Sunday, November 30, 2008

Virginia or Bust

Well, as you all know I went on a wild ride to Virginia to help Mom and Dad with getting their house ready for their open house. Steve was absolutely WONDERFUL and stayed with the kids while I was able to fly kid-free to work non-stop for a little less than 48 hours. I was also blessed to have a great friend watch the kids on Friday while Steve worked so that I could go Friday. As usual, things were crazy and I still had 2 final papers and 2 final exams to complete by Sunday night so I did a lot of work at the airport and on the plane, with only about 2 hours worth of work when I got home. (As an aside, I did complete all my work still and got an A in each of my classes. Hooray!).
Anyway, on to the play-by-play of the weekend:

Thursday Night:
Started a final exam at midnight and got to bed by 2:00...

Friday:
*Up at 4:30
*On the bus at 6:20
*Plane takes off at 8:50, arrives at 10:30
*Mom picked me up and we joined Michael for lunch, toured his work, and arrived at Mom and Dad's house by 1:00
*Mom, her friend Liz, and I started on the basement at 1:20pm, finished working for the day at 11:30pm, when Dad and I took a load of items to a storage unit

Saturday:
*Up at 7:30 and back to the basement!
*Phone call at 11:00 that someone wants to tour the house at 1:00! We freaked out and started running around: Mom-straight to the bathrooms and floors; Dad and Mary-filling a pickup with garbage to take the dump; Mary-yard work extravaganza-trimming bushes, weeding, spreading ground cover.
*While dad ran the load to the dump, I finished the yardwork and cleaned the garage. When he returned at 12:30 we filled the truck again with things for the storage unit and the back of the Envoy with things for a local thrift store. It was just in time, too, because the realtor pulled up while I was running up the back stairs with the last items!
*The phone calls continued to come in and we were supposed to be gone until 3:00, but we sneaked back in between house hunters and grabbed another full load for the thrift store.
*Next it was off to some stores to grab more supplies to stage the house: new curtains for the kitchen, cleaning supplies, wall hooks, etc.
*Mom and Dad had to get ready for a dinner they HAD to go to (no choice since they were in charge of the activity), so I worked on Dad's office. Michael and I emptied out several closets and filled the Envoy again with boxes of papers, binders, and closet items to take to the storage unit. Michael and I also put up some art in Mom and Dad's room, which looked gorgeous.
*The office was a gem when we were finished (see the pictures) so I started in on Mom and Dad's closets--Mom and Dad came home at this time so Mom and I worked on color coding clothing (yeah, we actually did), moving around clothes to make the walk-in-closet look huge, organizing shelves, and dusting everything.
*Next, it was on to ironing the curtains, gluing down any slightly wallpaper that was peeling slightly, and waxing all the gorgeous hardwood floors.
*Finally, off to bed at about 2:30.

Sunday:
*I was up by 7:30 for my flight, which was delayed of course! Still, it gave me time to work on my final paper for class and I was able to almost completely finish it before getting home at 4:00pm. Steve and the kids got home from church 5 minutes after I walked in the door and it was back to work!

Well, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the fun of last weekend....and here is a glimpse of some of the work we did. It was so much fun! To see 15 pictures online, you can check out the listing below, this has pictures that were taken before last weekend.
http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?loc=ashburn%2c+VA&mnp=395000&mxp=396000&sid=50a231b9d17e46c6a3209189fe2f612a&lid=1104956371&lsn=2&srcnt=2



3 comments:

Laura said...

It's amazing how much you got done! I'm sure your Mom and Dad really appreciated the help.

Liz said...

Wow! That sounds absolutely NUTS! The house looks wonderful though, great job!

connell family said...

That sounds just crazy. But it looks great. You are awesome and I am sure that your parents really appreciated all the help.