Comfy Floors and Strange Visitors

It felt indescribably good to put my feet on a finished floor when I awoke yesterday morning! Zorak keeps thinking he's stepped on something and it takes a second before he realizes it's not something that shouldn't have been on the floor. We're having a lot of fun with the whole carpet thing.

I've been smitten. Thankfully, it wasn't a full smack-down (yet), but I am sick. I was miserable yesterday. And today. Tomorrow's not lookin' so hot, either. Ick. However, I feel better than Smidge, who awoke crusted over and slimy like something from a Clive Barker flick, looks. Poor little guy. I had slathered him with items from the voo-doo bag the night before (a little eye of newt, a little dragon's liver, and a dab of chicken foot) and evidently it did the trick because the next morning everything that had been inside his body was now outside it. All over it. Amazing. He was feeling a tad bit better by bedtime last night, so I think he's reaching the end.

Yesterday nothing was accomplished other than two loads of bedding, which I then added to the mining camp ensemble to dry. That's one thing I miss about living in the desert: wash hung on the line dries in the same amount of time it takes the next load to wash. I really, really miss that.

Zorak wants to begin on the master bedroom this weekend. I think I'll let him.

Oh, and we had a bizarre visitor yesterday. While the kids and I were enjoying lunch, a white pickup pulled in and a young kid (I'm guessing mid-20's) got out and came to the door. When I answered, he said he noticed from the road that we're fixing the place up. Said his granddad had built this house and would we like to have the original plans to the house. Now, this, in itself, doesn't strike me as weird. If Zorak's Granny had sold her place and we saw that somebody was fixing it up, we'd stop and say hi, tell some stories about the old place, and just be friendly in general. What strikes me as weird is that (a) you can't SEE this place from the road, and (b) you can't tell we're doing anything other than trashing the place from the outside.

He went on to tell a few stories which may or may not jive with what we know about the place. He said it was built in the late sixties and that it burnt down a few years later and the structure that's on there now was rebuilt after the fire.(County records say it was built in '71. Something was on fire at some point in the Dean Koontz room, but I'm not sure if it's indicative of a whole house fire...) He identified a few of the fruit trees on the property, although one he got wrong (said it's a fig and it's a chokecherry - I have no idea how close those two are in appearance). He shared a lot of information I wouldn't share about my family in a town this small. In all, he was fairly believable, but the whole visit had a feel of "doesn't quite fit".

Anyhow, I didn't let him in. I couldn't shake the feeling that he is the son of the folks who lost this place and that he was running recon for them to see if they want to buy it back. He mentioned having come into an inheritance a while back, and that was the big flag-raiser for me. Both our realtor and the closing attorney said that usually the only way people come to claim a right of redemption is when they receive an inheritance that allows them to afford to buy the place back. He asked if my husband would be home that evening and said he'd bring the plans by. He never came back. I hope he doesn't. But I can't feel at ease about the encounter. I'll be so thankful when we get the all-clear in May. Until then, please pray that it stays quiet on that front.

Today we'll keep cleaning and resting. I'm going to work with John on his reading as soon as he finishes breakfast. The older two are still sound asleep and resting. I think I'm going to go climb back in bed and wait for John.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy