Fairytale Knits: The Lowdown On the 'Vacation'

Hello All,

Well where should I begin?? I promised I would re-cap our little 'vacation,' so here it goes:

Tuesday we had to be out of the house by 8:30 am, because that was when the floor man was coming to start sanding. I had packed most of our stuff the night before since I'm so not a morning person. Mom drove me and the Emmie (the little dog) over to the old house we were staying at, then she went back to pick up Cassie (the lab), and Mittens (our rather large cat). While she was gone, I drug a lot of stuff upstairs and started to put things away. A little while later, Mom came back and said that she had a little accident with the kitty litter box, and somehow had spilled pee all down the front of her (and even into her shoe) when she was trying to get it out of the bathroom, so we needed to go to the store to get some new litter. We all got in the car, including the cat (he was in a carrier) and drove into town. Cassie went nuts, barking and whining, as soon as we got there. It was so bad that while in the bank, Mom said she could hear her inside! I was so embarrassed!! Finally we left and went back. By this time I was in desperate need of some coffee, so I put a pot on and we enjoyed some time sitting out in the front porch. After awhile, it started to get a bit more damp and cold out and the wind picked up. We heard a big bang from upstairs so we thought we should check on the cat (who was locked into the bathroom up there so he wouldn't run away). Mom went in there to check and came out all panicked because she couldn't find him, so I went in to look and found him squeezed underneath the tub, he was perfectly fine, thankfully. The noise was from one of the upstairs window's had blown open. On the way out of the bathroom, I tried to shut the door but it wouldn't latch (yes, it was so old that it didn't have a knob, but a latch thing, that was really quite complicated). Mom tried it, but when she got it latched the latch-lifter part fell inside the bathroom, so now we had locked the cat in there and couldn't get it open from the outside! We had to drive all the way home to get a knitting needle to lift the latch to get him out. Once we got back and had gotten the dogs to settle down, Mom happened to notice that her lap was wet, I guess Emmie had peed on her while sitting on her knee. So we had to drive all the way home again for her to change. While we were there, we noticed that the sander wasn't very loud and thought that the cat could come back for the time being since he was not enjoying himself being squeezed under the tub in fear. We went back and picked him up and took him home, where he really did seem much happier. We went back to the place and had some lunch, then about an hour later, Mom noticed that Emmie had peed on her a second time! She wanted to go back home to change again. But by this time the rain and wind had increased making it quite cold, even inside since it is a bit drafty in there, what with it being old and all. So we decided we would pack things up and head back home. We found out that morning that we could still sleep in our house until he started to put the finish on the floors which wouldn't be for about four days, and boy can I tell you, I have never been so happy to get back to my own home before!! Trying to get the dogs to settle down there was unbelievable, so it was such a relief to go home where they were use to being.

This is a picture of our kitchen all plastic-wrapped.

The next few days, we spent either upstairs in our rooms, or downstairs in the basement. We couldn't walk on the floors while he was sanding, but we could after he left in the evening, however, the dogs couldn't. It all worked out though because we had a way for them to get inside and outside without going near the floors. The only problem was, that in order to get from upstairs to the basement, you had to either go out the front door and around the house outside and come in the basement door, or climb over the banister, down onto the library table, then onto the desk, then jump by the dinning room table (all this stuff is in the entrance way) down onto the floor which from there you could go down the stairs. During these few days, I got to finish some projects (there will be pictures to come in the next few days). It was good for me to be stuck in my room all day, because it forced me to work. I might have to keep that in mind when I have my next deadline looming!

By Saturday afternoon, he was ready to put the first coat of finish on, so Mom and I took the dogs and went for a drive, which I must admit was quite the thing because Cassie would not settle in the car and just kept barking and whining. We couldn't go back to the old resort because there were other people staying there and we didn't think they would appreciate the dogs running around. After a few hours, we thought we should go back home and feed the dogs and check on the smell. We were hoping it didn't smell too much so that we could sleep in our rooms because we really had no other plan. Well, needless to say, it stunk so incredibly bad. The fumes were so thick, that when you walked into the entrance way, you could actually feel them. It definitely ruled out sleeping in our rooms. We took the cat (who had been shut in the upstairs bathroom with a towel in front of the door) because we didn't want him staying in the smell, and we went back out for another drive. We went and got some dinner, then sat out by the bridge to think of what we could do for sleeping arrangements. Sadly, the only thing that we could come up with was to sleep in our garage. It has a heater, and all the furniture was already in there, so it seemed like the only logical place to stay. I must admit that I never thought I would sleep in a garage, but it really wasn't all that bad. It was sort of like camping I guess, if I had ever been camping, which I haven't. We have a freezer in there, and used a cooler with ice as a fridge for our food, and both Mom and I had our own couches to sleep on, Cassie had a chair, Mittens had his free roam of the place, and Emmie slept on the couch with Mom. We had to spend two nights out there. It was definitely an experience. The only downfall, was that since the china cabinet inside the house was pushed up against the door that leads from the garage into the house, we had to use the garage side door and go across the deck to the side door on the house to get in. We had to do this even in the night (and I must say that those were two of the coldest nights of the whole summer) when we needed to use the bathroom...not too fun.

That is our food station, and our lighting....as you can see we even brought the tea kettle.

This is Cassie sleeping in her chair.

This is Mittens, doesn't he look relaxed??

All in all, it wasn't really a 'vacation' but it was ok. I wouldn't do it again, but it was better than it could have been I'm sure. Being able to stay in our house for most of the days was very nice, and the garage really wasn't all that bad.