As I write this on March 23, 2020 we are in the midst (and I hope not the beginnings) of a worldwide epidemic. Watching the “new normal” unfold with Corona virus has been odd for all of us and John and I hope that you and your families are healthy and safe.
I went grocery shopping two weeks ago, back when they were starting to suggest households have two weeks worth of food stocked up in case you need to quarantine yourself. Two weeks ago we were still talking about people on cruise ships being quarantined, not “shelter at home” for whole states. This was before everything from SXSW in Austin to most flights, all schools, every conference, concert, sporting event or gathering over 10 people was cancelled. At THAT time I went to the store to get supplies for two weeks as directed (but didn’t realize I should have stocked up on TP at the time – hmmm).
Today I went back and was shocked by how little was available on the shelves. Of course, no toilet paper, paper towels, or kleenex. But no broccoli, spinach, potatoes, zucchini, squash, or lemons. No milk, half and half, eggs, butter, or cheese. But weirdest yet in Texas – no tortillas? And no tortilla chips? Now I’m freaked.
But not to worry, I have my priorities straight and got all supplies we need for another 2-3 weeks. I hope.
In the meantime, not much happened at the house this past week except that we met with the septic guy, Shawn. We are installing an aerobic septic system that will take care of our needs from the house and the barn apartment. The benefits of the aerobic system is that the leach field is much smaller, it doesn’t smell, and the water, after being sanitized, is sprayed from sprinkler heads onto your lawn. From my limited reading, it seems that the aeration and disinfection stages are what makes it different from a traditional septic system. I’m hoping that Shawn will be able to begin work so that part of our home construction can continue. I’d hate for him to get behind in his work (sorry, I really couldn’t resist).
Wesley, our site supervisor, also dropped off (on the front porch) the stained sample door for us to look at and…….. I don’t like it. It’s too dark. Not enough gold? I don’t know. The above pics show the sample door against various pieces of furniture in our rental home, and it just isn’t quite right… Maybe I’m getting slap happy in this little rental house with John. So Wesley is going to try to get the paint/stain guy to see if he can lighten it up or they will take the sample can of stain back to Sherwin Williams (again) to see if they can get some more yellow in it to lighten it up.
As many have (according to what I’ve seen on Instagram, Pinterest, and my few forays back to Facebook), I’ve also begun giving our rental home a good cleaning. I like this book, The Complete of Clean, as it provides good advice not just for cleaning everything in your home, but also how to make your own cleaning solutions. They use natural ingredients like Pure Castile Liquid Soap (almond is my favorite scent), essential oils, vinegar, and rubbing alcohol. It’s actually been fun to create the various potions and the house really does smell great.
As we wait things out, I hope you are all doing well. They began announcing this evening that Austin and Travis County will be under a “shelter in place” order beginning tomorrow. I don’t know what that will mean for our home building project (and of course, we don’t want anyone to get ill because they came to work at our house!), but then we don’t live in and are not building in Travis County.
John and I are lucky that we can both do our jobs from home – although my work is changing drastically as I’m obviously not traveling like I did before. I traveled over 19,000 miles just in January and February of 2020. Now I’m trying to figure out how I can take a two-day live training program and make it interactive from my desk in a tiny town in Texas for people in British Columbia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the next three weeks. But as my grandmother would say, “I’m blessed with work.” Hope you all are as well and stay safe.
Hugs, Libby
I agree the stain is too dark. Surely they can lighten it for you! Good luck with construction. I more than feel your pain.
Hey Jan,
Yes, it is getting frustrating because we keep saying light cherry stain, warm cherry stain, etc. and the stain guy keeps making it so brown. We obviously like warm toned woods, as you can see from our pics of furniture we own.
I was surprised to see that your space hasn’t begun being constructed. I feel for you – our builder said we would be able to move in to our new home in 8 weeks, but that was more than a week ago and nothing really happened last week…
Bogle is decent. Take care, you two.
Thanks Donnie! Hope you and yours are doing well too.