We’ve been enjoying lots of holiday parties. Saturday night was the Baby Boomers dinner and dance. Great times! Tonight the Michigan Club Christmas dinner.

It’s all been fun but we’ve also been distracted by the renovation of our condo.

The contractor started to install the new doors the middle of last week, but the first day was cut short because an electrician had to be called in to move an electrical box under the window and he couldn’t do it until the drywall was removed.

Finally Friday the doors were put in and they were better than expected. But during the cut-down of the block wall below the windows, an unbelievable amount of dust was generated and coated everything. Saturday the stucco guy showed up and did the outside work. Monday the trim on the doors was completed and the side window installed. The concrete guy has set the molds for the pouring of the patio which will happen on Thursday. Late afternoon (Monday) we started deep cleaning up to see if we could get rid of the dust and dirt. We’ve worked in small, manageable areas to get it all purged of the heavy dust layer.

Things were really looking great until this afternoon when our vacuum plugged up and then broke so the cleaning ground to a halt.

We are trying to get ready for our house full of friends on Christmas Eve but in order to get the place in order, we need to first vacuum and then scrub. (We’re using a carpet cleaner to do the heaviest of the scrubbing.) But with a broken vacuum it’s not possible. Hopefully John can get the vacuum going again tomorrow.

We have several appointments tomorrow and Thursday. But Friday-Sunday we should be able to work non-stop getting the house in order.

It’ll all come together. I’m confident.

Before and after photos will follow.

It’s encouraging because even the golfers have been stopping to tell us how great the new windows look and they’re only seeing them from the outside. We’re both really pleased!!