Last Thursday was a very busy day here. My husband was still in Mass General and waiting for a biopsy after multiple scanning tests and untold blood tests. Volunteers were coming through magnificently to get some of the work done here.
My husband’s best friend (deceased) has a brother and he came down with a friend and moved the (barely) 2 cords of wood that had been delivered on Saturday. It filled one side of the shed.
The wood guy up on Horse Mountain had called just after the small pile was delivered, and said he had a customer back out and did we want some. So we decided to take 2 more cords. From him, we knew it would be full cords. That’s to arrive Tuesday.
While they were doing that, my helper friend was struggling to get the tarps on the Small garden by himself, and not succeeding. He finally had to go. As the 2 wood movers had finished the wood, the woman I had scheduled to finish it still came with her helper, and with a good wind blowing, we 3 managed to get the tarps on, mostly.
I had spent the morning organizing contractors, volunteers, and fielding about 30 incoming calls, nevermind the ones I was trying to make out.
My friend who has Hazel, age 4, my surrogate grandchild, had offered to start the flooring search Thursday afternoon. I’d decided to start with the place farthest away, because they showed the most flooring on the website. Granted there were only 1 or 2 colors of each sample, but it was a start.
Turns out it was an excellent choice. They had been packrats and had a large selection of flooring in stock, offered at $1.79/sq. yd. I didn’t find anything like my first choices. But I did find something like my second choice. It was a good bit darker than I had wanted, but I didn’t hate it. And it was in stock. To order flooring the phrase used was “one month to infinity”. I didn’t have 1 month…
They had a lot of this darker flooring, which would do the pantry and the kitchen. So those were sorted. Next I went hunting for the bathroom flooring. (All these are sheet vinyl flooring.)
Again, there was nothing in stock similar to what I wanted. Then we went through the books (for 1 month to infinity delivering) and found nothing. Then he said there were remnants in the back of the store and he thought some were big enough.
So we went back to look. And lo and behold! There was something, and it was pretty, and it was more or less the same color as the fixtures in the bathroom, just 2 -3 shades darker. And it had this pretty ring of leaves about every 3’. Being pretty was a hint of how old this might be. But he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say. But it was $88. So for just under $800 I had flooring for 3 rooms. I’d saved nearly $100 over what was budgeted, BUT it was in stock!
While I was busy doing this, Hazel was having a great time jumping and climbing on the carpet rolls. The salesman said he’d never seen a kid who didn’t jump and climb on them. So we were all happy.
My husband had called and said they needed the MRI of his aneurism and the place that took it wasn’t sharing in a timely manner. So we came home, tore the house apart looking for it and got it sent off by FedEx for $58! But it arrived at 6AM the next day, so it was worth it.
I got word that my helper friend’s hours were cut because my husband was in the hospital. That was a low blow! He will only be coming out 1 day a week for 3 hours as my hours were his also.
On Friday my husband is supposed to have the biopsy. It’s to rain all day and I’d hoped to have my helper friend cook for me. He’s been keeping me fed all week. I will have to make something to last a few days myself.
On Friday I got the countertop for the kitchen ordered and it’s scheduled to have the installers come out to make the template on November 5th. We might just make it, now I have flooring and someone to install it.
I fielded the 20 – 30 incoming calls and set up more volunteers to come out. I got a call from the mulch hay man. It seems the wagon that got brought out had 120 bales of his primo horse hay on it, not the mulch. He was hoping I would be willing to swap out that for real mulch. He had been delighted to find the pile covered. Plus he had 60 more bales of mulch if I wanted it.
I had 2 helpers coming Sunday morning to move the chicken pen finally. I asked them if they would stay and move hay afterwards and they agreed to. So the hay man was happy to wait until Sunday and have help.
The biopsy never happened on Friday, so it would not happen until next week. I had no idea what the delay was, as I could not get anyone at the hospital to talk to me. Mass General has been touted by one and all as being the best for care and treatment, but so far, that’s not been the case for us.
So that brings us to Saturday. I had to harvest whatever was in the gardens because we had a bad frost coming. That included these Walla Walla onions. I had another helper coming to do this Saturday morning. I was also scheduled to be taken shopping by my husband’s cousin. So another busy day ahead…