, like new knobs and such, but they were top-of-the-line back then, and I still like them, dings notwithstanding. Of course, all this means having no kitchen for a week or more, and having to pack up all the kitchen junk in the base cabinets and move it all into the dining room (somehow), so that the tile will go under the cabinets, and more specifically, under the dishwasher. As it turns out, the weird black marks on the linoleum in front of the dishwasher and sink area are not caused by the backing of the throw rug; no indeed, they are caused by the dishwasher having corroded through its base, leaking under the dishwasher (mushrooms!!! Under the dishwasher!!!) and seeping betweeen the two layers of linoleum, and then mold forming. A total mess. A new dishwasher was installed, but this clearly only addressed the immediate problem and not the damage done by the leak. This latest remodel should be the last for the kitchen. Oh yeah, we're repainting too, starting with the (ewwww) ceiling. My ideal in a kitchen would be one with a big floor drain, and a reel-out steam hose you could use to BLAST AWAY at the greasy, cobwebby bits, ceiling to floor, cabinets, appliances, countertops, the works. Daily. Sort of like an operating room, all white tile and stainless steel and bright lights. Meanwhile, scrub, paint, and then keep scrubbing. I tend to work on housework the way they paint the Golden Gate bridge--I putter away at it, slowly making progress day to day, but never having the whole thing done at once, just starting over again and again and...

Our Thanksgiving was fine in all respects. Having once had only the two of us for it, then gradually adding more and more people (I think the high was 17), and then gradually having attrition back to just the four of us, Hub and I and the kids (now 25 and 26). For the first time, daughter R came in the kitchen and helped with that last hour's worth of pandemonium, peeling and stirring and setting the table and so forth, WITHOUT being asked. Then she and her brother began the clean-up. It always amazes me, how long the prep and cleanup take, when the actual eating is done in, oh, twenty minutes. You know the definition of an optimist? It's the guy who asks, the day after Thanksgiving, "What's for dinner?"

I was off this entire week, and got a lot of re-organizing done, and also a fair amount of reading and naps. I even did some Christmas shopping, washed and vacuumed my car, and the usual laundry. Which reminds me: I have a key hanger that has a spare key for pretty much everything. When I took my Miata to get its winter shoes put on, I thought I'd use the spare key so I wouldn't have to wrestle with taking the key off my keyring. I grabbed it, hopped in the car and OOPs, it didn't work. My guess is that it is the key for one of the other two Miatas I had in the past. So I popped by the Mazda dealer to get a spare key made, and guess what? They have a "chip" for security in the key, and to get a key made you have schedule a service visit, bring the car and ALL the keys with you, and have them program the new key. The cost? $115. For a spare key! Don't you think they should have mentioned this at the time we bought the car? Also, they told us that the main computer in the car has been recalled (we never were notified), and when the replacement comes in, they will call for us to schedule a time to bring the car back, along will ALL the keys, to be re-made (fortunately, for free). If we had known about the recall, maybe we would have saved some $$ by asking for another key THEN, but alas...

That's about it for now, I'll try to post more frequently now that I will be a Lady of Leisure. Maybe even post some photos! as soon as I figure out just how to do that.....