"Spend my days in the sweet sunshine, rock in my swing and watch my garden grow and know that I'll always have someone to hold"

I spent most of Wednesday at the house, scrubbing the kitchen and hauling out all the artifacts. Dad and I have hooked the ancient TV set up and also hauled over his CD player so we have entertainment while cleaning. Today we're going to Menards to pick out the paint, not sure if we're going to wait for the S/O to get off work so he can go with or not. We get to keep the piano that's in the living room (which reminds me, I posted earlier here about living rooms and more) and after doing some searching on the Internet, I found it here (and the actual picture is here) and turns out, it was sold for 1900 dollars.

Then we have the stove. Now yeah, I was practically creaming myself over the stove the other day. That was before I found out how much it's worth and what year it's from. It's a 1951 Roper six burner double oven door stove and Antique Appliances is selling one for 9600 dollars. I also found a picture of it on this site but they don't list a price, just that it's available for restoration. Now all of this in addition to the chest of china that's being left and all the records (hundreds of them) that are in the garage and I'd say that I may have myself a lot more money in the next few weeks.

Paint is a bitch. Not only will it suck when it comes to painting because, well, I just can't stand painting but also, we can't seem to agree on a color. Mind you, the living room is just going to be a basic pale color or even white so that's pretty easy, either a blush color or an off white. It's the kitchen that seems to be the problem. I want to keep with the retro theme (c'mon, you saw the stove...) and either go with a country theme or pure white with a cherry red trim. The S/O didn't seem too keen on either of those and Mom didn't like the country theme. Dad, Henry and me all agreed on the cherry red trim OR a celery/mint green for the cupboards and white everywhere else. Mom didn't like the green period and the S/O didn't like the particular color that Behr selected. I did an unofficial poll of people online and most people seem to like the cherry red trim idea so I think I'm going to work on the S/O because when it comes down to it, it's only our opinion that counts, it's just nice to have other people's input. First and foremost though, we need to get the other bedroom (the only other one that's downstairs) cleaned up and painted because the S/O's mother is coming up here in almost a month and that's where I imagine she'll be staying. Of course, this means we'll also have to go out and buy either a cheap bed or a futon. Thankfully I have enough bedding to, well, stock a house so we're good in regard to that. I have several nice quilts that just need to be taken out of the plastic and washed and they're good to go. If I can get the upstairs cleaned (it's filled with even more books, records and medical equipment), I may haul the desk up there and have that turned into a sort of library/office... it has a dormer type ceiling and so it's not so great for a bedroom/living area but it wouldn't be bad for keeping all of our books, the PC and maybe a small TV and sofa for if we ever (I doubt it) have a lot of guests or something. If nothing else, the house has a lot of potential if we're willing to put a little time and money into it. I think Dad is even a little jealous because he's always wished had more rooms in their house to do things with, he's always wanted a game room and a library (I don't know why for the library - I did not inherit my love of reading from my parents... but hey, more power to them).

Work sucks big time but I have to stick it out until something better (the job that I interviewed for last week) comes along, if it ever comes along. They do everything differently than the way they taught us in school and my back is killing me. I have an "admirer" in one of the patients - he's an alert 86 year old man who likes to stall, stall, stall. It takes a good forty five minutes for most CNA's to get him to go to dinner. The first time, it took me about twenty because he'd stop every two minutes in the hallway, grab his walker, and start asking me if I was going to let him fall. "No, Mr. Chatterbox, I won't let you fall, do I look like the type of girl who'd let a man fall?" "No, no dear, you don't, you look like a LOVELY girl". On and on and on. Finally I told him if he wanted to see my lovely self again, he'd best come sit down and enjoy his dinner. "Will you eat with me?". I told him sure, I wasn't sure what the policy was on CNA's actually EATING with the patients but if it got him to the dining room, it couldn't hurt. After that, he hurried up, we got there, I had a carton of milk and he ate his dinner in record time. Yesterday he wasn't my patient but his CNA asked if I'd take him to dinner since I was so good at it. So I took him down and he said he was "thrilled" to be having dinner with a such a lovely young lady. He asked if I was married and I told him no so he asked why not. I told him I couldn't legally marry my significant other. I about choked when he came back with "I understand, you like other lovely young girls". After I recovered, I told him that I had a boyfriend, he was just kind of, well, unable to marry me (like I'm going to tell this man that my lovely young self is living with someone who legally can't marry her until he gets divorced yet again from the same broad... he'd probably just assume I made it up to cover for being a lesbian anyway) and we are happily living in sin. Well, I didn't call him a chatterbox for nothing. He goes on to tell me about his wife that he lived with for seventeen years before he married her (well, she accepted, actually) and how it was the best thing and I told him I was inclined to agree. This continued for a good forty five minutes and eventually he finished his meal and back to his room we went. It was there that I heard my patient beckoning me with "GIRL! GIRL! GIRL!". I have no name to this man, no, myself and every other CNA on the floor is just "GIRL!" or, if it should be a male, "GUY!". I went in, asked him what he needed and promptly received my answer.

"I want crack".

"Excuse me?"

"I want crack"

"Crackers?"

"I want crack"

"You need to use the washroom?"

"GIRL! I WANT CRACK".

I had to leave the room because I couldn't keep a straight face... I knew from the first time he said it that he was saying "crack" but I couldn't fathom why he'd be saying "crack" so I thought of any other possible thing he might have meant. I informed his RN that he was requesting crack and she went in to make sure that's what he was saying. I knew what I had heard but I let her go anyway and lo and behold, he was still asking for crack. I had to leave before I found out what they were going to do about his crack request but eh, should be interesting to find out on Saturday.

Now I must run to Mom's house and continue cleaning out the house.

before & after