Dear Friend,
Today alllllmost went down the drain! I stayed up late reading ... again (SELF-DEFEATING BEHAVIOR #1!). Then my husband forgot his keys and rang the doorbell at 10:00 this morning, rousing me out of a deep sleep. That never goes well. My daughter went down and let him in and I fell back asleep, and then couldn't really wake up when I tried and stayed in bed too long wrestling to wake up. I finally grabbed my iPad and started reading the book ( ... yes, a zombie book!) and finally woke up.
There is no food in the house!!! I had a healthy smoothie because there was nothing else to eat. Which reminds me, I have some frozen chicken thighs downstairs in the freezer. I should set them out to defrost so I can put them in the slow-cooker in the morning. I do a BBQ recipe that is like pulled pork, but made with chicken thighs. It's actually really good and would be nice for dinner tomorrow on some baked potatoes. There's not a thing in the house for lunch, though, so I guess I'll have to stop at the store on the way home from church.
Anyway ... where was I? Okay, I made the smoothie and then started to work on cleaning up the garage. First problem: they forgot to fill the pressure washer with gas for me. Second problem: the water spigot on the front of the house wouldn't turn on. It's apparently tied into the sprinkler system (looks like the foundation planting has a sprinkler system, but I don't think the yard does). So, I figured out how to turn on the spigot at the control box, but the control box had no power to it so I couldn't. I found another spigot at the back of the house, but my hose wasn't long enough and someone has moved my other hose. So, they came and got the pressure washer, but couldn't get it to work. So they brought me a different one and a long hose that made it to the back spigot and, with some help, I got it functioning finally. I swept the floor first because of leaves that had blown in, and then started spraying it down. Good heavens!! I couldn't find anyway to control the force of the spray and it was on crazy high! I realized I could walk to the backyard again and turn the water down ... but that was too far for me. I decided I would also clean out all the recycling bins and the trash cans. The caterers dumped stuff in one of the trash cans without bagging it. I asked someone to tell them and have them come clean it, but I opened it and found that it was still untouched, after a week! Well, the guy who was helping me get everything together was super nice and got the trash out and bagged it up and carried it away for me. Wish I hd noticed that they had done the SAME THING to another trash can! So I had to deal with that one by myself. And then, spraying out that trash can was sooooo gross because napkins and junk had stuck to the bottom and they got all shredded when I used that high powered spray in them and made such a gross mess in the driveway when I dumped the water out. UGH!
Any way, then I power washed the garage floor at last. After I got it as clean as I could with just water, I used a broom and scrubbed it with Clorox Cleanup and then let it sit for about twenty minutes while I worked on the trash cans some more.
After that, I rinsed the floor off and used a broom to get the dirty water to go down the center drain, then I got the cushions off the wicker table that's out by the pool. I had read that the Clorox Cleanup would clean off all the mildew, so I had bought two half-gallon bottles of it which, happily, arrived the day before. So ... I went to my shed and looked for my pressure sprayer thing. I have three. Only one of them was there, so I got it and out the cleaner in it to spray it onto the cushions. Then I started pumping up the pressure only to find that there was a LEAK and it wouldn't work!! So, I poured it all into a bucket, got another bucket and turned it over to use as a bench, and got a big scrub brush and started applying the cleaner to one of the cushions. And THAT'S when I remembered that you have to soak the cushions with WATER ... FIRST ... so they don't bleach out!
So, I stopped and got the pressure washer and washed them down really good and got off the surface dirt. And then I sat down and used the scrub brush to apply the cleaner and scrub it all over every inch of the four seat cushions and four decorative pillows. I let them sit about fifteen minutes (more work on trash cans and cleaning up the driveway from the gross paper napkins and YUCK that had gotten all over it from the trash can). Then, I rinsed them off with the pressure washer and -- GLORY BE!!! They look brand new! Except for the area that looks bleached out, but were not going to worry about that!
So, then I got my two huge cushions I have for some really large wicker chairs and two more regular seat cushions and two decorative pillows. This required three trips all the way to the other end of the house ... and it's a long house. I worried about these big cushions because they have a lot of white on them and it looked like it had mildewed. But I treated all of these cushions, too, and they came out perfect! I should have taken before and after pictures.
And, here is the remarkable thing. I have Servella more cushions to do, but I was able to STOP! That's something brand new for me. Usually when I'm doing a messy job ... There is no stopping!! I keep working until I'm totally finished and I don't care how exhausted I get or how much damage I do to my body ... I won't stop. But, today, I was ABLE to. That's pretty huge for me.
So I set all the cushions against a wall on their edge to get them drying and then sprayed down the floor one last time. I used a plastic bag to pick u the gross stuff on the driveway and used the power washer to clean it up. I set the three smaller trash cans to the side of the pool house and set the two rolling trash cans, one for recycling, just outside the garage door so they are convenient. I tired to take the hose off the pressure washer but only succeeded in slightly loosening it. I brought the pressure washer into the garage, congratulated myself on making the day count after all ... and then found that the garage door won't close!!
For real. Perfect ending to the day.
My husband was able to get it shut manually, but couldn't lock it. I haven't brought my car back in, and it's lovely looking in there at the clean floor and the clean cushions lined up against the wall and the whole thing smells like bleach. Yay!!!
I've got a lot to do, still, before the backyard is ready for entertaining. I have four small round cushions that are seat cushions for my small wicker dining set, a long cushion that goes on the wicker chaise lounge, and several more decorative pillows to clean. I have some metal furniture on the patio that has thick, light green cushions that appear to have faded from being in the direct sunlight. I think I can flip them and get one more season out of them.
My two concrete urns broke apart during the winter from the cold! How is that possible? They will have to be thrown away. I need to power wash the large, outdoor wicker dining set. It's gotten pretty dirty. Clean up the glass tops on all the tables and find two big umbrellas. Then dump out all of my pots that were left out all winter, plant all my containers with flowers, scrub out the bird baths, and fix my chimes that are outside.
The pergola does have some rotten boards, so those will have to be replaced. A lot of the paint is peeling and a lot of it is mildewed. So that will all have to be taken care of before it can all be repainted. Theres a lot more to be done out here. The entire patio has to be dug up and leveled so that we can bring people out there without risking a law suit from them tripping!
I have a fourth outside seating area that is behind a large shrub under a huge tree on a little patio area that looks like it's been completely forgotten about. It's really odd and I'm not sure what to do with it, but there's one area that would be perfect for a place to make fires.
Then I have to make a bunch of hanging baskets and the outside should start being inviting! It was so yucky last year that I didn't even want to go outside. I still miss my huge covered veranda. I always fixed it up really beautiful, if I say so myself. But I love everything about this house much better than the house we were in in Tennessee at the university.
So. There's my day. I am very glad that I was able to pull it out of the mire. I would have been so depressed if I had totally lost the day.
We're going to church again tomorrow. I sure hope we've finally found the right place for us.
I hope your Saturday went well.
Cheers!
Lisa
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