New Year’s 2024 Island Trip – Day 6

Today was much lighter-weight from a task point of view, at least on paper. A bunch of things got done, including:

• Touch up painting in the dining area where the track lighting used to be. Cleaned the brush after only two soakings. We need a mess of throw-away brushes for paint jobs like this!
• Caulking over all the peeley paint bits in the shower. I received the go-ahead from the tile guy to launch into my repair. Interesting thing about this caulk is that it says it’s water ready in 36-hours, but isn’t actually cured for 1-2 weeks. I’ll get the areas primed and painted at the end of the month.
• Line trimming where the pile of compost sat for months, around the east entrance to the house, the well head, other rockery, and since there was some line left, down the west drive. This kicked my butt, I mean arms. I need to adjust the handles on the line trimmer 😏.
• A walk to the top of the road.
• Placing bubble wrap under the hose bib protector, and 5” thick foam insulation (the last piece from when my folks re-roofed in 1979!) into the three foundation vents on the north side of the house. Did I mention how cold it’s supposed to get a week from now??
• Another load of laundry,
• Replacing a battery on a CO detector. It started chirping days after my DH replaced the battery in another one!
• Dinner with my neighbor to the east. I drove the truck to the east end of my drive, as I brought almost done (hot) roast veggies, and it’s cold! She told me she’d been enjoying soups for most of two weeks, and that roast veggies were really hitting the spot. I reminded her that she was the one who turned me on to roasting veggies, and left her with tomorrow’s dinner. We had a lovely visit.
• Getting a nice head start on the departure routine, including packing up clothes that’ll come home, returning condiments to the lower barn fridge, as well as leaving a couple of frozen meals in its freezer. We are getting better and better at reducing what we need to haul back and forth.

My only regret this trip is that I didn’t create any time to… create. The only time I stopped was when my body demanded it. It’s an easy excuse to make that new tenants are expected in less than a month, and I want/need to keep going, hammer to tongs. I return in 3 1/2 weeks to give the house a last minute polish before the new tenants arrive, go over the paperwork, introduce them to the unique aspects of the property, help them have a successful settling in. They are old Islanders. Been here longer than my family! I anticipate way less need for handholding, which will likely open up space for creating when I’m here.