I have worn off the fingerprints of my right hand.
No. Seriously. That's not hyperbole or a metaphor or something else literary. Through the course of this past week, which involved an OBSCENE amount of cleaning, I have literally worn smooth the finger prints on my right hand. My finger tips are even shiny. So that's an indicator of how much work I got done in this past week, but allow me to put this into a summation. This is going to be long, but I'm going to skip the gory details to keep it rational because, really... I got one metric fuck-ton of shit done this week.
Saturday (5/9) - got home from work, got rental truck, loaded various furniture from storage and from rents house, loaded other household goods, cleaned some things to be loaded and generally did various organizing things all day.
Sunday - drove from Maryland to Rhode Island in my 16' beast of a truck (not so bad after getting used to it in the first hour). Arrived at 4pm, enlisted aid of various physics buddies and had truck unloaded by 5:30, off to dinner to treat our minions for work well done.
Monday - Paint touch-up and electrical work in our apartment so that some rooms could be permenantly moved into - namely the living room, office and bedroom. Dining area and kitchen temporarily given the finger in the name of expediency. That afternoon we moved over the mattress and box spring from Cow's current apartment that the landlord sold to us for a dollar. That evening, massive IKEA run to get extremely necessary shelving for the cow office so that the books and especially DVDs would not overrun the rest of the house. Thanks to massive traffic snafus, didn't get back from IKEA until 11 that night. Spent the night back at the cow's place on an inflatable mattress.
Tuesday - returned the truck and spent the rest of the day working on the first floor apartment, making strides towards final habitability. Spent the evening putting together IKEA only to discover that we had forgotten the extra shelves that were 100% necessary to making the whole damn thing a useful space organizer. Night 2 on the air mattress.
Wednesday - more time working on the first floor apartment - things definitely starting to come together. At 2:30 appliances delivered (all used and reconditioned from a local company - http://www.earthenvesselappliance.com) New stoves for all three apartments (first floor had no stove, second floor the oven was broken and 3rd floor the stove was about a bazillion years old, falling apart, and questionable in its saftey and sanitary quality) new fridge for the first floor. Helped cow move in some boxes of DVDs and then off to IKEA once more where we returned one thing, found something way better to replace it and got the spare shelves we desperately needed. Back home at a far more reasonable hour, after which we split up to divide and conquer. Cow did more packing, I continued to work on the first floor apartment. Cow brought over some more stuff includding bedding and I slept at the house while the Cow continued to pack his apartment into the wee hours.
Thursday - Spent the day essentially finishing the first floor apartment (some small things left to do in the bathroom from the new sink install) while new tenant (and friend) moved in some of her stuff because her research project is sending her off on an unexpected trip that has her getting back the day before she absolutely has to move out of her current apartment. After finishing the first floor apartment went outside and spent at least an hour digging up one of the stumps in the flowerbed that runs parallel to the driveway. This neglected flower bed has long been a parking area for this house, however, to park there required the tenants to drive over the granite curb that surrounded the bed, over stumps and at one section, through a hole created by tires that at this point was about 10 inches deep. Hard on the shocks at best, and in rain, a muddy pit, I have no doubt. As we are charging extra for additional parking spaces, I could not justify asking for money for the priviledge of parking in this minor level of hell. So once the inside of the house was tolerable, it was time to get started on the outside. Evening was again spent helping to move boxes and transfer the Cow's life to the house.
Friday - 8:40am Electrician (aka secret superhero/angel/demi-god) arrives and takes care of all of the retarded shit that was left behind by the previous owner, cheap fucking bastard that he was. FIOS guy arrives at 10 and starts FIOS install for all three floors which included very nice things like re-routing cables to make more sense and way less mess and doing nice organizational things inside our apartment of the cables as well. While the guys I pay do their miracles, I continue to slave away on the demon flower bed, digging up the other stump, leveling the ground in there so that it's level and graded with the parking lot, and then going to lowes, where (in two trips because the car told me that if I did it all in one I was guaranteed to have a double tire blow out) I acquired a sledge hammer to knock down the granite curb, weed blocking landscaping fabric and 1/2 ton (literally) of gravel (in bags). After I got back I had enough light to knock down the curb, but it got too dark to work at 8:20, despite the fact that my saviour of an electrician now had the outside motion detector lights working again.
Saturday - up at 9 for the electrician to finish his work (had to dig a trench from the house to the garage to run the underground power cable). While he worked I finished up the parking area, which was done by about 1. After that, I started in on cleaning the kitchen cabinets so they would actually be sanitary in order to move in the kitchen stuff from the Cow's apartment - which was some of the few remaining items there. Dinner and a lowes run with the cow was sprinkled in there somewhere, and the kitchen was ready for move-in somewhere around 9ish. The dining area and the kitchen still needs paint touch up and electrical swap-out, but at least it's clean. The final load from the cow's apartment came over that night.
Sunday - up at 10 and spent 6 hours cleaning the cow's old apartment in order to turn over the keys with the hopes of getting our deposit back. It honestly looked better than when he moved in, so we better... That evening, *GASP* we did something FUN!!! Went to a very amusingly themed dinner party for the showing of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in anticipation of the upcoming new Terminator:Salvation. Some friends hadn't seen the third movie yet so this was to get them primed for the new one. In light of the movie, the dinner was named Terminator:Salivation and themed dishes were served. For before dinner, the host had a bread machine with which he made a very tasty rye bread - thereby serving us Rye of the Machine, which was dipped in variously herbed "Oil Be Back" options. Dinner was Pasta La Vista and desert (this was the best pun by far because they managed to even FIND it) was Moose Tracks icecream which is mint and fudge, to give us FudgeMint Day dessert. I died laughing at that one. After that Cow and I intended to go see the Star Trek movie, only to be sadly disappointed that the website lied to us, and the movie theater closed at 10 on Sunday nights. So instead we grumpily went home and... did more work on the apartment, getting the dining area a little more spruced up amongst other things.
Monday - yes, this was a very very long trip. I flew home on Monday, but got things done that morning, including the last thing necessary for the first floor bathroom sink and getting the washer and dryer hooked up in the basement. The floor down there isn't epoxied yet because it turns out they recommend a minimum of 60 days of cure time for new floors, so I'll have to get back to that later. After that I was whisked off to the airport, came home and collapsed.
Tuesday - I'm back at work. At least I got good sleep, and reasonable amounts of it, every night for the past week, but sheesh. No wonder I'm tired. Tonight at work I've been Dr. Death which has been rather disheartening as well, but things have quieted down, and at least the post-ops are all doing well.
Pictures eventually, but not for a while. I now work a nice long stretch to make up for that large chunk of time I had off.
Saturday (5/9) - got home from work, got rental truck, loaded various furniture from storage and from rents house, loaded other household goods, cleaned some things to be loaded and generally did various organizing things all day.
Sunday - drove from Maryland to Rhode Island in my 16' beast of a truck (not so bad after getting used to it in the first hour). Arrived at 4pm, enlisted aid of various physics buddies and had truck unloaded by 5:30, off to dinner to treat our minions for work well done.
Monday - Paint touch-up and electrical work in our apartment so that some rooms could be permenantly moved into - namely the living room, office and bedroom. Dining area and kitchen temporarily given the finger in the name of expediency. That afternoon we moved over the mattress and box spring from Cow's current apartment that the landlord sold to us for a dollar. That evening, massive IKEA run to get extremely necessary shelving for the cow office so that the books and especially DVDs would not overrun the rest of the house. Thanks to massive traffic snafus, didn't get back from IKEA until 11 that night. Spent the night back at the cow's place on an inflatable mattress.
Tuesday - returned the truck and spent the rest of the day working on the first floor apartment, making strides towards final habitability. Spent the evening putting together IKEA only to discover that we had forgotten the extra shelves that were 100% necessary to making the whole damn thing a useful space organizer. Night 2 on the air mattress.
Wednesday - more time working on the first floor apartment - things definitely starting to come together. At 2:30 appliances delivered (all used and reconditioned from a local company - http://www.earthenvesselappliance.com) New stoves for all three apartments (first floor had no stove, second floor the oven was broken and 3rd floor the stove was about a bazillion years old, falling apart, and questionable in its saftey and sanitary quality) new fridge for the first floor. Helped cow move in some boxes of DVDs and then off to IKEA once more where we returned one thing, found something way better to replace it and got the spare shelves we desperately needed. Back home at a far more reasonable hour, after which we split up to divide and conquer. Cow did more packing, I continued to work on the first floor apartment. Cow brought over some more stuff includding bedding and I slept at the house while the Cow continued to pack his apartment into the wee hours.
Thursday - Spent the day essentially finishing the first floor apartment (some small things left to do in the bathroom from the new sink install) while new tenant (and friend) moved in some of her stuff because her research project is sending her off on an unexpected trip that has her getting back the day before she absolutely has to move out of her current apartment. After finishing the first floor apartment went outside and spent at least an hour digging up one of the stumps in the flowerbed that runs parallel to the driveway. This neglected flower bed has long been a parking area for this house, however, to park there required the tenants to drive over the granite curb that surrounded the bed, over stumps and at one section, through a hole created by tires that at this point was about 10 inches deep. Hard on the shocks at best, and in rain, a muddy pit, I have no doubt. As we are charging extra for additional parking spaces, I could not justify asking for money for the priviledge of parking in this minor level of hell. So once the inside of the house was tolerable, it was time to get started on the outside. Evening was again spent helping to move boxes and transfer the Cow's life to the house.
Friday - 8:40am Electrician (aka secret superhero/angel/demi-god) arrives and takes care of all of the retarded shit that was left behind by the previous owner, cheap fucking bastard that he was. FIOS guy arrives at 10 and starts FIOS install for all three floors which included very nice things like re-routing cables to make more sense and way less mess and doing nice organizational things inside our apartment of the cables as well. While the guys I pay do their miracles, I continue to slave away on the demon flower bed, digging up the other stump, leveling the ground in there so that it's level and graded with the parking lot, and then going to lowes, where (in two trips because the car told me that if I did it all in one I was guaranteed to have a double tire blow out) I acquired a sledge hammer to knock down the granite curb, weed blocking landscaping fabric and 1/2 ton (literally) of gravel (in bags). After I got back I had enough light to knock down the curb, but it got too dark to work at 8:20, despite the fact that my saviour of an electrician now had the outside motion detector lights working again.
Saturday - up at 9 for the electrician to finish his work (had to dig a trench from the house to the garage to run the underground power cable). While he worked I finished up the parking area, which was done by about 1. After that, I started in on cleaning the kitchen cabinets so they would actually be sanitary in order to move in the kitchen stuff from the Cow's apartment - which was some of the few remaining items there. Dinner and a lowes run with the cow was sprinkled in there somewhere, and the kitchen was ready for move-in somewhere around 9ish. The dining area and the kitchen still needs paint touch up and electrical swap-out, but at least it's clean. The final load from the cow's apartment came over that night.
Sunday - up at 10 and spent 6 hours cleaning the cow's old apartment in order to turn over the keys with the hopes of getting our deposit back. It honestly looked better than when he moved in, so we better... That evening, *GASP* we did something FUN!!! Went to a very amusingly themed dinner party for the showing of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in anticipation of the upcoming new Terminator:Salvation. Some friends hadn't seen the third movie yet so this was to get them primed for the new one. In light of the movie, the dinner was named Terminator:Salivation and themed dishes were served. For before dinner, the host had a bread machine with which he made a very tasty rye bread - thereby serving us Rye of the Machine, which was dipped in variously herbed "Oil Be Back" options. Dinner was Pasta La Vista and desert (this was the best pun by far because they managed to even FIND it) was Moose Tracks icecream which is mint and fudge, to give us FudgeMint Day dessert. I died laughing at that one. After that Cow and I intended to go see the Star Trek movie, only to be sadly disappointed that the website lied to us, and the movie theater closed at 10 on Sunday nights. So instead we grumpily went home and... did more work on the apartment, getting the dining area a little more spruced up amongst other things.
Monday - yes, this was a very very long trip. I flew home on Monday, but got things done that morning, including the last thing necessary for the first floor bathroom sink and getting the washer and dryer hooked up in the basement. The floor down there isn't epoxied yet because it turns out they recommend a minimum of 60 days of cure time for new floors, so I'll have to get back to that later. After that I was whisked off to the airport, came home and collapsed.
Tuesday - I'm back at work. At least I got good sleep, and reasonable amounts of it, every night for the past week, but sheesh. No wonder I'm tired. Tonight at work I've been Dr. Death which has been rather disheartening as well, but things have quieted down, and at least the post-ops are all doing well.
Pictures eventually, but not for a while. I now work a nice long stretch to make up for that large chunk of time I had off.