Moving Right Along

Today wasn't a flat-out bust-my-ass day like Saturday was. However it was a day where I accomplished a fair amount of work.

I started off this morning with preparing today's meal in a crock pot. I was making a tangy pork chop recipe that I had cut out from the paper. And we had invited Carol to come and join us for dinner.

Now that that kitchen had been cleaned out ~ and remained clean ~ I figured that we could have people over for dinner.

After starting the meal, I left for an appointment in New Bedford.

After my appointment, I stopped at Staples to buy some pens for Ariana and me and also to drop off 3 more used ink cartridges for recycling.

Staples has this program where you bring in spent ink cartridges for recycling, and the store gives you $3.00 in Staples Rewards for each cartridge you bring in.

However, you're only allowed a maximum of 3 cartridges as day. So I keep a shopping bag full of cartridges to drop off whenever I'm in the area.

Pretty soon I'll amass enough Staples Rewards bucks so that my next purchase will be already paid for.

Then I stopped at the bank to deposit the nice check that Neil sent me last week.

When I got home, it was time to get into my hiking boots and do some more work.

I swapped the indoor extension cord that I had plugged into the dogs' heated water bucket with a heavy-duty contractor's extension cord that I bought yesterday at Wal-Mart.

While I was in the basement, I brought out the 2 metal shelving units, 2 chairs, my old silk screen that my father made for me when I was still an art student at Rhode Island College, 2 silk screening squeegees, and a small work table.

I also brought up one of my concrete sculptures from ages gone by. But because it was heavy, I left it on the dog porch.

Once all that was done, I opened the rear door to the workout room so that I could start carrying out all the garbage bags that were sitting there.

Because Neil's weight bar was on the hooks on the power cage, I was not able to get the door opened all the way. So I managed to get the bar onto the safety bars of the power cage.

After that, I was able to open the door all the way.

However, once I did that, it became very obvious that the safety bars were not at the same height.

The anal-retentive part of me had a hard time dealing with that. But for the time being, my main focus was to get those garbage bags, and what other litter there was in the workout room, outside.

In addition, I grabbed a garbage bag and started filling it up with trash that was outside, by the rear of the house.

Apparently, some of Ariana's friends thought it was a good idea to pitch soiled diapers out the chill room door instead of using the waste basket that Ariana had provided in the chill room.

I must have collected at least a dozen frozen diapers, along with other litter that was tossed out the chill room door.

Also, I picked up the hacked-apart frame from an old office table, a old garden hose, and other large trash, and placed everything on the impressive pile of garbage bags by the dog yard fence.

Once the workout room was cleared out and the trash outside picked up, I brought in the cellar stuff (with the exception of the concrete sculpture) into the workout room.

Getting the rear door closed was much harder than last time, no matter how many times I swung the sledge hammer. The damn door would just not close no matter how many times I hit it.

I could see dents forming in the door, and also in the door jamb whenever I missed with the sledge hammer.

But finally, I did manage to get the door closed.

Whew!

I hope that it'll be a long time before I have to open that door again.

Also, the anal-retentive part of me had to fix the uneven weight bar.

The bar was way too heavy for me to lift and place back on the hooks. But I was able to hold one end while I maneuvered the safety rod into its proper place.

Yes!

Afterwards I discovered that once I got all the trash moved out of the workout room, I found Ariana's ex-boyfriend's EBT card lying on the floor, near the wall, by Neil's weight set.

So the bugger was right in insisting that his lost card was at the house after all.

After that, I brought in the 2 wooden stands and a long board from the front porch.

I clean them off and set them up in the alcove near my studio ~ after sweeping up the floor where the litter box was ~ so that I could put most of my plants on them.

And I even cleaned out 2 bins and their tops in case I would need them to store mine and Ariana's clothing.

With all that work done, I could finally take my boots off.

The next thing was to start working on getting the library ready to store some of the stuff that I was planning to sell at our up-coming indoor yard sale.

The main thing with that involved clearing off all the clothing that Ariana and I had on a wall of shelves.

I was going to pack the most of the clothing to get that out of the way.

So went to put together the boxes that Barbara, 'Miah's mother, brought me from her work place at Roger Williams Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island.

While putting the boxes together, I got the notion to pack up the jewelry chest that I had. Since I was going for the Spartan look, I decided that I did not need access to my jewelry.

Because the jewelry chest was tall, I had to put 2 boxes together.

Once I did that, I lined the bottom of the newly-created box unit with a thick crocheted afghan. And I wrapped and tied a blanket around the jewelry chest to keep the drawers and side doors from opening up.

I then lifted and carefully placed the jewelry chest into the box. And all around it, I placed Neil's clothing in order to pad that chest.

Mighty clever, if you ask me.

In order to maximize packing space, I decided to use clothing as the packing material instead of crumpling up lots of newspapers.

I filled the box with the jewelry chest and then sealed it.

Next, I started on another box.

The bottom of the box was lined with Neil's Craftsman fine pliers/wire-cutters and screw driver set, my police scanner, and Neil's books.

Then I took Ariana's teapot, Neil's Cheshire cat teapot, and Neil's Cheshire cat mug, wrapped them in Neil's clothing, and put them in the box, on top of the pillows that I placed on top of the other stuff.

Once that was done, I added more clothing to the box until that box was finally filled up and sealed.

I was on a roll.

I set up another box and went upstairs to bring down the clothing that I had in my closet.

God! That was a heavy bundle!

I laid down a few layers of clothing. Then I took the metal bird decorations that I had bought at T. J. Maxx (which I couldn't resist because they were so beautiful), laid them down on the clothing, and packed more clothing around them to cushion them.

That heavy bundle of clothes was still not enough to fill up that box. So I went upstairs and brought down more clothing from my other bedroom closet.

With that second box now filled up, I started on a 3rd box of clothing. I had to go into the coat closet in the library in order to fill up that box.

By the time that was done, it was 3:00 PM. It was time to call it quits as far as packing was concerned and start working on the rest of the food for dinner.

I cut up 4 avocados, half a shallot, one clove of garlic, and defrosted some lime juice to make guacamole. My guacamole recipe is simple. But it is oh SO good.

Then I chopped up some plum tomatoes, the other half of the shallot, and another clove of garlic, and threw them all in a bowl. I added some extra-virgin olive oil and some balsamic vinegar. Yum.

Afterwards, I made a bowl of couscous.

And finally, I juiced the clementines and the red grapes.

Meanwhile, Ryan had to bring Ritchie to the dentist. And Ariana was taking a shower.

Carol arrived while Ariana was still in the shower, bringing ice cream and a whole bunch of Thanksgiving paper napkins that she found.

When Ariana got out of the shower, I prepared for Carol and me an arugula salad with the chopped up plum tomato salad mix.

By then, Ryan had arrived.

We had the main meal.

It was not as great as I had hoped. The pork, while very tender, was rather bland. I think that may have had something to do w/the pork having been in the freezer for too long and having gotten freezer burn.

But it wasn't bad either. All it needed was a bit of Worcestershire sauce to liven it up.

Ryan then had to leave to get Ritchie. And Ariana went with him.

That left Carol and me to enjoy each other's company. I made her a cup of mango tea, while I enjoyed a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

We had a very pleasant and friendly visit.

I told Carol that we're going to have to have another dinner again, in another 4 weeks, when it will be Carol's birthday.

Maybe then I will make beef Burgundy. And maybe that recipe may have enough of a "wow" factor for me to copy it down in the "Family Favorites" cookbook.

Carol was really impressed with all the work that I have been doing, especially the dramatic transformation of the workout room.

Now I have to plot my next step.

I think I will continue with packing clothing. I will just leave myself about 2 or 3 week's worth of clothing. After all, I'm on a Spartan roll.

Among the jeans, tee shirts, and hoodies, I will save a pair of nice black pants and a few nice sweaters.

Still to come is culling through the stuff in my bedroom. That's going to be tough, especially since a lot of that stuff is art supplies.

While Ariana will be at school all day tomorrow, Ryan knows that he will have to be doing a lot of cleaning ~ that's after he comes back from lending Carol his muscles.

Gradually everything is shaping up.

I cannot wait to see what kind of progress I make by the end of the week.

I already warned the kids ~ Ariana in particular ~ that if I don't see any reasonable progress being made with cleaning, then I will have to step in myself.

And that's something that they would not want me to do. Because if I have to step in, I will be ruthless.