Hanging Curtains Upside Down

RUSTY:  Jan has made little progress on winterizing the house.  Every year she tries and never gets to finish.

MERCI:  All the climbing and stretching is too much for her.  Old bones and accessories, you know.

CYNDI:  This year she is trying to replace the 18-year old drapes with new ones.  They're el cheapos from walmart, but shorter and hopefully easier to deal with.

SAM:  She has a thing about sunlight and says it should shine in the house too, so she has rebelled and is busy hanging "welcome" signs so we can have some again.

MICAH:  The funny thing is every time she manages to hitch a ride to walmart to exchange the wrong size or material for another, she has to move the ones she already hung from here to there.

PERCY:  The funniest moment was when she realized she had hung all the curtains upside down and had to rehang them - again.  She's getting faster at take down and redo.

MARCUS:  Of course I was the most helpful.  I followed her everywhere to make sure she didn't fall off the stool.  I think it was very rude of her to accuse me of being underfoot every time she tried to step off of it!

BUDDY:  But you were!  And you sure whined when she stepped on your nose while coming down the ladder after changing a light bulb.  How was she supposed to know you were underfoot? Literally underfoot.

CYNDI:  This window was a shock.  When she removed the drapes, she found one of the heavy, old windows had dropped open.

RUSTY:  It took a lot of newspapers to stuff the big hole at the top and the one in the middle between the top and bottom.

SAM:  Last weekend we froze.  Jan tried but couldn't turn on the heat.

MARCUS:  It was a  l-o-n-g cold weekend!  Monday was beautiful, though. 

MERCI:  While switching drapes in the kitchen yesterday, she found two other windows listing to the left more than usual.

BUDDY:  But help arrived at dinner time.  All three windows are now anchored.  And the two gas heaters are now on.  They were blown out with a big compressor. (Jan can only vacuum them.)

PERCY:   Wednesday the rains will come and the temperature will drop again.  We won't be cozy, not in this ancient house, but we are grateful to have a roof over our heads and a place to call home.

MICAH:  We've had a few ask how Taylor is doing.  She was coming out from under the bed more often and then Jan changed the drapes.  Taylor went into deep cover when the sunlight streamed in and only comes out after sundown now.  But don't worry.  I've been keeping her company by sleeping on the bed, eating her food, drinking her water and using her scratching post.