Weekday Wednesday --

It has seemed like such a looong week this week for some reason - and we're only halfway through. 

I keep hearing on the news that the drought across the mid-west is the worst since the 50's, but it NEVER stops raining down here.  The paddocks are a muddy mess and both Lizzie's and Arthur's stalls are total disasters.  I can shovel their poop okay, but I've just shoveled it into the corners of their stalls because, although I could load up the carts, I CAN'T manage to empty them.  You have to lift one end of it in order to get it completely emptied, and that's not something I'm able to do at the moment.  Not to mention how hard it is to haul them through the wet ground to get over there to where we dump them.  And THAT will have to be changed once John and Bruce get that property upgraded -- we plan to haul everything all the way back to the far back corner then.  We'll need to put a new gate in to get out back there, too.  Always something.  But on the plus side, at least that way we will be able to hire someone to bring in a backhoe and clean up the pile of horse poo  periodically.

Buddy and Lisa had quite a weekend last week, so they haven't been here to deal with the stalls either (although they DID come by and bring me those wonderful steaks he ordered for us -- AND some more of that yummy bread pudding). 

It's a darned good thing that Duke, at least, keeps his stall completely pristine since he likes to sleep stretched out on the floor in there.  Even if it's pouring down rain, he goes outside when he has to go.  Good GOOD boy.  Lizzie and Arthur?  Ha!  NOT even.  So they don't have much clean space in theirs at all at this point.  But since they both sleep standing up most of the time anyway, I'm sure they'll manage just fine until their rooms get cleaned out.

And then there's OUR rooms.  There are so many things that need done around the house that would have taken us next to no time at all a decade or two ago.  Now? . . . I think we just need to find someone to come in and deal with it all for us once and for all.  It would be nice to get rid of all the stuff that's laying around all over the house waiting to be used for . . . whatever.    Hard to imagine how many things there are that need to be updated after only 10 years living here!  Good grief!

For starters, the vanity in the upstairs "french door bedroom" needs to be disconnected and moved down to Mark's master bathroom downstairs.  His original vanity pretty much fell apart, and I've tried to find a new one but haven't been able to find anything we like that's the right color.  That vanity in the bedroom upstairs is the same color as the built-in wall cabinets in his master bath, so moving it down should be the perfect solution.  That will get it out of the way in that upstairs room and get his master bath functioning again.  Since it's turned out that we are using that room upstairs as a bedroom and NOT as an office as we originally planned, there's no need for it up there at all.  (We put it in there to begin with so there could be a coffee maker and microwave in the "office").

Then once that vanity is removed, the wall will need to be repaired up there.  And the trim pieces on the recessed lighting need to be replaced there, as well.  When we did the original remodel for some reason we ended up with just a couple of each trim types when we got to that last room, so the lights in the ceiling up there have trim that does not match.  (We've been going to fix that for 10 years now, but we keep forgetting about it.)

In our master bedroom, that "window seat" needs to be removed and baseboards installed in that space in front of the window.  I've decided not to even bother having a storage chest built for there.  Heaven knows we have MORE than enough storage space.  I just want to be able to put a chair or two in that space by the window.

And in MY master bath, the faucet on my sink needs to be replaced and I want to put in a "strainer" instead of a pop-up drain.  I like those strainer things because they keep anything from accidentally going down the drain.  And since I never close the drain and fill up the sink, I don't need a closeable one anyway. 

Since my sink has three wide-spaced holes,  I'm going to put this "kitchen" faucet with a sprayer in there so I can rinse out the sink -- and dog water bowls -- easily.  I plan to live in this house until I'm gone, so I don't CARE if this isn't an appropriate bathroom faucet.  It's what will work well for me.   ;-D

Oh - and Mark will be getting still another "prize" from his company soon! . . . this time because his rig has been safe all year.  It's a medium-sized flatscreen TV!  Love it!  I think it might go into one of those upstairs bedrooms - or maybe on the wall in the dining room IF we can figure out how the heck to run a satellite wire over to it there.  Whatever.  It'll be nice.