Ok, so the fact that I'm using this blog post as - yet again - a means of procrastination (although, thanks to my Neuro prof, I am more inclined to call it a necessary break, during which my brain can fully absorb and integrate all the info I have been packing in there . . .hmm . . .) DOES NOT mean that we don't love you all and want to be sharing all the fun and excitement of the past couple weeks.
It does, however, mean that I'll be attempting to keep this post short in order to get back to neural system development and basal ganglia and memory and plasticity (be glad you have plasticity folks - I'll have to devote another edition of 'Fireside Chats with a Student DPT' to that!). No worries - we've got loads of pictures that we'll be doling out piece-meal (?) . . .
The re-finished hardwood floors came out beautifully - our floor guy managed to get almost everything up: the scratches, the stains, the blobs of paint so casually drip-dropped all over by whomever attempted the last decorating job, etc. Only a few dark spots (we suspect puppy pee) remain, and we've decided that they add ch
aracter :)We do have a long laundry list indeed of all the jobs (little and big) that we'd like to get done on this new-to-us brick colonial - hopefully a good portion of it this summer when Jess and I will both be sharing 6 weeks off from school and work at the same tim (!). We've already had some help tackling THE LIST from family - we are so excited and grateful for their help! The aunties (Renee and Jan) were our first visitors - and they came armed to the teeth! Bearing armloads of woodworking, paint, design, and home furnishing magazines; fresh cut flowers; a steam-clean
er; seeds, seeds, seeds; and a LARGE bottle of wine, they helped us de-creepify the basement (no small feat), purchase our first shop-vac (he looks like R2-D2 but I believe we are settling on something like Niles or Jeffrey - yes, we do seem to have a strange urge to name inanimate objects - what?), AND strip ALL the old yucky, ugly (mostly yucky) wallpaper in the kitchen. Liz got to join us for about 24 hours (sorry for all the bus-time tiz!).Since then, we've also had Stevo and his assistant Robbie Jr come up from South Jersey - Jesse's mom was nice enough to share him for the week AND to load up half Stevo's plumber truck with food for us all - thank you Margaret and Mary! I had school during the week so I'd toodle on over when I was
done and join Jess, Stevo, and Robbie Jr over at the house. They stayed the whole week and were able to get some big projects done - a few of which included rew
orking the plumbing in the basement so our kitchen drain did not run uphill anymore, retiling and refurnishing the upstairs bathroom (sadly, we did NOT keep the purple wooden toilet seat that had previously graced that dubious throne), and . . . fixing the front porch! The porch turned out to be quite an adventure - I think maybe a bit more so than the boys had anticipated, tho I mostly tried to nod in sympathy at the mysterious multple layers of materials they managed to pull out of the roof (hey, at least I could recognise that rotten wood = bad). The porch is now safe, beautiful, and waterproof and later this summer Jess and I will be painting it. We had a lot of fun spending the week with them and getting ideas and advice for some of our other projects. Tho Robbie Jr may never want to see that porch ever again, he's always welcome back, even without his toolbelt! In fact, I'm going to have to be sending some care packages to them both as another thank you for all their help :)
Ok, so this is already longer than I intended, and we still have to tell you about paint choices and neighbors and Jesse's recent adventures in masonry! All will soon be revealed . . .
love love love
caitlin and jess
