Sheep Guarding Llama

It’s nice to have everyone home again.  Very little to report.  Liesl is seeming older after having been away for several days spending time with her cousins.  At her age you really do notice four days of growth if you don’t see her in between and when she gets to spend that much time with her older cousins there is always additional development done that is very noticeable when you don’t see her in the middle.

I was at the office today.  Dominica stayed at home waiting for more garage work that never happened.  I had a talk with our contractor about having Dominica sit home all day waiting for him and then never arriving.

I came home at lunch and Dominica, Liesl and I went out to IHOP.

Our contractor came over this evening to pick up the wood that we had stored here so that he can work on our first shelves at home as we explained to him that getting the initial shelves done will make a massive difference in the house.  The “den” room is just full of boxes that we would really like to start getting out of the way.  Those shelves not being there are driving us crazy.

Relaxing evening at home with the family.

February just flew by in a whirlwind.  Between the house construction and the failed attempt to purchase the house next door it was just crazy throughout the entire month.  And we had that really cold snap at the beginning which turned into amazing near-summer temperatures by the middle of the month.  We’ve had the windows open now for weeks.  It has been beautiful.

Last night was Oreo and my last night alone. Dominica and Liesl left Houston this morning after rush hour traffic had died down.

I went back to the office today figuring that Oreo would be fine just being home alone for half of the day.  Not too bad for him.

I came home at lunch and hung out with Oreo for a while, let him outside, etc.  Dominica ended up getting to the house just thirty minutes or so after I went back to the office.

The evening was obviously spent just hanging out with the family.  Boy it is nice to get my little girl home again.

No additional garage work today.  Oh boy.

Dominica decided that she would stay in Houston today and come back tomorrow as Clara is sick and going in to see the doctor today and Francesca is staying home with her.  That worked out well for me so that I could get more work done even though I really miss Liesl a lot and don’t like her being away for this long.

I stayed at home today as our contractor was supposed to be coming by to do some more work.  That worked out well since I really needed to stay home with Oreo too.  He might be good for half of a day but I think that an entire day at home alone for him would be really stressful – I would come home at lunch of course but he would not want to go back into his kennel after I came home to work him, that’s for sure.

I ended up having a quiet day at home without anyone showing up at all.  Oreo is still happy with the peace and quiet but was visibly searching the house trying to figure out where Dominica was.  He likes the quiet but does not enjoy not having his entire family together.  He worries.

I did very well this entire weekend at eating food that was left over in the fridge and pantry rather than going out to eat for every meal like Dominica expected that I would.  That helped a lot with getting the fridge cleared down.

Finally I got the contractor to show up for a tiny bit this evening after complaining that I had taken the day off of work to allow him to get access so that he could work.  The lack of communications and showing up when he says “see you tomorrow” or “I’ll be right back” is a major problem.

The girls will likely be home by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

Today is Oreo and my second day at home alone without the girls.  It is pretty lonely in this house with no one here except for the dog and me.  I’ve gotten so used to not only have Dominica and Liesl home all of the time but also having so many other people around so often that I am not used to having the house all to myself for any extended period of time.  Weird.

Oreo is continuing to enjoy the peace and quiet.  He slept really well last night too without anyone tossing and turning to make him want to get up and leave in the middle of the night.

I did a lot more cleaning again today.  I am so excited to have time and space to just get things done around the house.  It feels so nice to have at least a little bit of the place looking better.  This garage conversion will never end.

For lunch Watson was back in town so we ran over to RockFish.  After lunch he came over and we did some storage training for an hour or two before he headed out to spend some time at home himself.

I got more work done today than I did yesterday but it was still hard to be productive with the amount of cleaning and organizing that I felt that I needed to do.

Our contractor did finally show up today again if only for a minute.  He had shown up last night, just long enough to run to Home Depot and pick up some wood that he needed to make the shelves and to pick up cabinets that we are going to use beneath the shelves in the office.

Today he showed up, as did the electricians, and a little work was done from the electricians but nothing on the office itself.  Boy this is going slowly.  It can be weeks between seeing any changes.  At least the electrical situation is nearly resolved.  Only a few things left to be done there.

Dominica and Liesl might be coming home tomorrow.  I’m feeling pretty productive, though, so it might work out better if they stay in Houston for another day.  I did get good work done today plus every day that I get to clean makes me that much more productive the next day.

It is really hard to believe that yesterday was my birthday.  Except for the early morning barrage of well wishes on FaceBook it pretty much passed without any thought.  I am thirty five now but I kind of feel like I have been thirty five for a while so I don’t really feel that age hit me at all.  Thirty five seems like a major milestone but it doesn’t feel that way while it is happening.

This morning I got up and got to work shampooing the rugs in the living room with the Rug Doctor that we are renting.  We were low on shampoo for it and we didn’t want to deal with moving lots of furniture so I just did the exposed high traffic areas.  We could have done more but there are just boxes and boxes of stuff sitting all over the place and getting around them is pretty much impossible at this point.

The Rug Doctor appears to have done an excellent job on our floors which were very stained previously.  It will take a day or two before we have a really good feel for how it did (wet floors always look good) but we are considering buying one of these units if it really does the job that we think that it did.

The girls were off to Houston in the middle of the morning.  And that meant that it was my chance to get some serious cleaning done in this house.  I can’t take the mess anymore and with no one in my way I can really make some progress.

My first stop was the grocery store to return the Rug Doctor and to pick up some carrots and celery to munch on.   Then back to the house to do some big time cleaning.

I cleaned for several hours.  I cleaned the kitchen and dishes to kick things off and got all of Liesl’s stuff up and off of the floor right away.  The house practically transformed in a matter of an hour or two.  There were practical limits to how much I could really do but the difference was pretty apparent right away.  It feels so much better being in a house that is a little bit clean.  Dominica is going to be quite impressed when she gets home.  I even did things like finally hung up our clocks and put batteries in them so that we can start to see what time it is.  We haven’t even had a single working clock in the house since we moved in!

I did not get nearly as much actual work done today as I had imagined that I would but it was a very productive day with all of the cleaning.  I am very bad about being able to be productive when the house is a mess and having a ton of cleaning done and out of the way really allows me to focus once it is done.

Oreo and I got a lot of good quality time together too.  He is already visibly enjoying having some quiet time with no toddler chasing him around and the floors clear of debris.  He needs breaks like this in which to just relax.