Kitchen, ceilings, and things come in threes... hopefully!

We got the cabinets in! We really are getting close to being able to live in our house and we both are so very happy about that! David, Jerry, and their friend Mark installed the cabinets Monday. I knew it was on the agenda but during my lunchtime from my first day alone at the post office I ran home to the garage to find our stuff there… without cabinets… so I could not wait to finish work to go check it out. My excitement might have contributed to what happened at the post office later… you will find out as you read on.

Anyway… here they are!

Then yesterday, after painting polyurethane on ceiling boards for several days David and Jerry started to get them up on the ceiling.

The walls will be painted and the stuff we put on the boards seals it, but did not add any color. It will stay nice and light. (Remember the house is not really large so we want it to look as open as possible)

and finally... they say things come in threes... hopefully this will be all!:

One. Dang.

We have a leak behind the guest shower.

A little one… but really if you think about it there are no little leaks inside a wall. We are talking about like a couple teaspoons of water over a nights worth of a leak. But… not to worry. David has cut a square out from behind the leak and is eyeballing it and is going through his options. That bathroom will be back on track in a jiffy. David will fix it.

Two. Whoops.

When finishing final plans on house for plumbing necessities we flipped the master bathroom around. It’s a mirror image actually, it just worked out better for our pex plumbing… and well… we forgot something. Our cabinets were custom made… the bathroom cabinet was made to sit one way. The finished side of the cabinet sat one way, and the other side to sit against the wall. Well, now it is flipped and unless we make some modifications the finished side will be against the wall. Whoops. We did not catch it until the cabinets went in yesterday.

Good thing is that the fella who made our cabinets does not really make cabinets that have what would normally be called an “unfinished” side. He is Doug the super cabinet man. He is a friend of David’s and he has done a lot of beautiful work for Dad… Anyway, we adapted. To get it to work right we moved the cabinet over like 8 inches and David will build up the one side of the cabinet. We will also have to find a finishing product for the edge of the granite that WAS going to be up against the wall, Doug has made several suggestions. The good thing is that this ‘unfinished” side will be next to the toilet and not visible from the door of the bathroom at all. Not too big an issue. David will fix it.

Three. DUH.

I had my first full day at the post office the other day. Normally, I will just be working a couple hours on Saturdays. Two hours is actually just enough time to open the doors, sort mail into the post office boxes, and then close. There are 180 boxes but only about half of those are being used. There are NO delivery routes here… only PO Boxes. I also will be doing fill in work on other days. Well, the other day the Postmaster had a day off so I covered for her… my first time alone.

I tried so hard to make sure I did everything right. I wanted to be sure I had it all correct so that she would feel comfortable leaving when she needed to go. I have to tell you I was a little surprised at how many responsibilities there are within the office. Along with sorting the mail, we have books to keep and balance and computer work on the postal service network. At the end of the day to get the new mail started on its path we gather the mail from both the outside and inside box, and put it all in a cart in the lobby of the office before we lock the door. The mail truck then pulls up some time after we are closed, makes the switch, and then gets it to the processing center and the mail starts on its way.

Well… I was focused so hard on making sure paperwork, monies, etc was correct I forgot to do one thing.

Uh… I forgot to deliver the mail.

Yes folks, I neglected to push the cart out into the lobby at the end of the day.

So…

(now remember folks you pay 42 cents a letter for this stuff)

I get a call at 9:00 p.m from the processing plant in this area. We were getting ready for bed. I was informed that the carrier reported that there was no mail in the lobby. The man on the phone said the protocol is for the postmaster or in this case postmaster relief person to deliver it themselves. The processing plant is 90 miles from where we live…

Now, I don’t wanna say anything about how the carrier could have stood at the doorway of the post office and hollered and I would have heard him/her. But that’s not what they do, that is not their responsibility. That carrier had other mail to pick up from several other post offices along our highway to get the mail on its way… it was my fault it was not there… and the mail must be delivered. Ya know that whole neither rain nor snow nor goofy-ass postmaster relief-person thing.

So, David, Cosmo, Delta and me jumped in the car and drove an hour an a half down to Kingsford… with two boxes of mail containing... maybe 30 letters and believe it or not… they were waiting for me when I got there. My God how embarrassing. We pull in and there is the supervisor. He was actually outside looking for us. He walks up to the car and says, “Sidnaw?” I said yep that’s me. He walks me into the mail Willy-Wonka factory which is buzzing with activity and as I sign off on some papers, before I can get even get my first three initials out onto the page here comes two oompa like workers pushing carts along a little cart road behind me.

They told me to 'watch out! step aside! and drop your boxes into the cart!" Then they just kept on going, did not slow down or miss a beat at all. There went our mail.

Actually, Mark was nice, everyone I met there was very nice and not oompa-ish at all... sorta. When he introduced me to folks they all had a little bit of a grin on their faces that they were trying to hide. I joked about it and we all chuckled at my auspicious first day. After a quick tour, Mark shook my hand and but then stopped and said very seriously, “thank you for delivering the mail”.

Then David, the dogs and I drove an hour and a half home.

We got home at midnight.