The Long and Worky Weekend

What a feeling of satisfaction – to be able to cross items off our never-ending “to do” list. This past weekend was filled with nothing but work, work, work – and it shows, in all the things that we got accomplished.

I feel so GOOD about every bit of it!

M’s brother and his girlfriend came into town Friday and they immediately got to work on the list of items we had written down when the realtor walked through the house. Of course, every home improvement project starts with a trip to one of the “big box” stores, so we had to do that, too. But no problem – I scored a tape measure while we were there (since I can NEVER find one at the house) so it was worth it.

The four of us spent the entire weekend working hard and I know when they left Monday, they were probably glad to go . . . and get some rest! The best things we did were getting the baseboard heaters that were on the walls in three rooms removed. And – we got M’s tools and work bench in the garage cleaned and straightened out.

I know that doesn’t sound like much, but if you could have seen the TREMENDOUS mess that was his toolbox and work bench, you would know that we have created order from chaos. Everything is now labeled, has a home and I can find it when I go looking for it. We did have to coerce M into throwing away some items from when he was working – like packs of chewing gum that he insisted were still good. After I told him I would pay him $10 if he could chew one pack of the gum, he agreed to let us throw them away.

How long will the toolbox stay clean and neat? Who knows – but I intend to keep it that way as long as possible.

We went to Older Son’s (OS) house Monday night for our two-year-old grandson’s birthday party and while we were there, OS paid M for the mowing that the two of them had done over the last week or so. It was about $240. M put the money in his wallet and, when we got home and he was in the shower, I took the money OUT of his wallet and put it in our mad money hiding place.

Not that M can’t have his own money to carry around, but he already had about $25 in his wallet, and that’s all he needs to have – or possibly lose, if he loses his wallet. He doesn’t need to carry around $240. The last time OS paid M, I told M that he didn’t need to carry around that much money – and he had a FIT . . . telling me that was his money and he had earned it, etc. I was trying to avoid another argument.

After his shower, M found me in the kitchen and told me that he didn’t think he should have that much money in his wallet.

Uh oh – busted!

I told him we would take care of it later. I didn’t admit that I had already taken it out of his wallet. By Tuesday morning, he had already forgotten about it.

Whew!

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, M came into the bedroom to ask me about my day. He asked me if I had “the thing” today. I told him I had to go to work and then to get my hair cut after work – those were the only things I was doing today.

No – he wanted to know about “the thing,” was I going to have to do “the thing” after work today?

We must have gone around and around about “the thing” for 10 minutes, with me not knowing what “the thing” was and him insisting that I did . . . before he finally pointed at the inside of his elbow and I said “the bloodmobile?”

That’s it!!!

No – the bloodmobile is next week . . . and I had written it on the calendar.

But now I know.