Memorial Day Weekend Recap

Wow, we did so much this weekend, I think my head and body are still spinning!!

Tim & I were busy sanding the walls on our basement room, wiping the walls down, sweeping & mopping the floor, making sure all the mudding splotches were removed from the floor, mopping again, priming the walls, smoothing the corners & edges, and painting the ceiling & window inset.

Swoosh!! That's a LOT for one weekend in my mind! Granted, Tim had to do most of the work {especially with the sanding}, but I pitched in and got involved wherever and whenever I could.

While Tim kept busy downstairs, sometimes I took the chance to catch up on other things like the usual laundry & dishes, organizing some items we want to donate from a spare bedroom's closet and dresser, and scrubbing our shower & tub to death.

I'm sure it goes without saying that my body is completely freaking out. I absolutely couldn't get out of bed this morning! It's so hard to know how to push and do things but without pushing too hard. Once I was able to actually move and get going this morning, the day went fine. I had a few times when I got up out of the chair at work and had to move slowly before finally feeling like I could actually move fluidly. Arg! 

I don't regret what I did this weekend though. It was invigorating and motivating!! We have so much we want to do in our house at this point that even our week's vacation at the end of June will be doing house projects and just enjoying our city, without going anywhere. It's going to be exhausting but also rewarding to get so much accomplished -- just like it was this weekend!

As an added bonus, we had a major heatwave on Sunday & Monday. The hottest day of the year thus far was on Sunday when temps soared to 97.

After church & errands, we came home, had lunch, Tim took a nap, I cleaned & watched part of a movie, and then I took a nap. As I woke up, I complained about it being hot & stuffy and how the temp inside just kept rising. It was reading at 80 degrees - when 70 is it's normal setting and I'd already pushed it down to 68. It still just kept rising! On hot days with intense sun, our lack of attic fans makes it so the inside of our house is generally warmer than it should be. But this time it was seeming a bit more off than usual, but I didn't think too much of it other than being annoyed. Finally I decided to lay in the bedroom in front of the fan, and after about 10 minutes, Tim came back in with some bad news.

Temperature sensitive me on a 97 degree day... and our a/c had officially decided to stop working. He'd decided to go downstairs to check things out and sure enough, he found some ice build-up, and things not working properly. He called a guy, was instructed to turn the unit off {it wasn't pushing out cold air anyway, was just helping keep the humidity at bay}, and immediately upon knowing this of course I felt my body temp rise!

It wasn't our actual a/c unit as that's fairly new and we'd replaced it just a few years ago. It was a part that's in our basement that connects something to something or something.... Tim found a place with 24-hour emergency service without a fee, and since it was a small operation, the guy was out here within the hour!!! SCORE!

Thankfully the guy also fixed it within an hour, so 2 hours after the discovery, our house was cooling back down. It was too hot and stressful for me so I quickly bailed {thank you honey for letting me!} and went to a cool movie theatre for 3 hours, woot! I greatly appreciated my car's working a/c and felt relief immediately upon getting in my car. By the time I got back home with dinner in hand, the house was feeling much more normal.

$200 later, one freon leak fixed, and one much cooler house - we're so thankful that it was taken care of so quickly!! Oh the things we take for granted....

All of that threw us off for the entire day, but we had a sudden burst of energy late that night and finished all the basement room priming!

Memorial Day itself is something sacred to us, so we enjoy finding ways to really remember those who have served or are currently serving. 

Our city really does do such a great job of having multiple events to help us reflect and thank - we are so grateful! At 9:45 we went to a local park in our city's downtown, riverfront area for a Navy-based memorial service as we remembered the fallen at sea. It was short and to the point, but we appreciated the half hour of reflections, honor, color guard, taps, etc. We were also thankful for a spot in the shade since the sun was already intense! It wrapped up with city officials laying wreaths in the river and then whoever wanted to also tossing flowers into the water.

When it was all over, Tim & I walked up & down the river a little bit, just relaxing and enjoying the peace of the breezy waterfront.

Haha nice - see the paint remnants on my right arm?

I've had so many relatives who served in the past, and a couple of cousins who currently serve. I'm so thankful for all the sacrifices of the men & women and their families who have fought for our freedoms so bravely over many years!!

Then we went out to brunch and had a lot of talking {no arguing, of course...} about our home improvement projects and current stressers. And then it was back home to lots more getting stuff done!

Then had our annual tradition of watching Taking Chance. It's quite possibly one of the most powerful movies we've ever seen.

image source

It was made for TV by HBO in 2009 and shortly after my dad introduced us to it. We've watched it every year since. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend watching it next year on Memorial Day {something about the day makes it even more powerful}! It walks you through what it's really like for the remains of the deceased service men or women to get back home and how it's done so respectfully and honorably. Seriously, wow, such an emotionally poignant movie that makes you really all that much more aware of the sacrifice, dedication, and bravery of our country's soldiers and their families.

The day wrapped up nicely with our very own grill time for dinner while finishing our house projects to the best that we could! Next up... painting next weekend after Tim's next 5K {the one I'm on the leadership team for}.
 
On another note, I really appreciated this Memorial Day post from (in)courage.

Hope you & yours had a good, relaxing, fun, BBQ-y, swimming-filled, and reflective Memorial Day weekend!