Saturday, August 14, 2021

Saturday, August 14, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2008. It was Mattie's first month in the hospital. That day, his friend Charlotte and her mom came to visit Mattie. They surprised him with this adorable bathrobe, personalized with his name on it. It was in his favorite color! While cleaning out my closets in preparation to move, don't you know.... I found this bathrobe. I contemplated donating it, but then decided that made no sense, because how many Mattie's are out there who would want this bathrobe? Needless to say this bathrobe is coming with me to the new house. 

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

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 36,623,835
• Number of people who died from the virus: 621,199

This morning I got up at 6:15am. I have been trying to find a groomer for Sunny near the house. Ideally I wanted a mobile grooming company, but the company I selected is in the process of getting a franchise in Oakton. Therefore, their Reston, VA counterpart agreed to groom Sunny, but we had to take him to their facility. So we met the groomer at 8am. This is now a photo of CLEAN Sunny. Before COVID, I used to groom Sunny monthly. Then with the pandemic, Sunny went months without getting bathed. His white paws and bib had turned yellow. They are now white again. 

I couldn't take it! Today I once again cleaned up plaster dust. This stuff is equivalent to pouring baby powder all over the floor. It gets into everything and all I can see are footprints of plaster dust on the driveway and on the WOODEN floors. I know my cleaning will last long, but it had to be done. 

Meanwhile this is the state of the laundry room. What I thought was going to be a simple electrical panel upgrade, has turned into a massive project. Walls are cut open, which revealed cut beams, not to mention electrical issues. The problems are so significant that the electrical boxes are now being relocated to the garage. 

How do you like this paint job!? This is what the former owner left us with! The laundry room has three colors.... gray, green, and white. Also the tile floor in the laundry room did not go up to the wall. So you can see two different tile types! Get what I am dealing with here?

I wish I could say that the new electrical boxes are installed. Of course not, we are now at the mercy of the utility company who has to come out and work with our electricians. Who knows when that will happen. Meanwhile, I can't get the painters back to fix the laundry room and NOW garage until the electrical work is done. 

After spending time at the house, we came back to DC and we continued to clean out closets. In reality, cleaning out closets is like taking a trip down memory lane. For example, I found my doctoral graduation program, and Peter found a menu from his 36th birthday dinner! Mind you since Mattie died, I must say I have been good about cleaning out closets on a regular basis. So fortunately I am not contending with 26 years worth of collected items. Nonetheless it is still a lot of work and forces us to be disciplined about what we are going to keep, trash, or donate!