What's she doing now?: October 2010

Here we are, finally back after a short recess. Adventures abounded, but few that got any work done on the cabin. Let's get right to it, as this post will cover a whole weeks' worth of work! First, let me catch you up to what had been done before I forced a glitch in my computer....

Remember that on that Sunday I was bound and determined to get as much yard work done as I could. My fear? I wouldn't get enough of it done and would have to keep working in the yard, instead of the house. After all, move in day is supposed to be November 1st, and I haven't even started on the house at all. Start that lawn mower, woman, we have work to do! Knocking down this grass was not easy!

Up to the corner of the house seemed like a good goal, and I made it. I should have borrowed a hay baler, as thick as that grass was!
Now to clean up that corner. Here is what I started with...

I threw the pallet up on the wheel barrow and moved it to the back of the house, cleared a spot of dead branches and limbs and laid the pallet up next to the house. All those 5 gallon buckets are going to be stored there. Never give up on a 5 gallon bucket, ol' Mr. Brown would say. There are so many uses for one! After clearing out the trash and trimming the baby trees from around the foundation I did some more mowing.

I parked that lawn mower right in the way, didn't I? Not even through mowing, either. I think I was willing myself to be through. However, there is still the other side yard to do. sigh

Water spigot found! This is part of the other side yard I was referring to. Let's see if we can clean this yard!

Water spigot AND a water hose, extra bonus for all the hard work, I reckon! Wanna see how the rest of it turned out?

There isn't much telling what kind of flowers are growing in the front corner. There is also a dead tree that has broken in a gazillion pieces against the side fence. I trimmed the grass from around the flowers I found before I mowed, so I wouldn't mow the flowers down. The tree just gets to lay there and moan for now. Since I had spotted a scorpion earlier in the day, I wasn't real keen on sticking my hands down into the poison ivy and thistles to grab bits of log out of that mess. Best to wait until I have a hoe or rake that I can reach with, pull those babies out of the briar patch before I go to picking them up! By the way, did you notice that I put another barrel on the inside of the fence at that first post of the morning? Now the fence if fairly straight, and should hold up until I can get back around to mending it permanently. Those barrels are heavy. When I moved this last one I discovered one tire on the dolly is flat. Mental note to self to get that taken care of before using the dolly again!
It is getting tired-thirty, but I want to see what I can do with that front porch before I go home.

The buckets when to the back, snug on their pallet. Two of the chairs are ruptured in the seating area, so they went out to the storage building to be worked on later. There were several things that belong to the shop or to the landlady personally that I stacked at one end of the porch to await her attention. Sweep off the grass and leaves I'd blown up there mowing, and voila...........

Clean porch! Clean yard! Life is good.
Well, mostly. When I got home I found that with all the dust I would kick up with the lawn mower, some sifted down my neck and into the lower inner sanctum of my bra. I did mention the poison ivy, right? It, too, sifted. How can I put this delicately? Thelma and Louise were not pleased. Unhappy, irritated, irate even. Danged bra! And don't be writing in telling me to go braless next time. Nope, last time I did that I chaffed the tops of my knees!! Laugh if you will, but the twins must have their support system! Lord have mercy! Hand me that Calamine, will ya?
And that is what happened on Sunday, Oct. 24th. Were I up to date on this blog, I would be finished with my entry tonight. However, as I said, LAST Sunday. sigh

Monday I had to go to work because...well, because I have this gnawing addiction to food, so must sing for my supper, just like everyone else. Rent I may be getting gratis, but the rest of it has to be paid for, alas.
After work on Monday, I rode back out to the cabin and started on cleaning up the bathroom. After all, I can live without lots of extras, but a bathroom is NOT an extra. Would you care to see the challenge that awaits?

Yes, this is what awaits within. There is a claw-footed bathtub in there somewhere.

I hope the bathtub is in better shape than the sink!

Have you ever set a goal for yourself and then realized the full extent of the work involved? I came close to deciding it wasn't worth it to do this job. Had to sit myself down for a chat. "Self," says I. "YOU said you could do this. If you don't get it done, not only will you have failed yourself and the landlady, but you will set a horrible example for all the little gene pools you are influencing in this world." It ends up that Self and I agreed, we said we could do this, so let's get it done!

Oh, no! I sure hope that is just dirty calcium/lime deposits. There are a couple of spots that look like they could be chips in the porcelain. How do we go about cleaning this up?

Riding my broom, of course! I found some CLR and poured it over the deposits. No dice. I will have to plot and plan in order to get this tub whipped into a retreat from the world. It surely isn't one right now!

I did find a plug for the sink. After making sure the plug fit tight, I lined the sink with a rag, then poured the rest of the bottle of CLR over it and left it to soak overnight. There was no plug for the bathtub. There was, however, a tape measure, so I measured the plug and it was time to go home.

OOPS! This picture belongs lower in this post. When you get to the part about cleaning the door, look back up here!

Tuesday evening after work I headed out to the cabin again. Starting with the easiest chore, I soaked the rag in the sink with CLR again, and left it alone. Easiest job of the evening. Next was the toilet and shelves above it. The toilet was very clean, especially compared to the tub, so it didn't take long to make it sparkle. The shelving all got a good scrubbing, cobwebs were swept off the ceiling, and that corner turned out nicely. The cast iron duck was a find from under the tub. I must remember to ask the landlady about it. This is an old family home and there are stories everywhere in it.

Here's the duck.

I 'stole' the paper works from the factory inventory.

The window is all clean - on the inside. I could have seen to get to the outside, but just barely as it was near dusk. Decided that could wait for another day. I did take the curtain down to take home and wash. (Sidebar: I washed the curtain and the lining shredded. I think a good deal of starch and a good ironing will keep it together until I get to the remodel on the bathroom. If not, any peeping toms are on their own. I am sure a 683 year old naked woman would be such a turn on! Not!)
Even the door got a dose of elbow grease. There were black smudges along the edge of the door, as happens to the best of doors throughout the world, but now it gleams. (I inserted the picture in the wrong place. Look above the other 'after' shots of the bathroom. See it? Isn't it pretty now?)
I even climbed into the bat tub and wiped all the dust off the shower curtain rod and hung some shower curtains I'd found when clearing off the bathtub.

Now to attack that bathtub. Oh lord!
Here are my battle tools.

I found a way to hook the plug chain onto the faucet in the tub, and made sure it was stuck down in there tight. Now to pour in some Sanivac...

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! This tub needs some major attention! I decided to use the whole bottle of Sanivac, and then fill the tub with water.

This will soak. I am too tired to mess with it any more.

This is how the bathtub looked when I left for the evening, full of witches brew. I stopped at the porch to sit and enjoy the country view. Got some shots of some of my shy neighbors. These folks live under the cabin.

Mama kitty, pictured below, should really learn to stop drinkin' the water! We will have babies around here before long!

And that was my Monday at the cabin. Again, had I been keeping up, we would be through for the evening on this post as well. The best laid plans, and all of that.

Wednesday I had adventures of another sort. I locked my keys in the car. You could see them laying there looking at me, going nani-nani-boo-boo. FYI - taking a hammer to a back window in my car does no good whatsoever. I finally remembered my daughter's neighbor has a towing and automotive services business and called him to rescue me. He was out on a call, but said for me to get a ride home and he would pick me up at the house and carry me out to the car when he got a chance. A co-worker took me home and I went to bed! I was one tired old woman, too! My laptop was in the car, which is my excuse for not getting the blog caught up then. I couldn't drive out to the cabin, either, and believe me, I wasn't about to try to walk that far!

Thursday things heated up at work. Paul hauled me out there and unlocked my car for me. Bless you, Paul, for being my knight in shining armor this day! Work was hectic as we had a project due on Friday, and all hands were on deck to help get it done. We worked until 8:00pm. After work I ran out and drained my bathtub soup, but took no pictures. Fed and watered the cats and dragged myself home. I'll be glad to see the weekend!

Friday came and went with 14 hours of work. When I got off at midnight I collapsed. Saturday I did nothing at all but eat and sleep. Mostly sleep. I was totally worn out from my job! I did watch a movie, I think, but couldn't tell you what it was. Surfed the web, talked on the phone to a few folks. But mostly I slept. And it felt so good!

Sunday came back around a little bit too fast for my taste. After a day of doing absolutely nothing, though, I feel up to the challenge of starting a new week. The lawn at my daughter's house is beginning to beg attention and I have the lawn mower at the cabin. My son-in-law followed me out to the cabin to pick it up. There is also a lawn mower in the storage building that he is going to take in and see if he can coax into working so I have one at the cabin and they still have one at the house. He was nice enough to mow paths for me from the front to the back door, the shed and back to the pallet of 5 gallon buckets. I really hate grass and weeds tickling my legs when I walk outside, so I appreciate your help, Jason!

Now, to attack that bathroom! Charge!
There is wax spilled, dropped, splattered even, on the floors, so I felt some hot mop water was in order.

Once I had the water started I would put the wet mop on a spot that was especially dirty and let it soak while I scrubbed on the tub and sink.

I started scrubbing on the bathtub and was pleasantly surprised that the deposits are flaking off at an incredibly fast pace, in spite of the fact that I am trying to scrub rock off of porcelain.

After a few minutes my back would start fussing that it didn't like doing this chore and I would change over to scrubbing on the sink.

For quite some time I would alternate: scrub the tub, mop the soaked spot and move the mop to another spot to soak, scrub the sink, scrub the tub, mop, scrub sink, scrub tub, mop. I did that until I had emptied the bottle of Sanivac. I killed the toilet brush.

The tub is looking much better, though, don't you think? There don't seem to be any chips in the porcelain, anyway. That is a good thing, as I am not so sure I have the talent to refinish a tub!

The sink is looking good, too. I should have plugged it and saved the chemical in it for soaking. Too late, it will have to wait for the next bottle.

But the floor is still soaking. At this particular spot the kitty litter box had rested. There was clay built up pretty thick there, so it will take some work!

I refilled the tub, mopped a spot and moved the mop over to soak another spot.

Since all I could do in the bathroom was sit and watch the floor soak, I decided it was time to start on the kitchen, since that is the second most important room to have clean for move in. Do I really want to do the kitchen?

There is no way I can even consider making order of all this chaos in one go! So I will pick a spot to start and ignore the rest of it. Let's do this blank wall and the one cabinet attached. Well, the water heater is in the bottom cabinet, but we are going to pretend it is clean and never-ever open it!

After hauling the soap making stuff to the front room, and gathering the trash, it was time to attack the cobwebs.

Now, to start cleaning in the cabinet. I know what it looks like but this is no 420 moment. Some of the soaps the company makes have dried herbs and flower petals embedded in the soap. These are bags of those herbs, etc. The bugs love them. I have come to the conclusion that it is just a waste of energy to scream and jump around when a bug crawls across me. As long as it has no intentions of biting, I just want it to hurry up and get across.

I am not sure that packing all that was such a good idea. See what awaited me next?

Most of this is spillage from the bags of herbs. Bugs have chewed through, so there was a veritable smorgasbord of herbs and spices. Colonel Sanders eat your heart out. There is also paper lining the shelves. I wonder if I can just lift the paper carefully and dump this mess in the trash all at once? Not a chance.

Some of it is bug droppings, ew! And the paper was stuck to the shelves. Maneuvering a broom into that cabinet and sweeping the mess out of there without sweeping it into my shirt was a feat in itself. I am pretty sure that it is too soon after the poison ivy incident for Thelma and Louise to be baptized by bug droppings, no matter how many herbs are mixed in!

Here's a tip for those who may not know this. When dealing with bug droppings it is sometimes hard to tell if it is. A bug dropping, that is. The way to tell is that you spray cleaner on it, then scrub and scrub and scrub. If the dot starts getting smaller, it is a bug dropping; keep scrubbing until it is all gone. If it starts getting bigger, you are scrubbing off the paint. Stop it. Meanwhile, as I was scrubbing, I discovered that once the paper gets damp it peels right off.

Not a bug spot left. The whole thing needs paint (not just the spots I scrubbed that got bigger), but that is on the list when I get to the re-modeling of the kitchen. Right now I just need it cleaned up enough to feel comfortable living in it, and this cabinet is clean enough for all the cleaners and chemicals I want put where little children can't get to them. (Maybe I won't be able to reach them either and won't have to clean any more. Reckon? Not with my kinda luck!)

Clean!

Now all that is needed in that section is for the floor to be mopped, and it is absolutely covered in wax. Since the bathtub is full and soaking I will have to wait for hot water to mop with, so this seems like a good spot to stop for the day. Oh, lord! The mopping in the bathroom!

Well, that's looking much better, I must say. Needs a paint job, but what doesn't around here. At least it looks cleaner. For a first mopping I think it is fine. Check out the mop water!