Wow! am I tired

It might not look like much unless you had seen the before picture.

So tonight is Sunday.  Last Sunday night at about this time we were passing the airport heading to Walnut Creek to go clean and stage Floyd and Maxine's house.  The open house was scheduled for the next Saturday ( that was yesterday now).  We had planned to leave much earlier but one thing led to another and we didn't really get out of the house until 8:30 or a bit later.

We stayed overnight in Eugene.  Thanks to hotwire we got a deal on a hotel room with a nice bed and great free breakfast and got on the road pretty early the next morning.

The trip was smooth with just one detour to view Mr Shasta from Lake Siskyou.  It was beautiful, worth the time for sure.

Craig had arrived at the house on Saturday and and had started sorting.  The dining room table was full of "treasures" there were stacks of stuff everywhere.  The rooms where full, the closets full, shelves full, cupboard and drawers full.  It was pretty overwhelming.  Jon came over and helped for awhile but we weren't too organized.  We tried to make some headway but didn't get too far, then we had to go get something to eat.  Ron came and we went to dinner.  By the time we got there I was starving and could have eaten anything and everything. I did sort of fill up on chips and salsa.  I admit that.

Tuesday, lets see. . . . More cleaning and packing and sorting.  Wednesday, I sort of had a meltdown.  Rodger had been busy running for boxes and going to the bank and running to Goodwill, all valuable things but I had been stuck packing and carrying boxes and trying to make decisions about stuff that wan't mine and by Wednesday when I was out of boxes and dad was running around and then taking Craig to the airport I had to call him and say "I am done doing this by myself" and hung up.  I think I was tired or something.  Anyway he came back and I calmed down and we just got back to work.

A small sample of a huge shoe collection

That day two sisters from the ward came and one cleaned the hallway bathroom.  It look better than when I saw it first in 1977.  Then they started in on Floyd's office.  The desk was mounded with papers, the floor was covered in papers and boxes.  The couch was covered in all kinds of stuff, clothes, paper, books, boxes.  You get the idea, complete chaos and stuff.  Well they boxed stuff and sorted stuff and took them out of the room.  The wiped off stuff and rearranged until it looked like an office again.  Some how that made all the difference with just two rooms cleaned by whole outlook changed.  Suddenly the whole thing looked possible.   I wanted to kiss them both it was just so great.

After this little epiphany I sort of decided to just tackle one place at at time and that was pretty successful.  It was easy to get distracted and get caught up in other stuff but by and large I tried to do it and little by little things got cleaned up and cleaned out.

Jon had come over Monday night and helped a bit and also gave us the name of a young man, named Dan,  in his ward that might help out.  Rodger contacted him and he came on Wednesday and was amazing.   He did not look like a hardworking guy, sort of chubby, bespeckled nerd sort.  But he just got to it and worked like crazy.  There was a BIG pile of yard was and construction was and 50 years of broken stuff and old lawn furniture.  We had a dumpster delivered and the pile was supposed to go into it.  Well Dan turned out to be amazing.  He and some brothers from the ward got the pile into the dumpster.  After that Dan asked what else we needed help with.  Rodger and I got this big idea to pull up the dirty carpets from the bedrooms and the living room.  Dan said fine and went to work.  Another brother from the ward helped for awhile and two missionaries came to offer their service.  It made all the difference!


We found some treasures along the way but mostly it was just dusty stuff.  Being pretty unsentimental about my own stuff and more unsentimental about other people's it was pretty easy for me to just donate most of it to Goodwill or give it away to whoever wanted it.  If Maxine ever comes back to herself and asks what happened to her 75 pair of shoes or all her clothes and jewelry I will be in big trouble.

Ron calls this the spudnick pattern, it is really celestial, lots of place settings, Interested?  Call me.  

Friday Rodger stopped on the way back from Goodwill and brought back lunch about 3:00.  The house was mostly clean, just some floors to mop and the car to pack. So we sat in the sunshine and ate our Chipolte, not really minding that we were terrifically off schedule.  We were both pretty happy and satisfied with all we had accomplished.

Last things the floor, counters and put away stuff

And we're done, at least for now