Friday, July 16, 2021

Friday, July 16, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in July of 2007. That day I took him to his friend, Kate's birthday party. Mattie and Kate went to preschool together. She had a gymnastics party! There were about three boys at the party and the rest were girls. But Mattie handled it like a trooper and had a really good time with his friends. 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 34,046,437
• Number of people who died from the virus: 608,766

Have you ever seen the old movie with Cary Grant, Mr. Blanding's Builds His Dream House? It is a classic! I feel like we are living the modern day version. Everyday something major pops up in the house. That doesn't require a small fix, but instead LOTS of money. We are so upset with the previous owners who truly neglected this house. Today's surprise was ice in the furnace. Needless to say, the first floor now has NO air conditioning. A major problem with painters and other contractors in the house and it feeling so hot and humid. There are times, I want to absolutely scream. I hate the daily routine, which has no end in sight. I thought while the painters were at the house, I would spend the time sorting through things in our DC home. I have NO IDEA when I am going to do that, nor will I have the energy for that. I feel wiped out, as we are putting 12+ hour days. 

I took some photos of the new paint color, Medici Ivory. It makes the space look so much cleaner and brighter. However, this paint company and I are at odds. The salesperson was lovely, but apparently did not estimate things correctly. Mind you, he assured me that their company is known to get the estimates right on target, unlike their competitors. NOT TRUE. The other paint company who gave me an estimate, told me I needed to prime the walls for paint, because of the previous dark colors. The company I went with, said the primer is already in the paint (which is technically true, I checked with Sherwin Williams), but even with two coats of paint, the old color was coming through. So a third coat of paint is now needed. Which means that the cost of the job just went up! In addition to a bad estimate, we are also playing with personnel. The project manager came over today to give me a lecture, regarding how our demands are unreasonable. You can just imagine how well I handled that!

I handled it so well that I put my displeasure with them in writing! Putting that aside, the quality of the work appears to be solid and they are doing a great job sealing up and repairing holes and other issues with the walls and ceilings.