Christmas at the Cabin

 

Work Week #2 at the Cabin: Interior

Last month, the kids and I spent a week at the cabin 1) to celebrate Kyla’s birthday, 2) to kick off our lifetime’s most unusual school year, and 3) so I could do heaps and mounds of exterior maintenance. This time, I was ready to tackle the inside.

Guests do all sorts of head-scratching damage. There were large dents in some bedroom walls in really unusual places. The boogers dried onto the bedrooms walls weren’t all Wes’s, and the dirty footprints in the same places weren’t all Kyla’s. We got there Saturday afternoon, and by midnight, I had the kids’ room repainted. [Since I had been there a little earlier to meet the exterminator, I had washed and patched the room then.]

I got 3 gallons of the same paint* and painted all three bedrooms and the landing over the week.

*Calming Cream, from the Joanna Gaines collection at Ace, satin, $50/gallon, for my own records.

This was the most time-consuming project, but not the worst. Tuesday was my day to use a wrist-torquing high-powered drill and hole saw to drill a 4″ hole behind the dryer. The original dryer vent went through the floor, kinking through the crawl space, and out a perpendicular wall. When we had the new dryer installed about 5 years ago, I never noticed they used a non-standard (read: COMPLETELY WRONG!) hose. That, combined with the long, winding venting path led to longer and longer drying times, which is pretty much the bottleneck in turning over a short-term rental quickly for new guests. It took hours, and lots of “Ouch, ouch, DAMN!’s”, and even when I tunneled all the way through, the pipe didn’t quite fit. Fortunately, my parents came over the next day and Dad has quite the useful and esoteric tool collection. He had just the right sort of power tool to smooth out the few ridges preventing the tube to go through. In just minutes, we had the new vent installed. Thank you, Dad!!

The final task was to get rid of the mice, the mouse poop, and, completely related, thoroughly disinfect the entire downstairs. We have owned the cabin for 8 years, almost to the day, before our first signs of mice. One guest canceled because of the mice, and another postponed their trip, but after the joint efforts of pest control and myself, we have not found any new evidence and hope to button up this problem soon.

On our very last evening before finally getting to go back home to Dwayne, I built a bonfire fueled with the pruned cherry tree branches I had piled up last time I was here. The kids had their sausage roast and s’mores. Our fav kids (and parents!) joined us. There are few more delightful moments than kids just playing–jumping, hiding, running, and doing the Penguins Drinking Tea camp song. It was a delightful way to end the week, even if not quite as good as a solo paddleboard hour.

Once again, Mischief Managed!

A Bright Spot in the Middle of a Work Week

 

One day soon, I will go to the cabin and enjoy it. In the meantime, I settle for enjoying getting needed work done. And this.

The kids were done with school (aka tantrums) for the day, the rains were imminently forecasted, I had reached daylight in my tunneling, and had plenty of dark coming to paint after the kids went to bed, so I took off with my paddleboard.

An almost-deserted Goss Lake

+ almost too warm with the sun on my sweatshirt as the sun slanted down into evening

+ waterproof sleeve for my phone with an audible Robert Galbraith mystery

+ me, myself, and I (my best friends)

= best paddleboard evening I’ve ever had

Whidbey Week: Work and Play

 

Whidbey Week: Work and Play

I credit Kyla with us taking the last week of summer/ first week of school at the cabin. In the 8 years we’ve had the cabin now, this might just be our third time we got a week here.

Kyla’s birthday was a Tuesday; Wednesday, online school started. Because our district did a slow start of the school year, the kids had a lot of extra time on their hands.

I didn’t.

Just for my own recording keeping, here are most of the tasks I managed to do this week:

1. Restain and spar varnish deck furniture
2. Add red spotlight to outdoor furniture
3. Seal hole and paint exterior door red
4. Hang Heartsease sign
5. New planters
6. Wash all downstairs windows in and out, and screens
7. Cleane front gutter
8. Paint front exterior trim
9. Move rocks and clean off concrete slab
10. Work on dryer
11. Take down bunk beds, sell bunk, clean up room
12. Sort through extra linens
13. Wash and wax wood floor
14. Clean out under fridge
15. Drawers
16. Painted shoe bench, cleaned out floor underneath
17. Plant a few more plants,
18. Weed
19. Prune cherry tree
20. Prune grape vines
21. Wash ceiling beams
22. Paint hobbit door with black chalkboard paint
23. Sand wood coffee table to remove markers and crayon
24. Adjust window latches

But, luckily, my kids encourage me to do other things besides work. One evening, I ordered Jim’s Oven-Fired Pizza ahead of time, rounded up the kids, and picked up the pies on our way to Double Bluff Beach sunset picnic. For the first time ever, my kids wanted to walk along the beach, not just frolic in the water and build driftwood forts. The youngers climbed the bluffs, and Kyla just Kyla-ed, which meant I usually, but not always, knew where she was.

I texted Dwayne pictures of the sunset over Seattle and Mr. Rainier and wished him here, but loving all the rest of it.

When Dwayne did make it over for the weekend, he got roped into a few chores I needed help with, but mostly he was responsible for exclaiming appreciatively of my work.

We definitely earned our candlelit dinner at Friends’ house that weekend, and Piper, now habitually drenched, threw herself into the pond for a late night swim, mostly so I would have more pictures of my crazy middle child and her friend.

Hoping to do more of these Whidbey Weeks soon!

Weekend at the Cabin: Hexed*

[*I need to point out my, ahem, clever wordplay--while "hexed" usually implies cursed, "hexa" means six, and I had 3 plus 3 kids at the cabin this weekend...usually plus one!]

When Abby joins us at the cabin, Adeline and Sam, shown here, usually tag along.  The girls have a cute way of using blankets and scarves to engineer a hammock in the back of the van for the dolls to travel in.  When they come down in the morning, the babies are dressed and ready for breakfast.

A highlight of the weekend was taking the kids down to "our" beach.  The tide was really low, making it the perfect mucky, sandy, crabby place to treasure hunt.  

The Magificent Seven, if "magnificent" meant "muddy", spread out to explore.  I'm sure Keith and Julie can guess who was ready to go back first....

Out of things to do--time to dare each other to go swimming. Make the like a sea lion and dive in!

Of course, that level of activity is exhausting to maintain. Time to watch Netflix AND play Minecraft.  If only multitasking went beyond screens....Wesley. 

It's really past time to install an outdoor shower. 

But you know what I say--fun can be measured by the height of the bathtub ring-o-grime!  This weekend scored quite high.

Did we make s'mores...and turn it into a Goldenest Marshmallow contest?  Ha!  Of course we did, and with another half dozen neighbors joining us.  Piper and Abby loved "babysitting" the 4-year-old twins next door.  

Kyla may have taken home Golden S'more Prize.

Neither the purchasing or packing of matching PJs was coordinated, but these two are clearly BFFs for a reason.

I spent the weekend, in addition to kid wrangling, finally setting up automatic watering of my wonderful garden, adding swings, and putting up the lights.  It's practically perfect! More pictures to come.