Laundry

Some people hate doing laundry.
Some people hate folding or putting away clean laundry.
This has never been an issue for me. I quite enjoy doing laundry actually.

I have pretty much always folded or hung up my laundry right out of the dryer. When the kids were younger, I would fold the laundry and have them carry up their piles to their rooms where they would usually heap them on the floor or on their bed. That part annoyed me but, as a mother, there are things you just have to let go.

I'm lucky to have an area in my laundry room where I can hang laundry up easily and quickly straight from the dryer.  I will admit that I have been known to leave things hanging in the laundry room for some time before moving it to the proper closet.  But at least the clothes aren't sitting in a pile getting wrinkled. I despise wrinkled clothes and I'm not a fan of ironing...so I'm pretty careful not to let things sit in piles.

Lately though,  I have not been keeping up with the laundry. At all.

It's probably the new rental house and all the time we spend over there.
Or my job and the fact that I'm super tired at the end of the day.
Or maybe the laundry is going the way of some other household tasks: dishes, bathroom cleaning, vacuuming.  All of them are taking a backseat lately.  To what, I cannot actually say.
Or maybe, with just the two of us, the laundry just doesn't seem like a priority.

With the empty nest thing that's going on here, I have started using the guest room in a new way.
As a place to pile laundry for days on end.

I do try to lay the shirts and things out in such a way that they don't get all wrinkled but in general, it's just a big pile. 

This is a new thing for me and when I see this pile of clothes I can't help but feel overwhelmed by it.

I'm understanding how people can dislike laundry. 

It's the PILE that is no fun.

I folded most of the pile today but for some reason I still haven't been able to get them put away.

Baby steps I suppose. 

Diving in again

We had planned a trip to Puerto Rico for January.  I can’t remember exactly when we planned it but it’s been on the calendar for awhile. For some reason, when we planned it, early January seemed like a good time for a vacation.  Then it turned out that by the time January rolled around with Christmas vacation and Frank’s birthday and my birthday and each of us having a few days off work…well, we were totally not in the mood for ANOTHER vacation. Or that’s how it felt.  We knew we would have fun once we got there but it just seemed like we needed to get back to normal life.  Anyway, the day before the trip (as I’m sure you’ve heard on the news) Puerto Rico had a big earthquake!  We called the AirBNB that we were going to stay at and they said they had no electricity and she was concerned that the stores had been cleared of most of the food. Ugh. Obviously the biggest concern is for the people dealing with this tragedy but it didn’t sound like a recipe for a relaxing vacation. So, the day before the trip, we cancelled.  Frank spent so much time getting it all arranged and places to stay and car rentals and flights…and it was all cancelled within an hour.  I was a bit surprised at how quickly he made the decision to be honest.  It was definitely for the best because they had lots of aftershocks and stuff and I’m sure it would have been a nightmare to be visiting during all of that.

Another reason it was good that we didn’t go was that we did something crazy only 2 days before the vacation was supposed to happen…we made an offer on a house.  It’s kind of a long story but with Frank getting some money from his Dad’s life insurance, he was looking for an investment.  Not super active looking…just in the back of his mind. We had a house come up for sale in our neighborhood so we went to look at it. It was a disaster inside so we decided it wasn’t for us but it did get the wheels turning in Frank's head and he started actively looking for a rental property.  We had a previous rental house in Provo for about a year. We worked like dogs getting it fixed up and then sold it a year later. I’m not sure what reasons Frank would give for the sale, but I think he was missing having a Jeep!  But since he now has a Jeep again, he’s ready for a new project I guess.

Anyway, a week or two after we saw that first house, I got an email from a realtor site that a new house was on the market that day. Somehow I started getting realtor emails, I don’t remember signing up for them!  I told Frank about it and we went right over. So it had been on the market for a few hours at this point. 

It’s actually an old house (1931) with a detached garage that was at some point remodeled to be another house. So two houses on one lot.  It’s considered by the town to be a duplex but it’s two separate houses.  The original house is occupied by renters and the garage house was unoccupied.  We were only able to tour the empty house.  Well, it’s such an unusual thing to find two houses on one lot that Frank decided to make an offer right then and so we did. It was only slightly more expensive than the piece of junk in our neighborhood…but it’s two pieces of junk! The owners were not comfortable with accepting our offer since we hadn’t seen inside the main house so they said they would accept it after we toured the house Monday (just remember…we are supposed to leave for Puerto Rico on Wednesday).  So they accepted our offer Monday morning after Frank had a tour (I was at work).  Turns out later that day they got 3 or 4 more offers!  Too late though since they had accepted ours.

Both houses are a bit dilapidated.  For some reason we love a project…and this is going to be a big project.

I don’t think the owners have done ANY upkeep. And we were surprised to find during the home inspection that the main house was at some point on fire!  The attic is charred. They say it’s structurally just fine though but that was a shock to find. The outsides both need painting badly and the kitchens and bathrooms are really old and probably need gutting.  I’ve never actually seen a bathroom as small as the one in the original house. You could shower, use the toilet and wash your hands all at the same time it seems! Good times.

So we will be fixing up the garage house first since it’s empty and then we will hopefully rent it out. Then later we’ll figure out what to do with the original house.  

There is also a small shed on the property as well as another building that we thought was a shed but turned out to be a root cellar. Frank’s pretty excited about that…no idea why! haha He just likes that it’s something weird and different. They both look like they are about to fall down, so that’s fun.

Anyway, we would have had to do all the financing and inspections and whatnot while in Puerto Rico which would have been so stressful. So that’s one more reason that we weren’t too sad to cancel the trip. 

We closed on the houses last Thursday and we have spent every possible moment over there ripping stuff out. We've gone back and forth (and back and forth) over how much to change/fix and what to leave. But both Frank and I are on the perfectionist side of things and it's hard for us to let things be subpar...so we're changing a whole lot.

It has already been SO MUCH WORK and we've really only just begun.

I'll probably keep updates here just for remembrance. Someday we will probably be amazed at all the work we were able to do!

Frantic

I was lounging on the couch in my pajamas at 8:15 this morning when I realized, suddenly, that I was supposed to be at an appointment in Salt Lake City at 9:00 am at the airport which is just about 45 minutes away.

This is not just any appointment.
This is the appointment for my interview for the trusted traveler system.  Something I have been waiting over 9 months for. Something that was so important I had set up several alerts in my phone: 2 hours before and 1 hour before so that I absolutely would not forget.

I have no idea why it has taken all these months to get this appointment but it was the only option for scheduling. The next available appointment is June.
And I have no idea what happens if you miss it. I'm guessing you wait lots of more months.

I don't have a trip coming up soon but just the fact that I've been waiting all these months makes this appointment very important to me. I filled out the paperwork months and months ago and it took forever to just be allowed to be able to book the interview and then there were so few interview slots available that I was lucky to find this one.

And I forgot.

And my stupid phone did not beep or give me ANY kind of reminder. GAH! (actually, I did find a little silent alert on my phone later but I really needed a beep or noise or something more intrusive, obviously!)

Picture me suddenly jumping up, running into my room and saying "I'm supposed to be in Salt Lake!" while I run around frantically getting dressed.
I threw some jeans on. I picked up my bra and thought "I don't have time for this!" and threw it back in the drawer and pulled on a sweatshirt.
I haven't brushed my teeth. I haven't brushed my hair. I haven't even looked in a mirror for Pete's sake!

As I'm running out the door, THANK HEAVEN I think..."do I need my passport?" Of course I do!  I run to the basement and rummage way longer than I wanted to before finding my passport.

I'm always good about keeping gas in my car but, of course, this time I have let it get below 1/2 tank. Which honestly is enough gas but I'm still annoyed at myself.  I left the house with 38 minutes to my appointment. And a full bladder.

I drive like a maniac. I speed. I pray that no cops see me.  I arrive at the airport at 8:56.

I actually RUN past the people waiting in line for security.  I have no idea where I'm supposed to go even though I had Frank text me the directions. I find the help desk and he tells me I'm in the wrong building, to go to the next Terminal.  I RUN to the next terminal. As I'm running I was thinking "Gosh, my foot actually feels ok and I'm running pretty well. I should probably be exercising more."
I'm also wondering what the people around me are thinking of me as I sprint by. I'm also wondering why I didn't take a few more seconds to put on my bra...

When I arrive to the proper door I am winded, my throat and mouth are totally dry and I'm trying to just pull myself together to look unfrazzled as I walk in.  The guy greeting me talks so fast my brain literally can't figure out what he is saying to me. Either that or I was just too discombobulated to decipher words. It was the weirdest. I was just staring at him trying to figure out what he was saying. He had to say it 3 times before I understood that he was saying "Are you here for a global entry interview?"

Haaa!  Why, yes, I am.  When he realized I actually understood him he was like "good, we speak the same language" haha oh man.

It wasn't really an interview, just fingerprinting and information gathering/sharing. I DID need my passport so thank heaven I remembered that in my spastic state.

As I feared, they took my picture.  Unbrushed teeth, uncombed hair, wearing my thick and ginormous brown sweatshirt. Yeah, that was awesome. And will probably last 10 years or something...if not longer.

As I left the airport a short time later, walking leisurely and after using the restroom (blessedly), I took a selfie to remember this fine moment and my wonderful hairdo.  I was right by some people waiting in line for security so I felt a bit weird about it but sometimes you just gotta take a selfie.

You're looking at the newest Trusted Traveler.

Now to book a vacation overseas...