Marolynn's spiffy new Door
Today the contractor finished up all of the repairs we needed to have to put the house into shape to get it on the real-estate market. The other side of the story is that we packed and packed more than one load to take up to Utah. The (Paul's) mineral collection took over 2 days to pack, as Marolynn kept pulling flats of rocks out from nooks and crannies in the garage. The rule with packing is that everything has to be carefully examined and we throw away or donate things we don't want to the Goodwill.

The contractor's jobs included refinishing the garage ceiling damaged by a leaking roof three years ago, refurbishing and replacing molding around all the bedroom doors that the cats had used as scratching posts and refinishing the front door. When it came to the storm/security door in front of the front door, Marolynn remembered one that Karen had in Fairview last week, where the upper glass could be slid down, leaving a screen, so she really wanted such a door installed. So down to the local hardware store with the contractor, and we bought the door this morning - rather an assemblage of a few thousand parts that the contractor had to figure out how to put together. Well, if we stay in New Mexico, at least we'll have that wonderful new storm door. If we move to Utah, may it be inspiring to whomever might want to buy the house.

We had stucco people who went around the house repairing any cracks and totally refinishing the front patio wall which had been taken over by the ivy last spring, and the garage door and window frames have been repainted.

Of course the grapes ripened and we had the biggest crop of apples in several years while all the construction was going on, so 19 quarts of grape juice were put up yesterday and a dozen quarts of Jonathan apples were put up today -- they're perfect for apple pies. We have an equal or larger load of Granny Smith apples from our big tree and we'll do them tonight and tomorrow. Then a trip on the Railrunner to Santa Fe on Thursday and a road trip up to Utah on Friday or Saturday with the mineral collection and other boxes.