Maga's Cleaning and Repair Crew

Several hours after departure, we arrived at my mom's house to help her get things ready for out-of-town guests. We had either four hours or til the next morning, depending on the amount of work that needed to be done. My nephews arrived on scene to help with the heavy lifting and other tasks assigned by Maga. 

First, Buck and the boys took charge of the backyard fence which was significantly bowed in. Buck made a run or two to the store for supplies, put some gas in my brother's truck, decided he's never driving that truck again (the seat and seatbelt are not attached!), and pretty soon, the fence looked fencey once more. 

While mom and I discussed details of dad's story and his upcoming celebration of life, Caelan got her puppy settled, and then started washing windows. When she reached a point where she couldn't reach quite high enough . . . she recruited my tall 19-year-old brother. He said he didn't know how to wash windows. Caelan said firmly, "Put your shoes on and follow me." It was pretty amusing :) 

As Lo got a quick lesson in window washing, Caelan stood by to make sure the job got completed correctly. Lo came in shaking his head and saying, "She's picky like Mom." Ha! Too funny :) That window got clean though, didn't it? Good teamwork ;)



Gabby took on the task of clearing out the guest room. It had been the *clean laundry* room most of the summer, so much folding needed to occur. Gabby put all the boys' clothes into a basket, and then I went through the entire basket with Lo making sure his clothes got put into his dresser and CJ's clothes got put into CJ's dresser (the underwear I let him sort himself! :) See that wooden dresser to the left of the picture? That's one of the heavy things our muscle boys carried downstairs and to the garage. Nice work muscle boys Graysen and A (and eventually C :)

But that wasn't the only thing that needed to be carried downstairs . . . this horrid, body odor smell was emanating from Lo's room (adjoining the guest room). I thought, "Maybe it is just teen boy smell, like on the Febreze commercials." But it kept getting stronger. Apparently (gag), Lo had three or four partial jugs of milk in his dorm-sized fridge--which no longer cools. The spoiled, separated, chunky milk was just rotting in his room . . . and then someone opened the door (gaggaggag)!! 

A and Lo carried that nasty red fridge down the stairs and out the door, where Lo blasted it with a garden hose. Back upstairs, he grabbed a spray bottle of Old Spice and decided to throuroughly douse his room and the hallway with "smell good." It no smell good. It smell very, VERY bad!!!

Buck came up the stairs, his eyes watering . . . "What on earth??!" It was so gross!! We couldn't stop laughing.

In the meantime, Buck wired in a light fixture for mom's bathroom with help from Brennen. They took several tries at hanging the bathroom mirror, and C stepped in to help the complex holding system necessary to get the giant mirror put in place. It ended up looking really cute!



Maybe not quite as "cute," but definitely with some flair, Graysen put together this outfit from miscellaneous clothing he'd collecting out of various rooms. He also helped Lo and A load CJ's scary truck full of all the yard clippings mom had stacked on a trailer next to the house. That was a big job!



While we waited for our first ever Door Dash purchase (noodles) to arrive, Buck and I rehung some wallpaper in the boys' bathroom. I have years of experience in wallpapering; Buck manned the spray adhesive :) We're a good team!

All-in-all, I'd say we had a pretty productive four-and-half hours. Mom said she felt like the house was closer to company ready. I had some good contacts and tasks to follow up on, answers to questions I had in writing dad's story, and felt better that mom felt more settled.

We decided that the remaining work (including wallpapering from scratch, painting, trim, caulk, etc. etc.) was going to take more time than we had in the morning to complete (dentist appointments mid-afternoon). Plus, all that bedding and finding places for the six of us to sleep would create more work for mom. We decided to hightail it home, and arrived pretty late. 

Whew, what a full day!