18,869 steps
Uff da! I am tired out from today's adventure. Comrade came by as promised this morning with his dump truck. He managed to back it into our pedestrian street with just enough space for people to pass by on one side.
Then the work began: carrying down 300 bags (give or take) of plaster/concrete, one or two at a time. Down 2 flights of stairs, down the hallway, out the door, and into the truck. Then we had to empty each bag out, since plastic isn't allowed to be mixed with the "gravat" (a catch-all term for plaster/concrete/cement debris).
Then back up 2 flights of stairs for the next round...over and over again. One of our friends came to help--thank you so much!! Next time we need to use the dump truck, we'll assemble a bigger team as it took far longer than I had expected (about 3 hours) to carry everything down.
After all of the gravat was in the truck, Comrade and Eric drove it to the dump while my friend and I cleaned up the hundreds of ripped trash bags. We carried almost the entire load of wood down by ourselves before the men came back. We then loaded up the wood--which went so much faster than the heavy debris!--and Comrade took off to the dump again.
The debris was all gone...but our work wasn't done yet! We had about an hour of cleaning in the common areas (staircase and hallway) and in the street. We swept, washed, & mopped until everything was sparkling. We also apologized in advance to our neighbors for the dust. They were very understanding.
Unfortunately, we also had an incident that we had to smooth out. Apparently while we were upstairs fetching bags of debris, the shopkeeper across the street asked Comrade to move his truck a little. And apparently he said some rude things back to her. We didn't know this, but the shopkeeper told her boss, who also lives across the street and is someone who's a good acquaintance of ours.
She and her husband came over to tell us what had happened. Initially they were very upset because we thought we knew what had happened and had condoned his rude behavior. Nope! We had no idea. So we apologized profusely and also made sure to visit the shopkeeper once she was back in. I think we've smoothed all the ruffled feathers now.
We also racked up some "good neighbor" points this afternoon. Our upstairs neighbor on the 4th floor (5th floor in the States) had ordered a huge custom piece of furniture from an artist friend. It's a combination staircase/cupboard. Anyway, it was the size of 3 large armoires, and we helped her carry everything upstairs.
So a bit of drama, a bit of goodwill, and a LOT of exercise today!
Dinner was leftovers plus "what's in our fridge that we can use up?"
I pulled all of our winter gear out of the attic. We're going sledding on Saturday. We all tried on our snow boots, snow pants, coats, & gloves to be sure they fit. We'll make it work, even though some kids' boots are too big or too small. I'll pop by the thrift store tomorrow to see if I can find some of the correct sizes.
Unfortunately, we also had an incident that we had to smooth out. Apparently while we were upstairs fetching bags of debris, the shopkeeper across the street asked Comrade to move his truck a little. And apparently he said some rude things back to her. We didn't know this, but the shopkeeper told her boss, who also lives across the street and is someone who's a good acquaintance of ours.
She and her husband came over to tell us what had happened. Initially they were very upset because we thought we knew what had happened and had condoned his rude behavior. Nope! We had no idea. So we apologized profusely and also made sure to visit the shopkeeper once she was back in. I think we've smoothed all the ruffled feathers now.
We also racked up some "good neighbor" points this afternoon. Our upstairs neighbor on the 4th floor (5th floor in the States) had ordered a huge custom piece of furniture from an artist friend. It's a combination staircase/cupboard. Anyway, it was the size of 3 large armoires, and we helped her carry everything upstairs.
So a bit of drama, a bit of goodwill, and a LOT of exercise today!
Dinner was leftovers plus "what's in our fridge that we can use up?"
I pulled all of our winter gear out of the attic. We're going sledding on Saturday. We all tried on our snow boots, snow pants, coats, & gloves to be sure they fit. We'll make it work, even though some kids' boots are too big or too small. I'll pop by the thrift store tomorrow to see if I can find some of the correct sizes.
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