My Second Week Of Summer Vacation

After great hopes of having a second better week than the first, I am now resigned to the fact that finding a little time for myself - not going to happen! This is how week #2 went:

Sunday Evening - after washing the red floor for the painter, I went home to have a bath. As I was soaking in the tub, I realized that Monday morning was the start of shipping. I jumped out of that tub like it was electrified and ran to the phone, dialed up Nicole and asked her if she had completed the invoices for shipping. (Nicole comes out just before we start shipping every month, makes a list of who has placed an order and generates a computer invoice with all of the shipping information on it, not the facts of the order, because that can change right up to the last minute, but at least we don't have to hand write the top of the order form and it saves a little time). Nicole did not have the invoices done ( it is now 10:00pm) but she promises to stay up late and do just the calendar club invoices. Because I was so worried about having the floor ready for the painter, I have neglected to clean up and organize the area in which we actually do the shipping, so over to the workshop in my pjamas I go. Check to see that all the boxes and bags, blank shipping lists, signs on the totes are all ready. Clean a little. Go home at 12:15 and try to sleep. Can't sleep, too wired - possibly the Diet Coke at midnight had something to do with that????

Monday - get up extra early and be at OK Tire at 7:30am to pick up the invoices from Nicole. She promises that she will be out to the workshop after supper to complete the invoices for the regular club. Pick up freight, forgot to pick up case of beer (necessary during shipping), and some ink for the computer - back to the workshop by 9:00am. Dana is already there, coffee is made and the painter has shown up and is setting up scaffolding. Start shipping calendar club, end at 6:00pm. Clean up all of the shipping area, go home and cook supper, get back to the workshop by 7:30pm as Edna is there to work on year end books. Wait for Nicole, try to call her cell, paint wall in the master bedroom ( AGAIN!!) wait for Nicole, call her mom to try and locate her, give up about 9:30 and start doing the invoices myself. Edna leaves at 11:30, I am done invoices by midnight, shut off computer, go home to fall in bed with clothes on. Nicole still missing in action.

Tuesday - arrive back at the workshop by 7:30am, move all of Edna's books out of the way. Check computer for new orders, make coffee for painter, get out Dana's BIG bottle of Bailey's for coffee for Dana and I, alphabetize all of the orders and collate with invoices, Dana arrives at 9:00am. Painter is beginning to question the color that I have chosen for the workshop, so we look through samples and choose another (lighter) color. She starts to repaint the edging that she did the day before. Start shipping regular club. End at 6:30. Still no word from Nicole. Quickly run home and have a bowl of cereal - back to the workshop at 7:30 for the next round of income tax books. HATE BOOKWORK!!! Pretty grouchy! Edna tells me that the reason why Nicole did not come was the fact that her computer crashed at work and she had to stay and do payroll. Work with Edna until 1:00am

Wednesday - Last day of shipping. Mike has to call me three times to get me out of bed. I am really grouchy!!! Dana and I just start shipping and my Mom and Dad show up to put the oak trim around all of the windows and around the floor in the master bathroom and bedroom. I catch them trying to carry in a table saw and I point out that no more cutting is allowed in the house, due to the fact that we have kits in plastic bags spread out all over the house. They keep carrying the table saw. I get a little more frantic and suggest that I will personally run outside and cut each and every board, myself, if they will just leave that thing outside. My Dad persists and soon I have a table saw whining in the background and sawdust flying everywhere. Shut the door to the room they are working in, take a deep breath, go outside and smoke three cigarettes in rapid succession. Go back in and continue shipping - done by supper time. Cereal again for supper and then drive over to my parents house to plan the 50th wedding anniversary party. Home by 9:30, bath, water the almost dead plants on the veranda, when was the last time I fed the dogs??? Notice that the two farm dogs are all clean and are wearing new collars. Where did they get that? Mike informs me that I forgot to take the dogs to their appointment so the groomer came out to the farm and picked them up. Fall into bed around 11:00. Exhausted!!!

Thursday - Go to work extra early to check out the paint job, as today the painter should just be cleaning up and packing away her supplies. Check over all of the walls and LOVE the job that she did! However, every time that her bright yellow scaffolding fell on the ground, it left big yellow streaks on the cement floor. Going to have to wash those all off before the glaze goes on. Spend the day checking over orders, seeing that everyone has the right kits, the orders have been placed in the right bins and that all of the names are on the correct sheets. Load up all of the boxes for Canada Post and go to the post office. Make seven trips into the building, stand in line for one hour while they scan in all of the postal codes and put the stickers on the boxes. Look at the grouchy faces of the other people waiting in line (because of me) and decide that next time I should come at a different time of day to avoid death threats! $340.00 later and a till tape five feet long, all of the parcels are on their way to the scrapbookers. Yahoo!! Run a few errands, drop off the boxes at the courier, pick up something other than cereal for supper and go back to the workshop. Dana is gone, the painter is gone, clean up the mess from the table saw, notice that the wall beneath the bathroom window will have to be repainted because Dad has marked it up putting in the mouldings. How many times am I going to have to paint this thing????? Go home, make supper and start cleaning up the house. Start with the laundry room, only get as far as the top of the basement stairs and I seriously can not put one foot in front another to do any more. See Edna's car coming up the road. Shit, forgot that she was coming back$^$$$&& Spend until midnight doing books. Fall into bed.

Friday - Get up to the sound of the tractor starting right below the bedroom window. Haying season has begun. I guess Mike was too scared to wake me up. Go downstairs and survey the damage in my house. There are unwashed dishes from last weekend when Phillip and Haida left, the floors are sticky with the puppy pee, garbage is overflowing, decide that I can not meet Christy today to give her the kits because I would be unsafe on the highway. Way too tired to drive to Nanton - have to clean this house!! Spend the day cleaning, thank God for good tunes!!!! Finish up around 7:00pm, take Mike supper in the field, go home, lay down on the sofa for a few minutes. Remember that the floor in the workshop needs to be washed before we can put glaze on it, go over and start mopping. Paint won't come off, so get out a putty knife and start chipping away at it. Wash the whole 1100 square feet on my hands and knees, scraping as I go. Mike comes to pick me up at 10:00pm just as it is ready to glaze. Fall asleep on the sofa.

Saturday - Wake up at 6:30 am, need to get the glaze down before it gets too hot - it looks like it is going to be a cooker today. Go over to the workshop, vacuum the floor and start painting the edges with the sealer while Mike rolls the glaze on the middle of the floor. The fumes start out not too bad, but the further we go, the more toxic the fumes become. Flies start dropping dead from the ceiling. (Maybe we should have worn masks????) Finish the first coat, go over to Mom and Dad's and dewinterrize their 5th wheel trailer, go to town for lunch, come back and put a second coat on the floor. Go back to town and get groceries, invite Colleen MacDonald and her girls over for supper. Cook, eat, enjoy supper out on the veranda, take Colleen back to the Inn and crash into bed.

Sunday - Sleep in until 8:30, bath and do hair properly for the first time in a week (starting to look like a homeless person), wave at my husband as he goes round and round the field. Stop in town and get snacks and go out to the Inn. Poor Mike, some farm wives would probably stay home in haying season to take him drinks and food during the day, but not me. Today, I am going SCRAPBOOKING!!!! Colleen and I are going to sit and enjoy the day, catch up on our visiting and do a little scrapbooking. At least that was the plan. But, by 5:00pm, he is already broke down and needs me to come home and run a part into Pincher Farm Equipment for repairs. Well, so much for my day vacation. Finish up the laundry, pack all of the totes into my car to get ready for tomorrow.

Week #2 is over, only one more to go. This vacation thing is a myth!!