Keeping House & Ladder Lady

Two weeks ago I posted that I had a long hard week of it while our new countertops were being installed. Readers will remember that a plumbing leak did damage to the wood floors at that time. I had a week to recover and enjoy a Forest Service, Passport In Time project in New Mexico and returned a week ago. This past week was consumed by the flooring contractor sanding and re-finishing the wood floor and then after he was done the carpet cleaner came to do the carpets in the house.

The floor guy took two days to do his stuff and during that time the kitchen was off limits. I managed to put a few food items in the small bar refrigerator in the basement and that took care of breakfast and lunch for me. The Bride and The Emmer picked up eats for breakfast and lunch at their respective work places. Dinner was at the local Ruby Tuesday’s.

The worst part of having the floor re-done was the smell that permeated the entire house after the first, sealer coat was applied to the floor at the end of the first day. It was a heavy solvent smell that gave me a headache even with the windows open. Had I known how bad the smell was going to be I might have made arrangements to sleep in the RV that night. Fortunately, on the second day the water based finish coats were installed and that neutralized the smell. The floor guy finished up late Tuesday and the carpet cleaners weren’t scheduled until Friday so I had two days “off”.

My Forest Service project last week caused me to start thinking about getting a better metal detector. The one I used for the project, I bought about 5 years ago and while it’s an OK machine, it is definitely an entry level model. I was thinking about upgrading to a more sophisticated machine. There happens to be a store that sells metal detectors in Golden, CO, about 30 miles from here so first thing Thursday morning, I headed there to check things out. This store was a real big boy toy store and by the time I left, I had a brand new White’s MXT with me.

Thurdsay afternoon I took it for a spin at a local park that I had detected before with my old detector. I had found a few coins with the old detector but it was tough going and for every coin I found, I dug up 5-6 pop tops or other assorted trash. The new detector was amazing. Within one hour I had dug up 13 coins and very few pieces of trash. Yesterday afternoon I went back to the same park and spent a half hour detecting before the rain chased me away. In that time I found another four coins. I’m looking forward to getting to some older sites now and finding some interesting old stuff!

Thursday was also furniture moving day in preparation for the carpet cleaner. As I was moving the furniture around I thought about how nice it would be to be finished with all of this “house work” and getting back to normal. I think “normal” has been postponed because when the carpet guy did his thing on Friday he told me that the two year old carpet was in need of re-stretching. When we had the carpet installed two years ago they made it a point to point out that their guarantee covered any re-stretching needed during the life of the carpet….I guess they knew they weren’t going to do the job properly to start with. So after my trip next week volunteering for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, I guess more “house work” will be on the schedule.

In a few minutes The Bride and I will be leaving to pick up Ladder Lady at the airport. She will stay with us for a few days and then she and The Bride are going to California to visit with our daughter, Cajenn. When they return, The Emmer will accompany Ladder Lady back to North Carolina and visit with here there for a week before returning to the Denver area.

Thanks for visiting.