Judy L's UFO Challenge

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Chronicles of Sandra Bringing in the Big Guns

I have been at Sandra's house every day this week except Tuesday. Today I brought in the big guns. Nick and Nate are kids in our neighborhood that are friends with my kids. They are 21 and 19 respectively. I had a lot of heavy lifting that I wanted to get done in a short period of time so I asked them if they wanted to earn a few bucks. They took all the fabric that she had in her stash outside. They were supposed to vacuum and then stick it all back in there in a way that it would be accessible by an aisle in between. Before they did this Sandra had asked them to pull the tubs of fabric off of her back patio. The way that she talked I thought there were only three big tubs. There were an additional 20 to 30 small tubs. She also had them pull out the tub's that had the quilting magazines in them and she told me she wanted to give those to people at the sit and sew and members of the guild.

They brought all the fabric from the patio out into the backyard and the magazines into the house. I was shocked and overwhelmed at the amount of fabric that she had on the patio and that I was now going to try and get into her house and her stash area. Things got lost in translation and before I knew it the guys were putting everything into the stash room without having cleaned out as I had asked. I had them back up a little bit and rearrange things. We were not able to make the aisle as I had requested but the smaller containers are more accessible and also the boxes and other open items are closer to the front so that I can get to them and get them sorted and stored properly.

Once everything was off the patio and the patio was straightened up the guys came in and helped me with some heavy lifting. Sandra also has a request for them and they took care of those things for her as well. I should've gotten all those magazines out to my car because before I did Sandra was going through them and looking at every one. She promised that she would get through them quickly so that the remainder could get taken out of the house quickly. In all fairness she did manage to pull out quite a few and send those with me before I left.

A recurring topic of discussion for Sandra is her desire to have her living room looking more presentable so that when she has company people don't have to look over the stuff that is stacked on top of the card table. While the guys were working so hard to get the patio straightened out and the fabric moved around I was inside getting that table cleared off. I managed to get the table taken down and the guys put it out on the patio for Sandra. There were a lot of lids for missing containers and empty containers with no lids. I left them there so that when their mate shows up I will be able to find it. Her son-in-law is the executor of her will and always comments about her home and its contents. I was mainly getting that task accomplished for both their sake so that he could see that she was making progress. The living room will continue to be our sorting location but it will look less disastrous now.

What the two guys and I accomplished today in 2 and a half hours would have taken me weeks to do alone. Sandra paid them for their time and I'm very appreciative of them and let them know that.

There is one room that remains that I have not gotten into yet. It is her guestroom and was previously her daughters room. I'm not sure what all is in there but I have to get through the door first. I'm planning to go over there while my boyfriend watches NASCAR tomorrow and begin that process.

Hugs!

Swooze

3 comments:

Glen QuiltSwissy said...

Hey Ray! You go right ahead and enjoy your NASCAR!

Sending positive vibes for Sandra and making a path......

Karen - Quilts...etc. said...

sounds like a huge job to do!

patty a. said...

Sounds like you and your helpers accomplished a lot. I wish my Dad would have let us clean up his place before he died. We hauled out 58 bags of trash. I couldn't believe how much there was in the closets, in the drawers, just stuff everywhere. He said he didn't want us kids throwing away his stuff. We just wanted to clean up and get rid of the stuff he didn't want anymore and make more room in the garage so it was easier to park and get in and out of the car.