Jan/Feb 2024 Island Trip – Days 7 & 8

Day 7:

• My DH picked up the truck mid-morning, and it behaved on their way home.
• I did that last of the touch up painting in the house. There has to be a time that you stop this sort of activity. Force yourself to put down the brush and seal the can. I will easily obsess and despair over paint until the last minute. It’s a character flaw 🙄.
• I went to town to get cash for our AN, and then took it to him. I pay him as fast as my schedule allows. It’s in my best interest! 😏 We had a nice chat and discussed the future Stella shelter!
• An acquaintance, who is a glass and metal artist, stopped by with a new stopper for a perfume bottle my first husband gave me decades ago, and three glass buttons for my antique wool coat.
• I finished and installed the dining room curtain, and also finished closing up the pump room wall. Fine carpentry it is not, but it’ll hold the insulation in place.
• Since the sewing machine was out, I got my collection of quilt blocks out that are in need of construction and finished one, and prepped another before,
• It was time to hike up that hill again with y neighbor to the east!

Day 8:

• I put away paint, paint accessories, and mot of the cleaning supplies today. Some the cleaning supplies will remain in the house until I leave (my last toss at the house this trip will be to wipe down the traffic pattern from the second bedroom to the north door), but suddenly I realized I could put half of everything away, and that felt good!
• The toilet suddenly got my psychic attention yesterday. The grout around its base looks wet. My back brain worked on this. Today I took a dry paper towel and wiped it over the valve at the wall, the stainless steel hose, and the connection to the toilet. All dry. The toilet was not sweating. Yes, toilets under certain circumstances do sweat. Next I took that still dry paper towel and pressed it hard into the darker colored grout in multiple places. Still dry. The only thing I can come up with is that when the toilet was replaced, the installer must have gotten whatever sealant they used for the base of the loo onto the surrounding grout. And I haven’t notice for almost 4-years.
• The new tenants and I met for a couple of hours this afternoon. Crossed t’s and dotted i’s. I answered questions, and bestowed information small and large. They aren’t moving in for some number of weeks, possibly more than a month. We covered a lot of territory and will meet again before I head back to the mainland.
• There was a first Friday Art Walk in town this evening. I enjoyed every minute of it. There’s a photographer whose studio is at my dad’s former, and amazingly recreated town property. And the weaver whose work reminded me of what the owner of the summer camp, my and my DH attended during our childhood, used to create. And running into the director of the art museum, who adopted a table from me, and is an important advocate for the Island’s artists.
• My DH arrived as the Art Walk concluded. We met at our favorite little restaurant, and are now settled in, catching up, and relaxing. I feel a game of gin rummy coming on!