The Gift that Keeps on Giving....

I mentioned in an earlier post that our children gave us a cute little booklet with their Christmas wishes, and some ideas about what they would do for us this year. Brian had us for January and February. He worked on computers for us and got things running better. Right after Christmas, he made all the arrangements and he and I flew to Idaho to visit Heidi and her family. That was fun to see what they received for Christmas, and just visit for a day. Last month, and into this month Brian straightened out our home phone line, which required re-wiring and he also dealt with Quest over the phone several times for us, because they accidentally shut off our internet when they stopped the phone. It really took a lot of stress off of Ralph and I both to have him do this work for us.

Well, it is March, and Jeff and Heather have us for this month. Yesterday they came and spent the day here working in the kitchen. They worked so hard. Heather was up on the ladder taking down the wall paper border that Ken put up about 15 years ago. She washed walls, and got the sticky gunk off the top edge above the cupboards over the cooking area. As I watched her, I thought about the pain I would have had in my back, neck and shoulders if I had been the one doing that. ( I also thought about my mom who was climbing up on her roof to fix things at my age, but that is another story for another day! ) Now for Jeff...........he had the horrible job of tearing off the coved linoleum! You know, that part that goes up the wall about 5 or 6 inches. Well, that was a nightmare. It was glued and tacked onto the wall and a real bear to rip off. Jeff has battle wounds on his hands to prove it. Thanks Jeff! He also painted the ceiling with the KILZ paint that has to go over the oil based paint before the latex can go on. It was a mess, and they cleaned it all up for me before they left.

I will get started now on the spackling and sanding so they can come back to paint. I am very excited to see the kitchen come together and look nice again. Thanks again to Jeff and Heather for all the help yesterday.

Heather is up on a ladder on the stairs. The very thought scares me!

Can you smell the fresh paint? It is the BEST smell in the world!