The Party's Over
Phew! Busy all last week getting the house ready for my car club kick-off meeting yesterday. The meeting went well and the house looked fabulous…I maybe did TOO much work for a simple meeting, but it did prompt me to do some long-overdue cleaning and to get all the rooms arranged like I wanted.
Since my last post, I spent most of the next day switching the doors on my refrigerator so they’d open on the left instead of the right (something I should’ve done when I moved in). It appeared to be a pretty straight-forward task as there were equal mounting positions on either side of each door. What ended up taking time was cleaning the unit itself. My ‘frige is usually pretty empty most of the time, but it still managed to get pretty dirty over the past 5 years! Anyway, it’s clean now and I like the doors opening on the left - much easier access!
The Friday before last was clean-the-patio day which included cleaning all the cobwebs off the furniture, cleaning the chair pads - some of which were small enough to launder in the washing machine. I had originally planned to repaint the furniture too (it’s all redwood) but couldn’t find paint I liked. Nor did I look forward to repainting all the pieces, so I scratched that off the to-do list and just gave them a good cleaning instead. As it turned out, nobody went onto the patio yesterday anyway, but a least everything’s clean for another six months.
Last Saturday, I joined friends Scott, Todd, and others to help celebrate Scott & Todd’s 10th anniversary. It was a combination party to celebrate their anniversary, Todd’s 55th birthday, and Scott purchase of the new building for his business that had FINALLY closed Escrow.
I stopped by the guys' place in the morning to help decorate their enormous backyard (great for parties…I had my 50th held there)! Todd and friend JT were working furiously in the kitchen preparing culinary delights galore while my friend Jack and I worked on stringing lights across the backyard. We also helped set up tables and chairs before heading back home to get ready for the shin-dig.
As expected, it was the event of the summer - another fabulous, over-the-top party with lots of food, friends, and spirits! Scott even parked some of their fabulous classic cars around the perimeter of the backyard as decorations - FABULOUS! He was worried that guests would be disappointed because it was such a “low-key” party - AS IF! They had over 70 guests and I ended up hanging around until about 10pm by which time we were ALL tired and had too much to drink, so I bid my hosts adieu and headed home for dreamland.
The next day, I headed back over to Scott & Todd’s as they’d invited me to brunch while at the party. I also stayed after (fabulous) brunch to help take down decorations…the least I could do after enjoying such a great party. I’d mentioned to Scott that the vertical blinds he’d trimmed for me previously just needed a skoshe more trimmed off as the ends were dragging on the windowsill. He promptly replied “that what scissors are for!” And he was right, I could easily trim them down myself with a pair of scissors and that’s exactly what I did that afternoon while watching movies on TCM! Duh - all better!
Monday, I started off the day at Homo Depot where I picked up some roller blinds for the patio and a strip of molding for the front door. I then hung the blinds on the north end of my back patio to (1) partially block the view and light from my neighbors on the north (my bedroom window looks out over the patio and toward the neighbor’s house, and they leave a porch light on all night long) and (2) to give the patio a more room-like appearance.
I must say, I was quite pleased with the way the shades looked and it prompted me to finish up my patio cleaning, including hosing down the patio itself as well as the adjoining walls of the house, and to arrange the patio furniture in the renewed space. I waited to put the chair pads back on the furniture until just before my get-together yesterday in order to keep them as clean as possible until then.
Then Tuesday, I tackled repainting my front door - another long-overdue task. I also added a piece of trim on one side that I noted was missing when prepping the door. It must be the original door that came with the house as I noted a while back that it appeared to have had a mail slot in it at onetime that had since been rather poorly patched over. So earlier in the week, I’d patched around the cracks in the door and around the old opening to make for a cleaner, smoother painting surface.
I then gave the door a good sanding the day before and hoped for mild weather, as I’d have to leave the door open most of the day for it to dry properly. Fortunately, it was a pretty nice day - only got into the 80s - and started in early on the paint job. I used a Hunter Green latex enamel and since the door was white, it required several coats to completely cover it with the dark green. I was hoping for a glossier finish, but it came out looking pretty good.
I then added a brass door knocker that my aunt (who is since deceased) had given me over 20-some-odd-years ago that had my surname inscribed on it. Funny how I’ve kept that knocker for so many years, waiting for the right door on which to mount it! The knocker came with two mounting screws that were WAY too long for the depth of my door (or any door…I can’t imagine a door that thick). So my first thought was to scrounge up some shorter screws that I may have already had in my “parts” box, but couldn’t find two of the same length that would work; and I really wasn’t “up” to heading out to the hardware store.
So I ended up using my bolt cutters to cut the long screws to the appropriate length. Then I drilled out the door and installed the knocker. It all worked out OK and the knocker looks nice with the other brass door hardware. I painted the screw heads on the inside the same gloss white as the rest of the door, so they’re not so noticeable. I told myself that as soon as the A/C came on in the house, I would need to close the door, but oddly enough, it never got warm enough inside to trigger the A/C, so I got to leave the door open all day, finally closing it around 8PM. And fortunately, the next morning it wasn’t “stuck” shut, and I didn’t lose any paint when opening it again!
Wednesday was clean-the-kitchen-and-bath day. The bath was long overdue, but I’m always amazed how dirty the kitchen gets! Of course I have white appliances and white countertops, and they readily show the dirt; so everything got a good wiping down, floors included. I also gave the carpet in the hallway a good brushing (to remove dog hair) and vacuuming. I had done that to all the other bedrooms when I did the “Big Switcheroo” but saved the hall until last as it gets the brunt of the dog hair and I didn’t want to do it TWICE before my get-together (the brushing is pretty grueling work).
Thursday, I gave the living room and dining room a good cleaning and polished all the furniture. Those rooms are gated off so the dogs don’t go in there, and remain relatively free of pet-hair, although some still tends to migrate in there. So now that every room was “done,” I spent most of Friday just adding finishing touches here and there and made a list of things I wanted to do Saturday morning before guests arrived.
Before that, I headed to the grocery store (Food Co.) to get some beverage and nibbly things for the get-together. I’d made a list of items I wanted and had a fixed budget of $45 so while I shopped, I wrote down the price by each item so I could do a total before heading to the checkout. I ended up crossing some items off the list since they’d put me over budget and I could do without anyway. Check-out came to $35 and change - so far, so good. I then stopped at my local Bel Air to get a few more items I couldn’t find at Food Co. and ended up spending my remaining $10 budget there.
As it turned out, some guests also brought pie, cookies, and a bottle of wine, and friends Scott & Todd brought some treats left over from their big party the weekend before including fruit salad and cheesecake - so I had a pretty nice spread for everyone to enjoy as well as a lot of left-overs to cover me for the rest of the week!
I got up TOO early on Saturday and went through my to-do list. Then I got dressed and was ready to go by 10 AM. Of course, my kick-off meeting wasn’t to begin until noon, so I puttered around until 11:30 when I started setting up trays of food, etc. Guest began arriving a little after noon - a dozen of us in all - and we had a very good planning meeting for our big July 2010 event that I’ll be chairing.
I was kind of hoping for a bigger turn-out, but don’t think the house could hold much more than 12 anyway! Weather had been predicted in the low 90s for yesterday, but strangely enough I awoke to clouds and rain! I was worried it’d heat up and be hot and humid, but it remained relatively mild and overcast for most of the day, and I had most of the doors and windows open all day.
Folks began heading out around 3PM and my friend Tom stayed to help clean up. I then flopped in front of the TV for the rest of the evening with the dogs - who were VERY good, by the way, with all those people here - heading to bed around 10:30PM - a long but productive day.
Today is utterly GLORIOUS! Low 80s with a breeze. I think the dogs were a bit stressed from the day before as they are very low-energy today - of course, so am I, and am taking it easy. The coming week holds a car club board meeting on Wednesday and I’ll need to start putting together the next car club newsletter. We have a Benefit (Charity) Car Show next Sunday in which I hope to include the Valiant. I will be spending time this coming week working on her too, hopefully rectifying her electrical issues to some degree before daring to take her into the City again!
Still no news on the job front. I see a bankruptcy attorney tomorrow to see about relieving me of my unsecured credit debt. I did the math, and my current expense-to-income ratio leaves me about $400 in the red each month for the coming months while I’m on unemployment. I plan to sell the Valiant to cover the gap for a few more months, but after that, I’m in trouble unless I can lighten my debt load or find a good-paying job. We’ll see how it goes…it’s just a “consultation” tomorrow. Something always works out somehow…just not always in the way I’d like it!