Life Returns To Normal - Not Enough Time

So, my life now returns to normal - a term and description that really means nothing. My dear friend Sharon arrives at the end of August for her five-day visit and right now my house looks like a total disaster. We're trying to incorporate things from the shop to their new places in the house and everything is in a state of flux and change. My den is occupied by box supplies on the western end blocking my sewing cabinets, shelving down the center which will be incorporated into the craft room eventually ... so I'm promised, and stuff on the chairs. Our goal is to have this room as a comfortable den to actually utilize as a media room. I'm not sure I'll ever get there. 

I'm totally in love with this "Sharon's Room" sign. Apparently
I could buy it on Amazon. I won't, but I love the concept. 

Upstairs, "Sharon's Room" (yes, that's actually what we call it) looks like a bomb went off in a paper factory. There are pages strewn throughout the room, boxes of books I need to take to Half-Price Books, and stacks of things to either shred or add to the wall of boxes we have at the shop pending the hiring of a professional shredding service. We only want the professionals to have to come out once because it's not inexpensive, but we have business financial records that must be shredded and have added some personal stuff to it as well. Why not? The company is just going to toss the paper into the gaping maw of the shredded and make short work of what would take weeks for us to do in our smaller machines. 

We will be hiring a mobile document shredding company
similar to this one to shred our wall of documents. It'll be
several hundred dollars, but it will take care of a major
issue. We will still collect for this until Spring. 

Between the den and Sharon's Room is the main portion of the house, and that's actually not bad - a bit messy and in need of a serious vacuum, but not too bad. I need to do a serious dusting and the vacuum MUST be used because we've been tracking stuff all over from our various errands and projects. The problem area in this part of the house (aside from the dining room where we have kept the doors closed because we don't want to deal right now) is the breezeway. I need to start work on that room on Wednesday. The carpet must be vacuumed and then steam cleaned, and the walls need to be washed. I wanted them painted, but that's not going to happen. DH wants to get the soldering table moved from the shop into the breezeway within the next week, and painting time isn't - no paint and especially no time. 

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival opens in mid-August and we'll have
to try and fit that into our Sunday schedules. It's not going to be easy
this year - we have a lot that must be done before the cold really
hits in October/November. 

In the meanwhile, life goes on. We pack, we grumble, we cook, eat and live. We watch TV, we read (well, to be more precise, I read), and generally we try to live life. It's unfortunate that we can't warp time to insert at least another 30 days for us. But it doesn't work that way. Guess it's time to move faster because the calendar isn't changing and we're totally running out of time and summer. 

The Minnesota State Fair opens on the 22nd of August. Sharon
and I always hang at the Fair for several days when she
comes to visit. It's so much fun, so much to see, and plenty
to do, as well as lots of opportunity to just sit, watch the people,
and catch up on what happened over the past year. 

Have an excellent Tuesday. I'm going to try to finish clearing off the soldering table today so that DH can take a serious look at it tomorrow. He thinks he can disassemble it. I think he's living a dream - a pipe dream in this instance. I guess we'll know more in 48 hours or so. I'll be back tomorrow, so be good, be kind, and spread joy.