The new couch arrived before Jack did this morning, at around 10:30. We didn't schedule the delivery very well weatherwise; it snowed 2-3" last night, so the wood floors in the living room are now covered with muddy boot prints. The red ultrasuede fabric seemed to come through the rough-and-tumble assembly process—not to mention the snow—with only a few stray bits of grit and styrofoam clinging to it, however, and it looks fabulous.
The main kitchen news today is that the cabinet handles came in; Jack is downstairs installing them now. We also asked him to do some work in the garage—namely, insulating under the soffit, replacing the worn weatherstripping on the garage door frame and the door itself, and improving the seal on the door from the garage to the house. (The idea is to keep the pipes from freezing again as well as keep the basement from getting so cold —the wall under the soffit adjoins to the basement laundry room, and there were gaps you could see through around the ductwork). Aldo is doing the garage work at the moment.
Who is Aldo, you ask? He's the kid (about 20-22 years old) who rang the doorbell about an hour after Jack arrived this morning. I went down to answer it, and he just stared at me for a few seconds, as if surprised that the homeowner was actually home. (Or maybe it was the lavender hair I'm sporting at the moment.) I smiled at him and raised my eyebrows expectantly. He finally said, "is Jack here?" I replied that he was... somewhere, and that he could feel free to roam around until he found him.
I then returned to my upstairs workroom, where I've been unpacking and cutting up cardboard boxes for most of the day. Now that the kitchen is almost done, I'm starting to freak out that the rest of the house is in such disarray. Actually, "starting to" isn't quite accurate; I freaked out completely last night. The good news is that when I was done melting down, Al and I were able to come up with a plan for clearing out all the crap and finally getting everything put away, thrown away, or hauled away to charity. It begins with chopping up and bundling up every empty cardboard box I can find. Whatever the garbage guys don't take tonight, I'm bringing to the trash/recycling transfer station tomorrow.
