Attila and I headed for the little house over the Thanksgiving weekend. We took the scenic route, thinking that the sunny day would enhance the colours of the fall leaves. The sunny day was breathtaking, but most of the leaves had fallen. No matter, we enjoyed our drive, even if it took an extra hour.
The second bedroom at the little house has been such a mess that we have just shut the door and forgotten about it. The smell in that little room has been awful. Now that the forced air furnace is working the smell is not confined to that room. On Sunday morning Attila managed to remove the last of the tiles from the floor, a job that Lares had done much of the weekend we took possession of the house, they were all covered with mildewed carpet backing. Attila removed the bits and dust from the gluey sub-floor and put down a new mahogany sub-floor. He then applied a primer coat of paint to the walls and finally applied primer to the new mahogany sub-floor. The paint smell was awful, but superior by far to the smell of mildew! There are still holes in the walls, punched right through the drywall, but that is for another day.
Sunday the girls and grandchildren spent with their husband’s families. Their first turkey dinners of the weekend!
On Monday the painted floor in the second bedroom was dry and we moved a lot of items onto it to be stored. I washed the window frame and storm window screen and put up a curtain. The room is still very rough, but a huge improvement. We can leave the door open!
Monday morning, right after breakfast, Attila began assembling the ingredients for his turkey dressing. By 9 a.m. he had the turkey in the oven. In no time the house was filled with the aroma of roasting turkey! Terra, who worked all night, slept a few short hours and rose at 2 p.m., and she and Lares arrived shortly thereafter. Soon Luna and Imp and Elf and Tink arrived. It is a small house, and quite frankly I like that. Everyone was together, moving, talking, laughing, crying (Tink fell trying to walk and bruised her cheek on the table leg). Imp and Elf dragged the kitchen table from the tiny dining room to the middle of the living room, where there would be enough space for everyone to sit around the table for our turkey dinner. Imp, Elf and Tink took over Grandma’s bedroom and played for happy hours with Lego. I bought them each a HoolaHoop, one pink for Imp, blue for Elf and pink and green for Tink. Not one of the assembled party was able to successfully suspend the HoolaHoop, but they were put to good use in other ways, rolling across the floor and tossing over stools.
After dinner talk and activity continued non-stop. Terra, tired from shift work, perhaps a little bit irritable, was teased by Lares, who found a stick outside, which he smuggled in to poke at her; she laughed so hard she couldn’t breath!! I’ve never seen her laugh so hard. We all laughed till we cried. Lares has a real sense of humour and, although very impish, the love behind it is always there.
Luna kept an eye on three little balls of energy and helped me with the dishes in the kitchen after dinner. We enjoyed chatting to the point that we weren’t sure whether I was drying dishes, setting them on the counter, then picking them up thinking them dirty and handing them back to her to wash again.
Later Janus arrived, coming straight to ours from work in Montreal. Imp and Elf and Tink were ecstatic to see him. He picked up the twins to hug them as he came in the door, and as I was holding Tink at the time, I put her in the middle of the twins, where she latched onto his neck for a super big hug.
Grandpa showed the kids how to use the HoolaHoop, sort of. Grandma held Tink as she tried to grab Grandma’s glasses; Auntie Terra took a video of that, which was hilarious and looked as if Tink was walloping Grandma in the head! Uncle Lares showed Imp, Elf and Tink the interior of his service truck, and let them wipe the ceiling with rags.
A good time was had by all.
We didn’t get away till later than usual, almost 7 p.m., arriving home just after 11:30 p.m. We unloaded the car, Attila took a hot bath, I puttered and we were in bed within an hour of arriving home. Mist was unhappy with our absence, and let us know, loudly. The house was cold, but it was too late at night to put a fire on, so we just went to bed. We slept soundly, as we always do when the house is cold. Mist, she slept soundly too, with two heating units under the covers of the bed where she slept.