Fixing Up, Cleaning Up and Catching Up

Nonskid safety strips and safety rail
installed on our porch by my sister

 I can't believe it was a week ago today we were traveling from Longview.  This last week has been a whirlwind beginning with the packing at Mom's last Monday and Tuesday.  Travel on Wednesday in which a 5.5 hour trip became a 9 hour trip plus unloading the car and sorting a couple dozen loads of laundry at midnight.

Thursday my sister took me to a laundromat and helped me run those loads which turned into a 7 hour job.  Then we had dinner at my house where my husband had sat with our Mom all afternoon.

Then Friday and Saturday, while my Mom and sister were in California, I spent unpacking from the month at Mom's, catching up on two missed NaNo days, catching up on a month of sharing with Ed, cleaning house and putting away that laundry.

Then Sunday and Monday my Mom and sister were back and my sister got out her tools and set to work on some needed fixes around our house.  Beginning with the bathroom sink which has not had hot water since we moved in last Christmas week.

 The problem had something to do with the cartridge inside the handle.  It took her half a dozen trips over to Home Depot with questions and photos taken with her ipad and at least one online search to get it figured out.

That was mostly fixed by Sunday night and then Monday morning she began on the porch steps to make them safer for me by adding non-skid strips that were also contrasting color to help me see the shape of the steps.  Because with my eyesight issues it looked a lot like a ramp though I knew it wasn't.

The cartridge inside the handle
where the problem was

She also installed a safety bar on the porch rail because the board was too wide for me to get my hand around and full of slivers when I tried to just slide my hand down it.  With the steps being unlevel I always felt off balance and at risk of falling when going up and down and not having something to grip.

This essentially kept me a prisoner in my own home when no one was available to escort me.

The photo at top was taken looking down from the porch towards the driveway.  She had also spray painted a bright white stripe on the edge of the asphalt to make it more visible.  As it was it had been a trip hazard for both me and Mom.

Meanwhile, on Monday while my sister worked I did too, using the cleaning supplies she had brought from Mom's or bought.  I spent most of Monday fixing a coffee maker we were thinking of throwing out by running cleaning solutions through it repeatedly for hours.  In the beginning the dispenser would fill a cup with sludge in fifteen or twenty minutes but by the end it filled a cup with clear water in 7 seconds.  It seems to be a keeper.

I got a lot of other kitchen cleanup done while waiting on those pots of cleaning solution to brew on Monday and more each day since.  I continue to unpack stuff I took to Mom's but have reached the point I only go after things I immediately need.  I'm returning again in January so some of it will stay where it is.

I started to tackle the bathroom today but got distracted.

Yesterday and today were dedicated to catching up on sleep, NaNo and the Secret Santa crochet project.

For NaNo I caught up! After missing four full days in the last week.

As for the crochet project, I'm far from caught up since  I have performed below expectations for over a month now.  This is going to become a five or six hour a day job as soon as NaNo is over Friday night.  Today I completed the 44th square leaving 44 to go.  Let's not even talk about the Mobius strip which I've not worked on for over a week now and was then only 2.5 of the hoped for 12 inches in width.