Thursday, January 10, 2008

Stashing more than Yarn

This has been a pretty big week in my household.

We had no power for almost 6 full days. The PGE line crew showed up at 2:22 in the MORNING Wednesday. I told hubby to put in the pizzas we bought to use as a bribe if we found one (line crew that is) out and about then rolled over and went back to sleep.

Deafness = being able to mostly sleep through the banging (new cross beam), pulling and general truck noise - especially if I sleep on my left side.

Woke up to a powered house again and happy RV batteries. Did you know that my cul-de-sac doesn't even show up on the PGE computer. So when we call and say our power is still out, they say no it's not. Excuse me, I'm AT my house, wouldn't I know if my power were back?

Now last Friday - the day Operation Kill That Cul-de-Sac was started by Mother Nature - we were supposed to have our first official interview for our foster parent quest (can you tell we game?). The lady was sick and canceled the night before.

Whew as we wouldn't have made it.

It was rescheduled for Tuesday (two days ago for those of you not keeping track of the days of the week) and I was a nervous wreck but I had everything except the water clearance ready. The lady we met with is very nice, but very difficult to read so I have no idea how we did.

Now our home inspection was supposed to be tomorrow (Friday). But we were still without power (electric kind :-) ) and tentatively scheduled a backup appointment for next Wednesday if we didn't have it back in time to take care of the house. We have power so the appointment is still on.

Therefore last night was spent moving every chemical, medication, soap, bug spray, sunblock, bug repellant, you name it into the already full cupboards of our laundry room. Why that room? It can be locked off from the rest of the house.

Here is a list of things I apparently hoard without checking the current stock:

1. Windex
2. Carpet Cleaner - in spite of having found the miracle spot remover
3. Sunblock - the number of bottles is upwards of 20 I think - hey no child in my house will ever get sunburned - let me tell you
4. Bug repellent
5. Hand soap refills
6. Clorox Wipes - 10 containers of the things - you cannot use all of them before they dry out

All the meds are in two plastic snap lock bins in the upper corner cabinet. The one lower cabinet in that room contains nothing chemical (I hope the little buggers don't want to eat my dust cloths). Everything was able to be contained in all the upper cabinets. I am considering changing the cabinet handles from knobs to actual U handles which can be locked if needed. We will see what they say about being able to lock the room.

I did purge a bunch of stuff (carefully - none of this stuff is environmentally friendly) and consolidated multiples of the same item.

I also made sure all the bullets in the gun safe are in their own lockbox within the safe and only hubby and I know where the key to that box is (and that would NOT be in the safe). He will make sure all the guns get stored in there. He had monitor the dogs duty last night while I purged both bathrooms and the kitchen sink area of chemicals and meds.

Anyone know if it's okay to leave my hair spray and lotions in the bathroom? What about perfume? Nail Polish? I know nail polish remover has to be moved. What about my makeup? Ack I just remembered there is butane fuel and silver polish in the dining room drawer. MUST move those when I get home. Can you tell I'm in a panic?

It still strikes me as funny that the guns and chemicals and meds have to be put away, but I can leave my butcher block knives out on the island.

I have no idea what they are going to say about the wine rack in the kitchen, but all other hard liquor will be moved to the top shelf of the pantry. Maybe if we move the wine rack to the newly organized pantry and put a lock on that it will be okay. And that would free up some counter space in the kitchen for the bread machine which is currently hanging out next to the stove.

We figure the garage will be banned, or hubby will have to break down and buy two LARGE locking cabinets for all the chemicals - oil, fuel, car cleaners, glues, paints (boy do we have paint - I need to hit the toxic roundup or craigslist with some of it), etc. Either that or we finish our plan to build a 10' x 10' shed at the end of the RV pad (yes more concrete will go down) and lock all of that stuff in there. I don't know, we'll figure it out.

Tonight is clean, clean and more cleaning. Now that I know where all the cleaning supplies are, I have no excuse not to do so.

Next concern is yard hazards. Does a downed fence count as a hazard? Probably, but that won't be fixed by tomorrow at 3 pm. our yard is what it is. The fish pond is going away (anyone want a turtle?) and we need to lock the cover on the hot tub. I don't know how they feel about wood piles. Sigh.

All I can do is hope for the best and let you all know how it turns out.

4 comments:

Alison said...

One would think they would jump harder at the chance to sign someone up as new foster parents--it's not like there's a surplus!

--AlisonH at spindyeknit.com

Kathleen said...

Wow! You have your work cut out for the both of you. Good luck with all the foster care stuff. I love having a hearing "problem". When I need sleep and hubby has the game going on in the other room still I simply sleep on my right side and silence is upon me. Love it. I am going to try and make knitting group on Sat. Take care.

Alyknitsandknits said...

Wow! what hard work. I can understand the chemicals and guns (ours are locked up, too), but I would just about freak if they were picky about a woodpile (I hope they're not). You are supposed to be fostering kids, not wrapping them in bubble wrap! Giving them a place to run, have fun, and oh my Gosh yes, maybe getting a splinter while climbing the woodpile - is the whole point - to make sure they get to have some normalcy in their lives.

DK said...

Wow, a, ditto to what Alison said. There are so many bad fosters in the system, you'd think they'd be lobbing children in your windows (you know what I mean).

And, I don't know why, but your house purging and locking and shifting is really amusing to me. Not that you would do it, exactly, but how you may well get dinged for clorox. I mean, the guns, yeah, lock 'em up tight. But I always managed not to drink the silver polish when I was a kid, you know?

PS, I'm glad Operation Kill That Cul-de-sac failed.

PPS, I finally mailed the yarn on Friday, from the hospital bookstore, of all things. Anyway, hope you like it!!! And I hope the foster agency doesn't object to brightly colored socks...'cause really, that sock yarn could blind a kid!