What a weekend! It didn’t exactly go as planned but it was a delightful time. Friday afternoon I went to Manhattan with three friends to attend the Celebration of the Life of Hutch. The service was very nice and honored a gentle, kind man. The church was packed.
Three guests arrived while I was gone. Jim got them checked in and settled. The other three showed up after I got home. We had a total of eight guests for the weekend.
Saturday morning I fixed breakfast for all the guests. I hadn’t fixed breakfast for a group for a bit but it went well. During breakfast we found out the Symphony had been postponed until Sunday. I helped the guests get dinner reservations for Saturday night and then they all went out and about to enjoy the Flint Hills. Jim and I worked around the house and got some weed eating and yard work done.
Saturday evening all the guests and Jim and I sat around in the swings and watched the storm clouds move in. The lightning was spectacular and the guests enjoyed s’mores, wine, and the company of the group.
Sunday morning I fixed breakfast again for the group. We found out the Symphony had been cancelled entirely. Six of the eight guests left after breakfast and the other two went out for the day. Jim and I worked outside most of the day. I kept coming in to do eight loads of laundry and make up three guest rooms.
Monday I fixed one last breakfast for the two remaining guests. They departed after breakfast. Jim and I went into Emporia and picked up a sander for the deck. Jim spent the morning and most of the afternoon on his hands and knees checking for screws that were too high on the deck floor and lowering them. When he got that done he started sanding the main back deck. Sanding didn’t take near as long as all the prep work had taken. My job was to help manage the extension cord and to use the leaf blower to blow the saw dust off the deck occasionally.
Hazel and her brother and his wife stopped by in the afternoon. They had driven out to see the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and since they were in the neighborhood stopped by to visit. We had a nice visit.
The A/C guy came and did his annual summer check on the A/C unit. It is always good to get that unit cleaned out and ready for the summer.
I got the last guest room cleaned and ready for my student intern to come back Monday evening. I still have some more cleaning to do downstairs but all the beds are made and bathrooms restocked.
My arms are sore from all the weed eating I have been doing. I finally figured out how to load the string into the head of the machine. I still don’t like weed eating but the grounds sure look better trimmed up. Jim is sore from all the deck work he has been doing.
We were going to paint today but the forecast is not looking like it will be a good day to paint as rain is coming in early afternoon and hanging around until after midnight. Jim still has some belt sanding to do and we will be lucky if we can get that done today before the rain comes. We will have to go into Emporia in a bit to return the big sander we rented yesterday.
Both of us are tired as we had to get up early all weekend long to fix breakfast. We slept in a bit this morning. It is cloudy and cooler out today and a good day to sleep. I was so tired last night I fell asleep in the bathtub!
I don’t have any more guests booked at this point. I suspended my Airbnb account for a while until I decide what I want to do. I am leaving next Tuesday to go with Hazel to Maine for a week. Two days after I get home from Maine I leave with Jim for Colorado for over two weeks. Then I have bunion surgery August 7. No time to have guests come! When things settle down a bit I may open my calendar back up again. I really enjoy having guests come, especially when I don’t fix food. But I don’t have any open time to commit to being here for them right now.
The Newsletter for Pioneer Bluffs will be ready to be stuffed this weekend so I guess I know what I will be doing. I may paint a bit, come in and work on newsletters and rinse and repeat all weekend. I would like to have the main portion of the deck painted before I leave for Maine on Tuesday. I’ll have to see what the weather does though.
I have been enjoying the time with Jim again. We have fun being together and working on projects around the house. He is one of those guys that knows how to fix most everything and does it well. I appreciate that he is willing to work so hard to help me out.
Grateful for the guests that came over the weekend, I feel I made a new group of friends, grateful the main part of the deck is sanded and ready for a coat of stain, and grateful for all of Jim’s help. I wouldn’t have tackled this job without him.