Well, I should know by now to always have a bag packed and be ready to go, just in case. But usually, I'm not. Usually when the opportunity comes I either have a lot of work to do, or a lot of thinking to do, or both. Then there is a lot of rushing around to get packed and ready to go.
Okay, so I've never been to Colorado. My husband is going to work in middle of nowhere Colorado, for one day. It will take two days of driving to get there, there doesn't appear to be anything in town that is particularly interesting, and then that will be followed by another day of driving to get to the next place that he works, which is in New Mexico. I have been to that place before, but I don't think that we've been there very often, and we haven't gotten to see much while we were there.
Not that we'd get to see much this time either. My husband would have to work for three days, and then so far as I know we'd be driving back, either a day and a half trip or else a very long day, so that he could work in Dallas the next Tuesday.
On the one hand, this isn't a good time to go. And it isn't just that I don't have a bag packed. I'm busy. Really, I am busy. I am painting the floor. I couldn't take that last little bit of carpet anymore, and I've ripped it off of the floor. That took a lot of work. Then I removed all of the old tiles that were under the carpet. And then there was all of this dirt. I cleared away almost a third of the floor moving a few things into the kitchen and the back room and the hallway, and then pushed everything else to the other side of the room. The empty space on the floor has been scrubbed three times, then two coats of bonding stuff added, and then the little holes left in the floor where the carpet was nailed down had to be filled in. I took a few days to rest before I did all of that, and then I painted the first coat of paint, followed the directions and waited a whole day before painting the second coat, and now I'm waiting three days before moving the furniture back to where it should be on the one wall, and then I will have to move a lot of other stuff in front of that furniture so that I can scrub more of the floor as step one of preparing to paint.
So what I had planned for Saturday was to move the furniture, and then create a path through the living room and the kitchen so that my husband could remove something very heavy from the backroom to the front of the house, where it will sit for a while while I maybe try to get someone to take it away by mentioning it on Craigslist.
Getting all of that done is more important that going on a trip. However, I'm not sure that it will get done by my staying. I can't do much of anything until Saturday, Friday night at the earliest. The paint is supposed to dry a whole three days before I move the furniture and such. The item in the back room cannot be moved until everything else is moved. I cannot move the item myself, even after everything else is moved. So the item must be moved on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and it must be moved before I do anything else to the floor.
If the item does not get moved by Sunday morning, I can not continue with painting the floor next week, and the whole plan will probably have to wait until it is possible for everything to be moved out of the way and for my husband to have the time to actually move the thing.
It is very inconvenient to have all of these things in odd places and shoved against a wall where they cannot be used. Also, it is difficult to do things like laundry, as the pathway to the dryer isn't what it was.
The rest of the house is quite the mess, as I gave up trying to deal with it. There is just dirt on the floor everywhere, especially the kitchen, as we track it in from the area of the living room that has not been prepared yet. And while I'm not doing anything right now (as I have to wait three days for the paint to dry), I'm afraid when I was doing a lot of work on the floor I got a bit behind on the dishes and the other stuff. I could probably get caught up in a few days, but I still don't know about leaving the rest of the stuff. Everything takes longer than you expect it to, but I thought that most of it was going to get done next week when I had the place to myself and my husband was going to be in Lubbock.
Anyway, I've never been to Colorado and I want to go. On the other hand, I'd really like to get this painting stuff over with. If I don't go, I'll probably regret not going. If I do go, I'll be behind schedule on everything else, and I probably won't get to do that much anyway. I'm trying to decide if it is worth the effort to go one day to middle of nowhere Colorado.
We would have to drive two days to get there, so even if there's anything to do in middle of nowhere Colorado, I don't see when we could do it. There's just too much driving the first two days, and he actually has to work from about 11am to after 10pm on Tuesday. He doesn't have to work Wednesday, but then there's that five hour drive to New Mexico. So Colorado is going to be a few hours in the evening Monday, breakfast and hopefully cable in the motel room Tuesday, and a few hours before driving away on Wednesday.
I think that the only thing we'll be doing in Colorado is looking at stuff in the middle of nowhere as we drive by.
As for New Mexico, there's probably more to do, but again there's not much time to do it. Maybe a few hours Wednesday night, breakfast Thursday morning, whatever we might do before 1pm on Friday, and maybe a couple of hours Saturday night. And then it's drive back to Dallas.
Our we might leave right after work on Saturday night and have more time to maybe do something on Monday, but traveling on a Saturday night is not the best idea. You have to plan ahead, know exactly when you're going to need to stop and get a reservation before you leave, and that usually costs more money (and that money would come out of our pocket, since the company isn't paying for us to leave early).
And, if I go, I'll miss C's party. It was scheduled for a few weeks ago, but they changed the date because of the ice and snow. So now it's going to be next Friday, and if I go I'll miss it.
I suppose that isn't a great tragedy. I really don't even have anything special to wear.
I guess the work on the floor can wait. I was just looking forward to having it all done. The end was in sight. At least for the living room floor.
Work. Work. Work.
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
First week
My husband is on some weird diet, and I am trying to lose weight. I officially started on the 4th, while he started a bit earlier than that. I choose the 4th to make sure that a.) I got to enjoy the New Year's Eve party and then eat whatever I wanted afterward to recover from it, and b.) starting on the 4th I had a few days to myself, and these things are always easier for me without other people around trying to get me to eat things other than what I have picked out. When my husband is around, he offers me food from his diet, and since his diet isn't really about weight-loss, it isn't always a good idea.
Anyway, I'm going to say that the first week was a success. I've had no regular sodas or other regular sugary drinks. I've had no cookies. I don't think I've had any chocolate, or if I had it was one square of dark chocolate, but I think the last time I even did that was before the 4th. I've not gone to any restaurants or eaten any fast food. I try to write down everything that I eat or drink, and then I write how many calories I think I've consumed. I think most days I'm just right around 1200, which is what I wanted. And I think that I've had three servings of lowfat dairy everyday, with one of the servings always being a cup of no sugar added yogurt.
And I think that I've lost a few pounds, though I doubt that I've lost as many as it seemed this morning. I think that it's just hard to read regular bathroom scales (unless they are digital, which mine is not), and there might be some other factors at work, like maybe weighing first thing in the morning is not accurate, or maybe I was wearing too much clothing during the first weigh-in but not enough now. But I'm not trying to do anything silly, only two pounds or so a week, and maybe even a steady one pound per week would be okay for a bit. So I think that I've at least done that much, and I can be happy about that.
One thing that I did not get done this week was the whole eight glasses of water per day thing. I'll try to work that in later.
The other thing that did not get accomplished this week was a neat and tidy frig. I had imagined the thing being half-empty, with about thirty things in containers just waiting for me to eat, and a few other things waiting for me to cook, and then a gallon of skim milk and the diet drinks and the V-8 and a few bottles of things like mustard and ketchup. Well, even after the cleaning, there's still a lot of bottles of stuff, some of which we are using right now, and some of it we expect to be using soon, and just other things that we like that we don't want to throw out cause we'll need them eventually.
And that's just my side of the frig. I tried to divide the frig into stuff I'd mostly be using on one side and stuff that he'd mostly be using on the other. But now it's a total mess again, and we squeeze in things wherever they will fit.
And then there are all these vegetables, which I hope will get eaten, but some of them won't. We haven't actually thrown out that much yet (a couple of pears and some watercress and chives), but that's mostly because I ate a few of his things when he was away, and then when he got back I just started pulling out stuff and asking him what he intended to do with it, and then he'd cook something.
Of course, cooking something usually meant that we needed yet something else from the store, so as soon as I get rid of something it is usually replaced with something else. But that did keep most of the cauliflower from being wasted, and yesterday we ate the zucchini and the eggplant. Still, I think that today or tomorrow I'll be trying to rearrange the whole thing again.
I remembered it being much easier before. But of course, last time I had the place to myself for most of three months.
Anyway, I'm going to say that the first week was a success. I've had no regular sodas or other regular sugary drinks. I've had no cookies. I don't think I've had any chocolate, or if I had it was one square of dark chocolate, but I think the last time I even did that was before the 4th. I've not gone to any restaurants or eaten any fast food. I try to write down everything that I eat or drink, and then I write how many calories I think I've consumed. I think most days I'm just right around 1200, which is what I wanted. And I think that I've had three servings of lowfat dairy everyday, with one of the servings always being a cup of no sugar added yogurt.
And I think that I've lost a few pounds, though I doubt that I've lost as many as it seemed this morning. I think that it's just hard to read regular bathroom scales (unless they are digital, which mine is not), and there might be some other factors at work, like maybe weighing first thing in the morning is not accurate, or maybe I was wearing too much clothing during the first weigh-in but not enough now. But I'm not trying to do anything silly, only two pounds or so a week, and maybe even a steady one pound per week would be okay for a bit. So I think that I've at least done that much, and I can be happy about that.
One thing that I did not get done this week was the whole eight glasses of water per day thing. I'll try to work that in later.
The other thing that did not get accomplished this week was a neat and tidy frig. I had imagined the thing being half-empty, with about thirty things in containers just waiting for me to eat, and a few other things waiting for me to cook, and then a gallon of skim milk and the diet drinks and the V-8 and a few bottles of things like mustard and ketchup. Well, even after the cleaning, there's still a lot of bottles of stuff, some of which we are using right now, and some of it we expect to be using soon, and just other things that we like that we don't want to throw out cause we'll need them eventually.
And that's just my side of the frig. I tried to divide the frig into stuff I'd mostly be using on one side and stuff that he'd mostly be using on the other. But now it's a total mess again, and we squeeze in things wherever they will fit.
And then there are all these vegetables, which I hope will get eaten, but some of them won't. We haven't actually thrown out that much yet (a couple of pears and some watercress and chives), but that's mostly because I ate a few of his things when he was away, and then when he got back I just started pulling out stuff and asking him what he intended to do with it, and then he'd cook something.
Of course, cooking something usually meant that we needed yet something else from the store, so as soon as I get rid of something it is usually replaced with something else. But that did keep most of the cauliflower from being wasted, and yesterday we ate the zucchini and the eggplant. Still, I think that today or tomorrow I'll be trying to rearrange the whole thing again.
I remembered it being much easier before. But of course, last time I had the place to myself for most of three months.
Friday, October 15, 2010
A catch up post
I am home, while my husband is off in middle of nowhere Oklahoma. I was briefly very excited about nowhere Oklahoma and wanted to go too, as I wanted to go back to the Castle of Muskogee for their Halloween stuff. But as I looked more closely at the schedule, I saw that a trip to the Castle could not work, because the Castle is not open on Sunday night, and that would have been the best opportunity to go, as he is scheduled an hour and a half away on Friday and Saturday, the only nights that they are open.
So I quit trying to figure out how I might get to the place and just stayed home to work.
Of course I am not working, as my back still hurts. Maybe not as much as it did. Sometimes I think that whatever it is maybe getting better. Other times I just think that I am having a few good days, and then I'll have a few bad ones. It is best to sit just a certain way in this chair (so there has been a lot of Hulu and Youtube and such), or to stand up straight (which does not happen very often cause how boring is it to just stand still somewhere), or to maybe walk around a bit at a mall or something, or to stay in bed in a certain positions. Those positions in bed are not good for watching TV or reading, so I'm trying to stay out of bed, but eventually I am there watching TV or using the heating pad anyway. And of course I am trying to sleep some, which does not seem to want to happen at the right times.
The first thing that happened after I decided to stay here is that I seem to have lost my marbles and forgot to pay rent. I could have sworn that was done before I left, but there was no money taken out of the account for it. And I thought that I had given it to the "temporary manager", but as I got out of there fast and did not ask for a receipt, that might have been an earlier month. Anyway, paying that late means a lot of late fees, and I ended up paying eighty dollars for my mistake. She at first said a hundred, and I know that she could have even said a hundred and twenty, but "temporary manager" wasn't around, so she didn't charge me for the first day and she didn't charge me for the day that I wrote the check. (I later heard that "temporary manager" had quit, but as that was after I went to the office I did not get that confirmed.) I just can't imagine having forgotten to pay that check, as I went so far as to make sure that my brother had an emergency check before I went out of town. So how did I remember the emergency check but not the regular rent check?
The next odd thing was I learned that mail delivery for our street had stopped. There was an incident with a dog and some man at the beginning of the street (technically his address is on the cross street), and so everyone else would have to go get their mail from the Post Office until further notice. That started Friday afternoon while I was away. The mail service just stopped, and you only heard about it through the rumour mill, not buy a note on the door or phone call or anything official from either the Post Office or the office here. I didn't hear about it until Tuesday. Wednesday, the man who lives in the apartment in question came around to apologize in person to everyone on the street, saying that it was not him and not his dog, but his daughter's boyfriend and his dog. The boyfriend and dog have left, and the man has apologized and made arrangements to have a box at the post office, and the mail service was restored on Thursday.
Tuesday I got my TDaP shot. I don't know the difference between the TDaP and the DTaP (maybe one is for adults and one for children?), but I ended up getting it from the Kroger's pharmacy for $50. That is considerably less that the prices I'd been told at other places ($80 and $129), so I wonder if they made a mistake. I got the shot before they could change their minds. So now I won't infect the baby with whooping cough, and I'll remember that my tetanus shots are due on years ending in 0. So that's all good, and I'm glad to get that over with.
The bug guy is coming next next Wednesday. I suspected that, and that is the main reason I asked to come home instead of going straight on to Oklahoma with my husband, but now I have that confirmed. So I should be doing a lot of cleaning, which I am not, because of my back. But I should at least try to clear him a path through the junk.
Tomorrow I should have my picture taken, but I really don't want to. I don't know what to wear. I don't feel like getting dressed up anyway. Maybe I'll wear Harry Potter stuff.
So I quit trying to figure out how I might get to the place and just stayed home to work.
Of course I am not working, as my back still hurts. Maybe not as much as it did. Sometimes I think that whatever it is maybe getting better. Other times I just think that I am having a few good days, and then I'll have a few bad ones. It is best to sit just a certain way in this chair (so there has been a lot of Hulu and Youtube and such), or to stand up straight (which does not happen very often cause how boring is it to just stand still somewhere), or to maybe walk around a bit at a mall or something, or to stay in bed in a certain positions. Those positions in bed are not good for watching TV or reading, so I'm trying to stay out of bed, but eventually I am there watching TV or using the heating pad anyway. And of course I am trying to sleep some, which does not seem to want to happen at the right times.
The first thing that happened after I decided to stay here is that I seem to have lost my marbles and forgot to pay rent. I could have sworn that was done before I left, but there was no money taken out of the account for it. And I thought that I had given it to the "temporary manager", but as I got out of there fast and did not ask for a receipt, that might have been an earlier month. Anyway, paying that late means a lot of late fees, and I ended up paying eighty dollars for my mistake. She at first said a hundred, and I know that she could have even said a hundred and twenty, but "temporary manager" wasn't around, so she didn't charge me for the first day and she didn't charge me for the day that I wrote the check. (I later heard that "temporary manager" had quit, but as that was after I went to the office I did not get that confirmed.) I just can't imagine having forgotten to pay that check, as I went so far as to make sure that my brother had an emergency check before I went out of town. So how did I remember the emergency check but not the regular rent check?
The next odd thing was I learned that mail delivery for our street had stopped. There was an incident with a dog and some man at the beginning of the street (technically his address is on the cross street), and so everyone else would have to go get their mail from the Post Office until further notice. That started Friday afternoon while I was away. The mail service just stopped, and you only heard about it through the rumour mill, not buy a note on the door or phone call or anything official from either the Post Office or the office here. I didn't hear about it until Tuesday. Wednesday, the man who lives in the apartment in question came around to apologize in person to everyone on the street, saying that it was not him and not his dog, but his daughter's boyfriend and his dog. The boyfriend and dog have left, and the man has apologized and made arrangements to have a box at the post office, and the mail service was restored on Thursday.
Tuesday I got my TDaP shot. I don't know the difference between the TDaP and the DTaP (maybe one is for adults and one for children?), but I ended up getting it from the Kroger's pharmacy for $50. That is considerably less that the prices I'd been told at other places ($80 and $129), so I wonder if they made a mistake. I got the shot before they could change their minds. So now I won't infect the baby with whooping cough, and I'll remember that my tetanus shots are due on years ending in 0. So that's all good, and I'm glad to get that over with.
The bug guy is coming next next Wednesday. I suspected that, and that is the main reason I asked to come home instead of going straight on to Oklahoma with my husband, but now I have that confirmed. So I should be doing a lot of cleaning, which I am not, because of my back. But I should at least try to clear him a path through the junk.
Tomorrow I should have my picture taken, but I really don't want to. I don't know what to wear. I don't feel like getting dressed up anyway. Maybe I'll wear Harry Potter stuff.
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Taz hate pain
I am sitting here trying to be somewhat quiet. I unexpectedly have someone sharing my bed this morning, as my husband came home a day early. He is still sleeping, and as usual for this time of day I am not.
When I wrote my last post I was beginning my second week of being home after being away most of three weeks. My first week here my husband was here, and there was other stuff keeping me away from the house most of the time, so I did not get much done around here. The second week I was to have the place to myself, and as I had a lot of work to do and usually get more of it done when he is not here, that was to my liking.
I did a lot of work that Monday. I attempted to move the washing machine so that I could clean behind it and paint. I was able to move it some, but not all the way, as that would have require cutting off the water and such, and I was afraid that without help I would somehow do something wrong, like get the hot and cold water backwards, so I did what cleaning I could and painted the spots I could reach, and then I put the washing machine back in it's proper place. I did not quite finish painting the kitchen, as that would have required the ladder, and I don't do that when I am alone in the house, just in case there is an accident. So there are small areas up near the ceiling and around the windows and such, and those will take patience, but other than that (and the bit behind the washing machine that I couldn't reach) the kitchen walls are all painted, and I don't plan on painting the ceiling.
Having completed all of that task that needed to be done before putting the cabinet back in it's usual spot, I moved the cabinet. The kitchen is now back to being mostly the way it was, and now I can think about what needs to be done to the new wall, if I want to add hooks or magnets or whatever.
After all of that, the tiling under the sink still isn't done. I did buy another cutting tool, but I haven't used it yet. So still a lot of kitchen stuff is still tossed into the dinning area, which I can't use because it has too much junk in it.
After moving all the stuff in the kitchen, I decided to get the other major chore out of the way and mowed the front yard. Then it was time to eat dinner and pat myself on the back for a job well done. All that work done and it was only Monday. Off to a great start.
And then I felt like I was going to fall. I didn't fall really, I caught myself, but my back really hurt. Well, these things happen. But I was done for the day anyway. I was just going to eat and then watch TV for the rest of the evening.
Except that the next day my back still hurt. I tried some Doan's pills. I don't know what it is about Doan's pills, but they really do magic things and get rid of back pain. At least, they usually do, but not this time. I had an errand to run, but after that I spent most of the day in bed watching the last season of Saving Grace.
Wednesday morning I did not feel that much better still, but I had many errands to run, and I decided to go ahead and try to do them. While I was out, I got the coolest sandals on clearance for ten dollars. At about five or so I decided that I'd had enough. My back still hurt, but not so much as it had in the morning. I decided just one more thing could be done that day, so I went to Walgreen's and got a flu shot.
I ended up not getting home till after six, and after getting something to eat I invited myself to my brother's place to watch Stargate. We were going to watch some other stuff, but we ended up talking about this and that, and then we decided we should save the other stuff for another time. I borrowed some DVDs and went home.
I thought that I would try doing as little as possible Thursday to see if that would help my back, so I spent most of the day in bed watching those DVDs. It did not help. If anything I felt worse.
By Friday night I hadn't gotten anything done around the house except for what I'd done Monday. Since the day I felt the best was Wednesday, the day I'd spent the least time in bed complaining about my bad back, I decided to mostly stay out of bed and at least wash the dishes and do the laundry on Saturday. And then my husband came home a day early.
So if I'm going to get anything done besides laundry it will have to be today. We will see what happens. We are planning another trip.
When I wrote my last post I was beginning my second week of being home after being away most of three weeks. My first week here my husband was here, and there was other stuff keeping me away from the house most of the time, so I did not get much done around here. The second week I was to have the place to myself, and as I had a lot of work to do and usually get more of it done when he is not here, that was to my liking.
I did a lot of work that Monday. I attempted to move the washing machine so that I could clean behind it and paint. I was able to move it some, but not all the way, as that would have require cutting off the water and such, and I was afraid that without help I would somehow do something wrong, like get the hot and cold water backwards, so I did what cleaning I could and painted the spots I could reach, and then I put the washing machine back in it's proper place. I did not quite finish painting the kitchen, as that would have required the ladder, and I don't do that when I am alone in the house, just in case there is an accident. So there are small areas up near the ceiling and around the windows and such, and those will take patience, but other than that (and the bit behind the washing machine that I couldn't reach) the kitchen walls are all painted, and I don't plan on painting the ceiling.
Having completed all of that task that needed to be done before putting the cabinet back in it's usual spot, I moved the cabinet. The kitchen is now back to being mostly the way it was, and now I can think about what needs to be done to the new wall, if I want to add hooks or magnets or whatever.
After all of that, the tiling under the sink still isn't done. I did buy another cutting tool, but I haven't used it yet. So still a lot of kitchen stuff is still tossed into the dinning area, which I can't use because it has too much junk in it.
After moving all the stuff in the kitchen, I decided to get the other major chore out of the way and mowed the front yard. Then it was time to eat dinner and pat myself on the back for a job well done. All that work done and it was only Monday. Off to a great start.
And then I felt like I was going to fall. I didn't fall really, I caught myself, but my back really hurt. Well, these things happen. But I was done for the day anyway. I was just going to eat and then watch TV for the rest of the evening.
Except that the next day my back still hurt. I tried some Doan's pills. I don't know what it is about Doan's pills, but they really do magic things and get rid of back pain. At least, they usually do, but not this time. I had an errand to run, but after that I spent most of the day in bed watching the last season of Saving Grace.
Wednesday morning I did not feel that much better still, but I had many errands to run, and I decided to go ahead and try to do them. While I was out, I got the coolest sandals on clearance for ten dollars. At about five or so I decided that I'd had enough. My back still hurt, but not so much as it had in the morning. I decided just one more thing could be done that day, so I went to Walgreen's and got a flu shot.
I ended up not getting home till after six, and after getting something to eat I invited myself to my brother's place to watch Stargate. We were going to watch some other stuff, but we ended up talking about this and that, and then we decided we should save the other stuff for another time. I borrowed some DVDs and went home.
I thought that I would try doing as little as possible Thursday to see if that would help my back, so I spent most of the day in bed watching those DVDs. It did not help. If anything I felt worse.
By Friday night I hadn't gotten anything done around the house except for what I'd done Monday. Since the day I felt the best was Wednesday, the day I'd spent the least time in bed complaining about my bad back, I decided to mostly stay out of bed and at least wash the dishes and do the laundry on Saturday. And then my husband came home a day early.
So if I'm going to get anything done besides laundry it will have to be today. We will see what happens. We are planning another trip.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
My routine is screwed up
Okay, so I am home now, after having been away for most of three weeks. And I don't quite know what to do. I don't quite remember what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. I have to think about things that I used to just get up and do. But I haven't done them in three weeks, and I don't remember what needed to be done or where things are and such.
I've forgotten to water the plants. I was away all that time, and the rain mostly took care of them, and a neighbor watered a few things, so that when I got home some of the plants were rather sad looking, but very few were dead, and those dead ones were mostly either things that I expected to die or things that I just didn't care about anymore. The second thing that I did when I got home was water the plants. I gave them lots and lots of water. But then on Monday I totally forgot to get up and water the plants, and Tuesday I didn't remember until I was doing something else and could not stop to check on the plants. So now I'm sitting here remembering that I need to water the plants, and this is the time of day that I used to water the plants, only I can't water them right now because it is dark outside.
Why is it dark outside?
Okay, so I guess that it's just that time of year that it stays dark longer, and I just didn't notice that from the motel. But here, today, it is dark, and it is a surprise. So I'm just sitting here worrying about my plants and not able to do anything about it.
So I thought that I would sit here and try to be quiet, and do things like check my email and check a few other things. And I'm sitting here, and I forgot my email address. Well, one of them anyway. I don't use it much anymore, but I have to check it once in a while, and I have to know what it is to use some other things. And I'm sitting here, and I just couldn't remember. Not that I forgot my password, but I just couldn't remember the email itself. I couldn't remember where to go to check the email. I didn't remember if it was gmail or yahoo or hotmail or fastmail. It was hotmail, but I sat here for the longest time and just could not remember that.
For a moment, it was scary. My email address was totally gone from my head, and it wasn't going to come back. And here I had thought I'd left that particular address where anyone with half a brain could find it (never thinking that I would be the person looking), but it wasn't there. I don't remember moving it, it just seems to have been removed for me during some stupid update or something.
Okay, I have the email now. But that was really annoying.
I am painting my kitchen. It seems that I've been painting my kitchen for a couple of months now. Maybe not really that long, but I started a while back, and then I was gone for weeks, and now I'm back, and I'm still not finished painting the damned kitchen.
I could paint half of the house in a day, if the house were empty. But the house isn't empty. I've never before tried to paint with all of the stuff still here. Well, maybe that isn't true, but that was a very long time ago. And I've certainly never before tried to paint such a small kitchen with all of the appliances still in place.
I shouldn't be so obsessed with painting the kitchen, especially now. But I had been thinking that I should paint. Not a different color or anything, just it is time to paint over all those little marks that do not clean off, and in order to do that I need to paint everything so that I know everything is the same color white, and I need to know exactly what color white that is. And I was thinking that I should get started on it, since I'd already go to the trouble of moving a few things for the guys to repair the wall. And then once I got started I thought that I should not halfway do things, that if I'm going to do this I should really do this, and so I am moving everything and painting behind stuff and cleaning under stuff and cleaning over stuff.
Before I left, I had done some of the work. In the day and a half I was home between trips I did enough work so that I could put the stove back where it was supposed to be. Yesterday, I moved the refrigerator and cleaned under that and painted behind it and moved it back where it was. That is what is taking so long, that I have to move one thing at a time, clean, put tape on the floor and around cabinets and electrical stuff, paint, wait about four hours, paint again, wait a couple more hours, remove tape, and then move the thing back where it was.
And also I am afraid of being on a ladder when I'm the only one in the house, cause I really don't want to fall and be stuck like that the rest of the day. So any cleaning or painting that involves being on a ladder can only be done before my husband leaves for work or on his day off. So that is annoying and takes even more time.
So I have now painted most of two walls, and that took about five sections. Now I need to paint the wall with the sink and the washing machine. I'm not sure about moving a washing machine. It might be complicated, or I might have to unhook something. And I really shouldn't bother with it, except that a.) I will know I didn't do a proper job even if no one else notices, and b.) I really need to clean behind it. There's a smell in the kitchen, and that is the only place left that I haven't looked. So the area needs to be cleaned even if it doesn't really need to be painted, and I want it painted anyway.
So am I near completing this task? No. Today is the day of the thing that my mother insisted I be here for, even though now it seems that there won't be much for me to do, except that I need to feed mother's dog while she is out doing something. Except that she forgot to have a key made for me, so this might take a while. So I'm not sure that moving the washing machine is a good idea today, as it is right near the door, and it might get moved in such a way that it would prevent me from leaving the house for several hours, and I don't really know yet when I might be needed.
Well, it is less dark outside, so I guess that I will go out and look at the plants.
I've forgotten to water the plants. I was away all that time, and the rain mostly took care of them, and a neighbor watered a few things, so that when I got home some of the plants were rather sad looking, but very few were dead, and those dead ones were mostly either things that I expected to die or things that I just didn't care about anymore. The second thing that I did when I got home was water the plants. I gave them lots and lots of water. But then on Monday I totally forgot to get up and water the plants, and Tuesday I didn't remember until I was doing something else and could not stop to check on the plants. So now I'm sitting here remembering that I need to water the plants, and this is the time of day that I used to water the plants, only I can't water them right now because it is dark outside.
Why is it dark outside?
Okay, so I guess that it's just that time of year that it stays dark longer, and I just didn't notice that from the motel. But here, today, it is dark, and it is a surprise. So I'm just sitting here worrying about my plants and not able to do anything about it.
So I thought that I would sit here and try to be quiet, and do things like check my email and check a few other things. And I'm sitting here, and I forgot my email address. Well, one of them anyway. I don't use it much anymore, but I have to check it once in a while, and I have to know what it is to use some other things. And I'm sitting here, and I just couldn't remember. Not that I forgot my password, but I just couldn't remember the email itself. I couldn't remember where to go to check the email. I didn't remember if it was gmail or yahoo or hotmail or fastmail. It was hotmail, but I sat here for the longest time and just could not remember that.
For a moment, it was scary. My email address was totally gone from my head, and it wasn't going to come back. And here I had thought I'd left that particular address where anyone with half a brain could find it (never thinking that I would be the person looking), but it wasn't there. I don't remember moving it, it just seems to have been removed for me during some stupid update or something.
Okay, I have the email now. But that was really annoying.
I am painting my kitchen. It seems that I've been painting my kitchen for a couple of months now. Maybe not really that long, but I started a while back, and then I was gone for weeks, and now I'm back, and I'm still not finished painting the damned kitchen.
I could paint half of the house in a day, if the house were empty. But the house isn't empty. I've never before tried to paint with all of the stuff still here. Well, maybe that isn't true, but that was a very long time ago. And I've certainly never before tried to paint such a small kitchen with all of the appliances still in place.
I shouldn't be so obsessed with painting the kitchen, especially now. But I had been thinking that I should paint. Not a different color or anything, just it is time to paint over all those little marks that do not clean off, and in order to do that I need to paint everything so that I know everything is the same color white, and I need to know exactly what color white that is. And I was thinking that I should get started on it, since I'd already go to the trouble of moving a few things for the guys to repair the wall. And then once I got started I thought that I should not halfway do things, that if I'm going to do this I should really do this, and so I am moving everything and painting behind stuff and cleaning under stuff and cleaning over stuff.
Before I left, I had done some of the work. In the day and a half I was home between trips I did enough work so that I could put the stove back where it was supposed to be. Yesterday, I moved the refrigerator and cleaned under that and painted behind it and moved it back where it was. That is what is taking so long, that I have to move one thing at a time, clean, put tape on the floor and around cabinets and electrical stuff, paint, wait about four hours, paint again, wait a couple more hours, remove tape, and then move the thing back where it was.
And also I am afraid of being on a ladder when I'm the only one in the house, cause I really don't want to fall and be stuck like that the rest of the day. So any cleaning or painting that involves being on a ladder can only be done before my husband leaves for work or on his day off. So that is annoying and takes even more time.
So I have now painted most of two walls, and that took about five sections. Now I need to paint the wall with the sink and the washing machine. I'm not sure about moving a washing machine. It might be complicated, or I might have to unhook something. And I really shouldn't bother with it, except that a.) I will know I didn't do a proper job even if no one else notices, and b.) I really need to clean behind it. There's a smell in the kitchen, and that is the only place left that I haven't looked. So the area needs to be cleaned even if it doesn't really need to be painted, and I want it painted anyway.
So am I near completing this task? No. Today is the day of the thing that my mother insisted I be here for, even though now it seems that there won't be much for me to do, except that I need to feed mother's dog while she is out doing something. Except that she forgot to have a key made for me, so this might take a while. So I'm not sure that moving the washing machine is a good idea today, as it is right near the door, and it might get moved in such a way that it would prevent me from leaving the house for several hours, and I don't really know yet when I might be needed.
Well, it is less dark outside, so I guess that I will go out and look at the plants.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Now I can feel guilty some more
Okay, so we were home, and now we are not. The original plan was to go home and get some sleep and immediately head out again, so that we would have a day to be a tourist before the work week started on Tuesday. Except this trip is now two weeks, so we will have at least Sunday to be tourists, and maybe the Sunday and Monday the following week, so we didn't need this Sunday too. Besides, this Sunday's motel room wouldn't have been paid for, and I thought a day at home would be better.
And I imagined doing all this work and cleaning and such. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but I'm trying to paint the kitchen. I wouldn't have started this particular project now, except that since I've already pushed the cabinet out of the kitchen and moved the stove away from the wall, I thought that it would be better to get that area painted before I had to put everything back the way it was. Still everything else is still there, so I'm having to paint this tiny kitchen in four sections. Section one I painted half of a wall under a cabinet where the stove normally is and most of the wall next to it. That went well enough. Section two involved painting an even smaller area, up near the ceiling, and mostly above a couple of cabinets. And that involved standing on a ladder, and though it was a small ladder I decided to put that off until someone else was in the house with me, just in case there was an accident.
So I did section two on Sunday, when we were both home. Only before I started painting I had to take everything down from on top of the cabinets, and found that to be a bit of a mess. I'd never been up there to look before, but in addition to the dust and such that I expected I also found bits of wood and nails and other things that I'm not sure what they were, but that must have been left there by the maintenance guys before we moved in. I don't even know why this stuff was there, much less why it was left there. I don't think much of some of the maintenance guys, but at least they usually clean up after themselves.
I didn't have the energy for that sort of thing, but I did eventually get most of it cleaned. Ten minutes of cleaning, and then ten minutes of rest. I really didn't care to be standing on that ladder for long.
So that ended up being most of what got done that day, cleaning above the cabinets, painting above the cabinets, waiting four hours for the paint to dry, and then painting the second coat. Other than that I finished the laundry that I didn't get done with the day before, and I went out to lunch and cooked dinner. And that was about it. Oh, we cut the grass, and that was about it.
So I still hadn't cleaned the bathroom, or finished packing, or a couple of other things. So after watering the plants I still had to do all of that. And then my husband had a few errands to run, so we didn't leave as early as I had imagined, and it was about four in the afternoon before we got here. Not much time to do anything. But it was raining off and on, so I guess we wouldn't have done much of anything anyway.
Anyway, while I imagined leaving a cleaner house this time, it looks about the same as it did before, except that it has been painted just a little bit more, the bathroom has been cleaned up a bit, and the stove has been pushed back into it's usual place. The rest of the junk is still where it was.
I meant to take a few more things with me. Like, I miss my pillow. Taking your whole bed with you when you travel is impractical, but taking a pillow is easy, and if that isn't enough you can even bring your own sheets. So I missed my pillow all week and meant to bring it with me this time, but somehow I left the house without it, and the extra clothes I meant to pack, and a few other things. Mostly I have the same things that I had last week, except that I've washed them.
And I meant to put something on the bed before I left, just to get it off of the floor, just in case my house floods while I'm away. Flooding in general is horrible, but as far as missing individual things I don't think that there's much I would miss, except for this one thing, and I forgot and left it on the floor, the worst possible place for it.
So of course it is raining here, which means that it will probably rain at home later, which is normally a good thing, but now I'm a bit worried about flooding.
We have to change motels Wednesday, but we were looking forward to staying here for a bit. It has an indoor pool, and we managed to get a whirlpool tub at no extra cost. Except that once we got all of our stuff into the room and planned to take a bath, the jets didn't work. So, to be nice, they said that they would move us into another room.
You wouldn't think that you could make such a mess in only a few hours. Our stuff was all over the room and we had stuff in the fridge, but I really wanted that hottub, so we moved.
The new room is designed for handicapped people. I didn't know that hottubs were part of the handicapped rooms, but there's one here. In fact, there's a real big hottub here. I've never had a private tub big enough for two. I like it. Still, I shouldn't be in a room meant for a handicapped person. But there are more of those rooms here, so I guess that it is okay to use the one, unless a convention comes to town before we check out tomorrow.
Wednesday I will get another room that isn't as nice in a town that isn't as interesting. But Thursday or Friday there will be ice cream, possibly lots of ice cream.
And I imagined doing all this work and cleaning and such. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, but I'm trying to paint the kitchen. I wouldn't have started this particular project now, except that since I've already pushed the cabinet out of the kitchen and moved the stove away from the wall, I thought that it would be better to get that area painted before I had to put everything back the way it was. Still everything else is still there, so I'm having to paint this tiny kitchen in four sections. Section one I painted half of a wall under a cabinet where the stove normally is and most of the wall next to it. That went well enough. Section two involved painting an even smaller area, up near the ceiling, and mostly above a couple of cabinets. And that involved standing on a ladder, and though it was a small ladder I decided to put that off until someone else was in the house with me, just in case there was an accident.
So I did section two on Sunday, when we were both home. Only before I started painting I had to take everything down from on top of the cabinets, and found that to be a bit of a mess. I'd never been up there to look before, but in addition to the dust and such that I expected I also found bits of wood and nails and other things that I'm not sure what they were, but that must have been left there by the maintenance guys before we moved in. I don't even know why this stuff was there, much less why it was left there. I don't think much of some of the maintenance guys, but at least they usually clean up after themselves.
I didn't have the energy for that sort of thing, but I did eventually get most of it cleaned. Ten minutes of cleaning, and then ten minutes of rest. I really didn't care to be standing on that ladder for long.
So that ended up being most of what got done that day, cleaning above the cabinets, painting above the cabinets, waiting four hours for the paint to dry, and then painting the second coat. Other than that I finished the laundry that I didn't get done with the day before, and I went out to lunch and cooked dinner. And that was about it. Oh, we cut the grass, and that was about it.
So I still hadn't cleaned the bathroom, or finished packing, or a couple of other things. So after watering the plants I still had to do all of that. And then my husband had a few errands to run, so we didn't leave as early as I had imagined, and it was about four in the afternoon before we got here. Not much time to do anything. But it was raining off and on, so I guess we wouldn't have done much of anything anyway.
Anyway, while I imagined leaving a cleaner house this time, it looks about the same as it did before, except that it has been painted just a little bit more, the bathroom has been cleaned up a bit, and the stove has been pushed back into it's usual place. The rest of the junk is still where it was.
I meant to take a few more things with me. Like, I miss my pillow. Taking your whole bed with you when you travel is impractical, but taking a pillow is easy, and if that isn't enough you can even bring your own sheets. So I missed my pillow all week and meant to bring it with me this time, but somehow I left the house without it, and the extra clothes I meant to pack, and a few other things. Mostly I have the same things that I had last week, except that I've washed them.
And I meant to put something on the bed before I left, just to get it off of the floor, just in case my house floods while I'm away. Flooding in general is horrible, but as far as missing individual things I don't think that there's much I would miss, except for this one thing, and I forgot and left it on the floor, the worst possible place for it.
So of course it is raining here, which means that it will probably rain at home later, which is normally a good thing, but now I'm a bit worried about flooding.
We have to change motels Wednesday, but we were looking forward to staying here for a bit. It has an indoor pool, and we managed to get a whirlpool tub at no extra cost. Except that once we got all of our stuff into the room and planned to take a bath, the jets didn't work. So, to be nice, they said that they would move us into another room.
You wouldn't think that you could make such a mess in only a few hours. Our stuff was all over the room and we had stuff in the fridge, but I really wanted that hottub, so we moved.
The new room is designed for handicapped people. I didn't know that hottubs were part of the handicapped rooms, but there's one here. In fact, there's a real big hottub here. I've never had a private tub big enough for two. I like it. Still, I shouldn't be in a room meant for a handicapped person. But there are more of those rooms here, so I guess that it is okay to use the one, unless a convention comes to town before we check out tomorrow.
Wednesday I will get another room that isn't as nice in a town that isn't as interesting. But Thursday or Friday there will be ice cream, possibly lots of ice cream.
Sunday, September 05, 2010
I am at home
But not for long. Mostly, we have come home to pack and plan for our next trip.
I have just had the strangest dream. I had given up and moved back in with my mom. For a time, my sister had also spent some time at my mom's, but that was very temporary. So temporary that I'm not sure we were ever there at the same time in the dream, just that I was aware that she had been there.
And then there was someone at the door, some government agency there on official business, and people came in and started going through all of our stuff. (I've spent a week watching cable, where there is not only a show about hoarders, but also a few shows about animal hoarders, which I did not even know was a term now, or that it ever applied to anyone other than old ladies with cats.) In real life, my mother does not have a lot of stuff to go through, so I guess in the dream I had brought over a lot of my stuff, or maybe my mom was trying to empty the attic or something. But still, even in this dream, there was not as much stuff at my mom's house as there is at my house, and what stuff there was wasn't particularly bad stuff or trash or nasty smelling stuff. Not like the hoarders show or anything like that. But these people are just going through the stuff and saying how bad it is, and I'm like whatever and why is it any of your business. And then they do find something unpleasant, like a few plastic bags that have bad stuff in them. Like the stuff got wet and then started going moldy or something. And that is bad, but for me it was worrying how the stuff got wet and moldy to start with, like did my mom have a leak in the roof or some other problem with the house that we were not aware of. But the people didn't care about that, they just found something on their list of reasons to throw people out on the street.
And my mom just sort of nods, and she isn't happy but just doesn't seem to want to fight about it, and I'll have to find some other place to stay. I'm the one who seems to be angry, that people can't just come in and do stuff like that. And then it turns out that these people have something to do with child welfare, and they are quite used to doing stuff like that.
Except that I'm not a child, and my mother is not a child, and even my youngest sibling is not a child. And we were not children in this dream either. In real life, the only child is the one grandchild, who did not seem to be in the dream, and in real life has never spent the night at my mom's place. So it did not make sense that these people were going through our stuff with the intention of protecting some children. And at that point I start laughing at them, saying that they are probably at the wrong house, and that they have no business being here at all. But they don't listen and keep going through the stuff and taking pictures of the moldy stuff in the bags.
Well, that is what I get for spending a week watching cable TV.
I have just had the strangest dream. I had given up and moved back in with my mom. For a time, my sister had also spent some time at my mom's, but that was very temporary. So temporary that I'm not sure we were ever there at the same time in the dream, just that I was aware that she had been there.
And then there was someone at the door, some government agency there on official business, and people came in and started going through all of our stuff. (I've spent a week watching cable, where there is not only a show about hoarders, but also a few shows about animal hoarders, which I did not even know was a term now, or that it ever applied to anyone other than old ladies with cats.) In real life, my mother does not have a lot of stuff to go through, so I guess in the dream I had brought over a lot of my stuff, or maybe my mom was trying to empty the attic or something. But still, even in this dream, there was not as much stuff at my mom's house as there is at my house, and what stuff there was wasn't particularly bad stuff or trash or nasty smelling stuff. Not like the hoarders show or anything like that. But these people are just going through the stuff and saying how bad it is, and I'm like whatever and why is it any of your business. And then they do find something unpleasant, like a few plastic bags that have bad stuff in them. Like the stuff got wet and then started going moldy or something. And that is bad, but for me it was worrying how the stuff got wet and moldy to start with, like did my mom have a leak in the roof or some other problem with the house that we were not aware of. But the people didn't care about that, they just found something on their list of reasons to throw people out on the street.
And my mom just sort of nods, and she isn't happy but just doesn't seem to want to fight about it, and I'll have to find some other place to stay. I'm the one who seems to be angry, that people can't just come in and do stuff like that. And then it turns out that these people have something to do with child welfare, and they are quite used to doing stuff like that.
Except that I'm not a child, and my mother is not a child, and even my youngest sibling is not a child. And we were not children in this dream either. In real life, the only child is the one grandchild, who did not seem to be in the dream, and in real life has never spent the night at my mom's place. So it did not make sense that these people were going through our stuff with the intention of protecting some children. And at that point I start laughing at them, saying that they are probably at the wrong house, and that they have no business being here at all. But they don't listen and keep going through the stuff and taking pictures of the moldy stuff in the bags.
Well, that is what I get for spending a week watching cable TV.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Now I feel guilty
Okay, so I had a week with mostly valid reasons for being lazy, followed by another week of mostly being lazy with no real excuse for it. Saturday I cut the grass and did the laundry and washed dishes. I even started painting the kitchen.
But the rest of the house was a mess. I debated about going on this trip. It wasn't anything really special, just that my husband was saying how if I went with him we would go to this restaurant or go do this and that, but without me he didn't much bother with such things. So I could have stayed home another week. We have bigger plans for next week's trip, but this week was no big deal.
But I really wanted to get out of the house, and sometimes there are last minute changes to the schedule. Sometimes he doesn't go where was planned, sometimes a job is cancelled and he works near home instead, or sometimes he just doesn't have any work. And if that had happened, I'd have been kicking myself that I gave up my last chance to get out of town for the summer.
But that isn't what happened.
The only thing that I cleaned Saturday was the kitchen, and then that got messy again with the painting. The rest of the house was still a mess, and then it was an even bigger mess once I actually started packing, as it had been a while and I tossed things around while looking for missing items I wanted to take with me.
But I was thinking that I would clean that up later, not the next week, but the week after, when I got home from the second trip.
Well now the second trip has been extended to two weeks. And of course, I have no idea what is planned after that. For all I know there will be a third week, or another trip to someplace even more interesting.
It is my fault entirely for being lazy last week. Not that I would have had a spotless house, but I could have cleaned the bathroom before I left, or gotten an earlier start on the painting and cleaned up afterward, or straightened the backroom a bit more, or a number of other things. But no, I didn't start the painting earlier, cause I didn't want to make yet a third trip to the store to return the paint, unless it was on a day that I was going to be right near there anyway, which didn't happen until Friday, so I didn't paint anything until Saturday.
Not that any of this guilt makes me reconsider next week's trip. I haven't been to that place in like four years. I'm really looking forward to it. Just not so looking forward to being away from home so much all at once.
I guess this will be yet another year when I don't fully decorate for Halloween because I'm too busy to get out the rest of the decorations.
But the rest of the house was a mess. I debated about going on this trip. It wasn't anything really special, just that my husband was saying how if I went with him we would go to this restaurant or go do this and that, but without me he didn't much bother with such things. So I could have stayed home another week. We have bigger plans for next week's trip, but this week was no big deal.
But I really wanted to get out of the house, and sometimes there are last minute changes to the schedule. Sometimes he doesn't go where was planned, sometimes a job is cancelled and he works near home instead, or sometimes he just doesn't have any work. And if that had happened, I'd have been kicking myself that I gave up my last chance to get out of town for the summer.
But that isn't what happened.
The only thing that I cleaned Saturday was the kitchen, and then that got messy again with the painting. The rest of the house was still a mess, and then it was an even bigger mess once I actually started packing, as it had been a while and I tossed things around while looking for missing items I wanted to take with me.
But I was thinking that I would clean that up later, not the next week, but the week after, when I got home from the second trip.
Well now the second trip has been extended to two weeks. And of course, I have no idea what is planned after that. For all I know there will be a third week, or another trip to someplace even more interesting.
It is my fault entirely for being lazy last week. Not that I would have had a spotless house, but I could have cleaned the bathroom before I left, or gotten an earlier start on the painting and cleaned up afterward, or straightened the backroom a bit more, or a number of other things. But no, I didn't start the painting earlier, cause I didn't want to make yet a third trip to the store to return the paint, unless it was on a day that I was going to be right near there anyway, which didn't happen until Friday, so I didn't paint anything until Saturday.
Not that any of this guilt makes me reconsider next week's trip. I haven't been to that place in like four years. I'm really looking forward to it. Just not so looking forward to being away from home so much all at once.
I guess this will be yet another year when I don't fully decorate for Halloween because I'm too busy to get out the rest of the decorations.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Tomorrow I will pay for being lazy
I didn't start out intending to be lazy. I had planned to work. I had imagined getting a lot of work done. The week before I had done a lot of work and put things aside to give away to people, and I had imagined two more weeks that would be about the same, though I was coming to the point where I'm running out of things that I really want to get rid of and still having too much stuff.
Okay, so I had imagined having two weeks to myself (later the trip was extended to three weeks), and I usually get more work done when I have the place to myself, and I pictured a lot of the stuff either being more organized or just somehow magically going away.
And then the maintenance guys were supposed to come and fix the wall that first Monday, and I did a lot of work trying to move stuff around so that they would have room to work. And while the stove and the cabinet were moved, I thought that I should scrub the floor, cause floors under appliances and cabinets get really dirty, and unless you feel like doing the work of moving these things on a regular basis to clean you have to take the opportunities when they occur. So I did some work that Sunday evening and a lot of work that Monday morning, and then the guys didn't even show up until Tuesday.
And I did no work that Monday. Having moved everything, including the microwave, I couldn't even cook, so I ended up going out to eat twice. When they did not show by five on Monday I moved things around a bit so that I could get the microwave, which I put on top of the washing machine. I still couldn't cook anything proper, but at least I could reheat things that were already cooked.
Later I would move the microwave and put a fan on the washing machine for the repair guys. The repairs that should have taken about four hours were stretched to four days. I kept moving the fan and the microwave back and forth from the washing machine. On Thursday it was all done, and I have done no work to speak of, other than washing a few dishes and moving the fan and the microwave. I know that I could have found some work to do, but I couldn't cook and I couldn't do laundry, and with the way things were moved around I couldn't do anything about the dining area. I finally just decided to relax and be lazy. I found something to watch on TV and started to enjoy it a bit.
By Thursday I was starting to not feel so good. Friday I was just a little bit sick, so I decided to keep being lazy for a bit. Saturday I had social things to do and decided there was not much point in doing any work Saturday morning that didn't have to be done just right then (like cooking something for the social thing). Being lazy continued.
Sunday, I was recovering from the social thing, cause I stayed out late and didn't get enough sleep. More time being lazy.
Monday, I had no excuse. I just enjoyed being in bed doing nothing.
Tuesday morning I had to watch just a few more DVDs before I got up to run some errands. The errands were near the dollar theater, so I watched a movie.
Wednesday, I bought the wrong thing, and had to go back to the store. While I'm in the area, I might as well watch another movie.
Yesterday I found something else that I needed to take back to the store, but three days in a row of this just seemed a really dumb thing to do. I stayed home. I didn't get a lot of work done, but some. Mainly I just didn't want to drive back to the same place, especially since today I want to watch two more movies that I've been waiting to come to the dollar theater. I can take stuff back to the store then.
So now it is Friday, and I've done very little with the two weeks. My husband has decided to come home for a day, so that he can do laundry and cut the grass, and then I can go back with him on Sunday.
And I haven't done any of my laundry, or packed, or even washed dishes in a bit. And I'm not planning to skip anything that I'd planned to do today (watch movies, go to the store, go to my brother's place, etc...), so that leaves a lot of work for me to do tomorrow.
But it was so nice to stay in bed and watch TV.
Okay, so I had imagined having two weeks to myself (later the trip was extended to three weeks), and I usually get more work done when I have the place to myself, and I pictured a lot of the stuff either being more organized or just somehow magically going away.
And then the maintenance guys were supposed to come and fix the wall that first Monday, and I did a lot of work trying to move stuff around so that they would have room to work. And while the stove and the cabinet were moved, I thought that I should scrub the floor, cause floors under appliances and cabinets get really dirty, and unless you feel like doing the work of moving these things on a regular basis to clean you have to take the opportunities when they occur. So I did some work that Sunday evening and a lot of work that Monday morning, and then the guys didn't even show up until Tuesday.
And I did no work that Monday. Having moved everything, including the microwave, I couldn't even cook, so I ended up going out to eat twice. When they did not show by five on Monday I moved things around a bit so that I could get the microwave, which I put on top of the washing machine. I still couldn't cook anything proper, but at least I could reheat things that were already cooked.
Later I would move the microwave and put a fan on the washing machine for the repair guys. The repairs that should have taken about four hours were stretched to four days. I kept moving the fan and the microwave back and forth from the washing machine. On Thursday it was all done, and I have done no work to speak of, other than washing a few dishes and moving the fan and the microwave. I know that I could have found some work to do, but I couldn't cook and I couldn't do laundry, and with the way things were moved around I couldn't do anything about the dining area. I finally just decided to relax and be lazy. I found something to watch on TV and started to enjoy it a bit.
By Thursday I was starting to not feel so good. Friday I was just a little bit sick, so I decided to keep being lazy for a bit. Saturday I had social things to do and decided there was not much point in doing any work Saturday morning that didn't have to be done just right then (like cooking something for the social thing). Being lazy continued.
Sunday, I was recovering from the social thing, cause I stayed out late and didn't get enough sleep. More time being lazy.
Monday, I had no excuse. I just enjoyed being in bed doing nothing.
Tuesday morning I had to watch just a few more DVDs before I got up to run some errands. The errands were near the dollar theater, so I watched a movie.
Wednesday, I bought the wrong thing, and had to go back to the store. While I'm in the area, I might as well watch another movie.
Yesterday I found something else that I needed to take back to the store, but three days in a row of this just seemed a really dumb thing to do. I stayed home. I didn't get a lot of work done, but some. Mainly I just didn't want to drive back to the same place, especially since today I want to watch two more movies that I've been waiting to come to the dollar theater. I can take stuff back to the store then.
So now it is Friday, and I've done very little with the two weeks. My husband has decided to come home for a day, so that he can do laundry and cut the grass, and then I can go back with him on Sunday.
And I haven't done any of my laundry, or packed, or even washed dishes in a bit. And I'm not planning to skip anything that I'd planned to do today (watch movies, go to the store, go to my brother's place, etc...), so that leaves a lot of work for me to do tomorrow.
But it was so nice to stay in bed and watch TV.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday Morons--What kind of paint is this?
Okay, if you've been reading, the kitchen wall that was half removed years ago to deal with a plumbing problem and never replaced was reported again about a month ago, was supposed to be repaired last Monday, no one came until Tuesday, a four hour break was taken to go do repairs at someone else's house, repairs at my place were not finished Tuesday and not resumed until after three on Wednesday, and then it still wasn't painted and so someone came to do that on Thursday.
Okay, so the paint he used was white. I think the can said pure white. But I'm pretty sure that the old paint was not pure white. It doesn't exactly match.
Besides the old paint not exactly matching the new paint, I have been here a while, and there are places that need touch-up paint. Or maybe it is just time to paint again.
Where I live, when you leave you have to paint the place either white or off-white, so that the place is all nice and new looking for the new person. If the new person doesn't like white, they can paint it again, as long as when they leave they paint it white again. If you use expensive paint, it probably doesn't matter what color you paint over, but usually it is easier to paint white over white than white over a darker color.
Anyway, I'm guessing that the people in the small apartments probably aren't planning to stay long, and they probably keep the white. The people in the houses stay longer, or at least probably plan to stay longer, and I'm guessing that more of them paint over the white with different colors or add wallpaper and such.
I just kept the white both times. I like white.
Okay, but trying to match a white or off-white paint is hard to do, unless maybe someone was nice and left you a bit of the paint in the can, or left you a note saying which white paint you used. If I remember correctly, I left almost a gallon of some sort of off-white paint for the apartment's new renters. It wasn't going to do me any good anyway, since the paint I used in the apartment was a few shades darker than what was used in the new place.
No one left me any paint at the new place, or the name of the paint, or anything. But I didn't think that getting the name of the paint would be a problem, since this place was not painted by the person leaving, but by the maintenance guys. I just thought that whenever I needed to know, I'd just ask the guys what paint they used when they had to paint a place themselves.
Well, I don't seem to have made myself understood. I don't think that the old paint was pure white, and the guy won't tell me the name of the old paint.
I've thought of four possible reasons that I am not being told specifically what kind of paint was used on my house six years ago.
Okay, so the paint he used was white. I think the can said pure white. But I'm pretty sure that the old paint was not pure white. It doesn't exactly match.
Besides the old paint not exactly matching the new paint, I have been here a while, and there are places that need touch-up paint. Or maybe it is just time to paint again.
Where I live, when you leave you have to paint the place either white or off-white, so that the place is all nice and new looking for the new person. If the new person doesn't like white, they can paint it again, as long as when they leave they paint it white again. If you use expensive paint, it probably doesn't matter what color you paint over, but usually it is easier to paint white over white than white over a darker color.
Anyway, I'm guessing that the people in the small apartments probably aren't planning to stay long, and they probably keep the white. The people in the houses stay longer, or at least probably plan to stay longer, and I'm guessing that more of them paint over the white with different colors or add wallpaper and such.
I just kept the white both times. I like white.
Okay, but trying to match a white or off-white paint is hard to do, unless maybe someone was nice and left you a bit of the paint in the can, or left you a note saying which white paint you used. If I remember correctly, I left almost a gallon of some sort of off-white paint for the apartment's new renters. It wasn't going to do me any good anyway, since the paint I used in the apartment was a few shades darker than what was used in the new place.
No one left me any paint at the new place, or the name of the paint, or anything. But I didn't think that getting the name of the paint would be a problem, since this place was not painted by the person leaving, but by the maintenance guys. I just thought that whenever I needed to know, I'd just ask the guys what paint they used when they had to paint a place themselves.
Well, I don't seem to have made myself understood. I don't think that the old paint was pure white, and the guy won't tell me the name of the old paint.
I've thought of four possible reasons that I am not being told specifically what kind of paint was used on my house six years ago.
Possibility #1--They are deliberately being annoying.
Possibility #2--I suppose that they might have used a different color back then, and then there was some financial gain for switching to a different color or a different brand, and they just don't remember the name of the paint they used before. I don't think this is really what happened, just wanted to show that I was smart enough to figure out that it might have happened. And even if there were some financial reason for switching paints, you would think that they'd still have records of what the old paint was and when they switched paints and such.
Possibility #3--They had to switch paints because the old paint either isn't made anymore, or isn't sold at the local store. Again, they should have records of this and should be able to tell me about it.
Possibility #4--They are just stupid. They use different color paints whenever they have to paint something. The paint is selected on a whim. They have a little bit of paint left over from several projects, and it goes to waste, because the next time they need paint they buy yet a different color.
I am thinking that if it isn't just the first explanation then it is the fourth one, cause the other two make sense, and they should have no trouble telling someone an explanation if it made sense like that. They are annoying and/or just stupid.
Okay, so now that I've had that problem with the paint from the people who supposedly work for me, I have more fun at Home Depot.
I'm thinking that the guys just went to Home Depot and bought whatever paint was cheapest. I seem to recall doing that myself (though I might have gone to Lowe's instead). If you just want white or off-white, and you aren't trying to match something, there are a few that don't cost too much that come in 5 gallon buckets. So probably, if I find the cheapest 5 gallon bucket, the lightest color that isn't pure white is probably the one that they used.
So I see at the end there's 5 gallon buckets for about fifty dollars, and they say something like professional grade. And I think that one of those would be it, if they were the same kind of paint sold six years ago. But I can't find any paint chips or a color chart or anything for them. I see that they come in at least three colors--white, aspen white, and antique white.
Aspen white sounds nice, but I don't want to buy any without at least a paint chip (and I would prefer an actual sample of paint to take home and try before buying five gallons of the stuff). I ask someone for help, but they don't have either samples or paint chips or a color chart or anything. And I can't get help from anyone else who knows anything about the paint. I can complain to this girl's boss, but that doesn't help me with the paint. She keeps saying that the paint is mostly used by professionals, so that they don't have samples and paint chips.
I don't see how being professional equals not needing to know what color paint is in the bucket.
Are the professionals psychic or something? Is there some secret handshake you have to know before being shown what color paint is in the container?
Another girl comes and wants to color match the paint for me. The first girl had wanted to do that too, but I didn't want to. Having the color matched doesn't tell me what color is in the 5 gallon container. It is a different kind of paint from a different company that can be color matched. But somehow I'm talking to this second girl, and she's doing the color match thing and telling me it will be eight dollars for a quart. I'm agreeing to it (I don't know why), but then she says the paint is ten dollars a quart, not eight.
Okay, I went thinking that I was going to spend two dollars on a paint sample for something that I could later buy in a gallon can and a five gallon bucket. Then it goes up to eight dollars for a quart, and then it turns out that the paint is ten dollars for a quart. And that still doesn't tell me what color paint is in the 5 gallon bucket for fifty dollars, so if I use a lot of the color matched paint instead of whatever is in the 5 gallon bucket, I will be spending thirty dollars a gallon. That's about three times what I had planned to spend.
At that point I leave and decide to go to Lowe's the next day.
I find some paint in five gallon buckets for sixty dollars, and there is at least a color chart for that. There are no samples, but by now I'm ready to give up and start with a new color paint if necessary to avoid spending thirty dollars a gallon on color matching.
I end up spending fourteen dollars on a gallon of plain white paint. Maybe it will match, and maybe it won't. If it doesn't, well, it's probably time to repaint anyway, and I will repaint it something that doesn't need color matching. I'm testing a bit of it right now. In an hour it will either dry too light or a shade darker and be exactly what I want, but I think I'm okay with it either way. I'm ready to just start painting and be done with it.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
More repairmen
The day after I posted about how I did not like people in my house, the temporary manager and one of the maintenance guys came by to see the hole in the wall, or rather, the half of the wall that is there and the half that is not there. The half of the wall that is not there was cut away so that the maintenance guys could make some repairs. They were supposed to come back the next day and fix the wall.
That was a few years back that they were supposed to fix the wall. It might have been back before I started writing this blog.
Anyway, I waited for them to fix the wall, and for about a month they gave me excuses about needing to buy something to make it look nice, or that my repairs had been pushed back a bit so that they could go and deal with something else, some emergency at a neighbor's house.
After about two months had gone by with no repair and no word as to when the repair would be made, I called the office to ask about it. I was told that they didn't know anything about it. There was no work order.
I didn't know that you needed a second work order to come and finish the first one. You just should know that you aren't finished and come and do the work.
But whatever. There's a second work order, but now I would have to wait my turn like everyone else. It was just a cosmetic thing, not an emergency.
They still didn't come and fix the thing.
I got tired of trying to clean around the cut off part of the wall that was just there in my kitchen, so I took all the pieces and put them outside. I have covered parking, so I thought that as long as it was right there in the front it would not get rained on or anything.
After a while I got a notice to get rid of trash that was on my front porch. I did have several things on my front porch that I am not really supposed to store there, but I don't have any other good place to put them. None of that stuff was trash, it was all building materials and stuff for either the garden or art class. I moved the garden and art class stuff and left the kitchen wall.
Some time went by, and I got another notice about trash on the porch, this time with a picture of the offending items.
I moved them to the back porch. I'm afraid a lot of time went by and I didn't give much thought to the half missing kitchen wall. I had more important things to deal with--homewrecking sluts, floods, health problems, etc....
At some point I got another notice to get rid of the "trash", and then I got an actual warning from the city in the spring.
At that point, thought it didn't look too bad, I did think that maybe the wall had been out in the elements too long, and it might be trash, or close enough to it that I should just have new materials. So I put the "trash" out on the curb, and it was taken away on the next garbage pick-up day.
So now, this temporary manager is asking where the other piece of the wall is, and I told him after getting three notices to throw it away that is what I did.
And he just talks some more, like I don't know that he is the one who had the city come out and order the "trash" removed, like none of this is his doing, like it is all someone else's fault, like it isn't the same maintenance guy that started the whole problem in the first place still being in charge (though the guy that came to fix the other problems had nothing to do with it, he was just confirming that there was still this big hole in the wall).
The manager told the maintenance guy that he needed to do some other thing while the wall was still open like that. I don't really get what that was about, just some other thing having to do with the hot water heater.
They were supposed to do the repair yesterday.
I cleaned up the kitchen a bit and moved things around so that the guys could do the repairs. So I had to push the cabinet out of the way and clean behind it, so that they could move the stove away from the wall, and I cleaned behind where the stove was. And then my husband was about to leave for another trip, so we went to Denny's before he left. And I expected the maintenance guys to be there when we got back, but they weren't. But they don't open the office til nine, and it was only about ten, so I thought they'd be by soon.
Having a frig full of leftovers, but no way to heat them up in the microwave with the rearranged kitchen, I went to get gas and a drink and bought a hotdog at RaceTrac.
They did not come by all day.
This morning I slept late, but I wasn't in a hurry, since I was still up by eight and they didn't open the office til nine. I was just about to get a bath when one of the maintenance guys showed up ready to work.
I told him to come back in an hour, as I had not yet washed my hair or the dishes.
He didn't argue.
Well, I can't shower with a stranger in the house, and I can't wash dishes while he works on the wall, cause there isn't room for us both to be next to the sink at the same time.
He came back about ten, and did whatever it was with the pipe from the hot water heater, and now he's gone to lunch and to get some materials for actually fixing the wall.
I wonder if it might actually get all done today.
That was a few years back that they were supposed to fix the wall. It might have been back before I started writing this blog.
Anyway, I waited for them to fix the wall, and for about a month they gave me excuses about needing to buy something to make it look nice, or that my repairs had been pushed back a bit so that they could go and deal with something else, some emergency at a neighbor's house.
After about two months had gone by with no repair and no word as to when the repair would be made, I called the office to ask about it. I was told that they didn't know anything about it. There was no work order.
I didn't know that you needed a second work order to come and finish the first one. You just should know that you aren't finished and come and do the work.
But whatever. There's a second work order, but now I would have to wait my turn like everyone else. It was just a cosmetic thing, not an emergency.
They still didn't come and fix the thing.
I got tired of trying to clean around the cut off part of the wall that was just there in my kitchen, so I took all the pieces and put them outside. I have covered parking, so I thought that as long as it was right there in the front it would not get rained on or anything.
After a while I got a notice to get rid of trash that was on my front porch. I did have several things on my front porch that I am not really supposed to store there, but I don't have any other good place to put them. None of that stuff was trash, it was all building materials and stuff for either the garden or art class. I moved the garden and art class stuff and left the kitchen wall.
Some time went by, and I got another notice about trash on the porch, this time with a picture of the offending items.
I moved them to the back porch. I'm afraid a lot of time went by and I didn't give much thought to the half missing kitchen wall. I had more important things to deal with--homewrecking sluts, floods, health problems, etc....
At some point I got another notice to get rid of the "trash", and then I got an actual warning from the city in the spring.
At that point, thought it didn't look too bad, I did think that maybe the wall had been out in the elements too long, and it might be trash, or close enough to it that I should just have new materials. So I put the "trash" out on the curb, and it was taken away on the next garbage pick-up day.
So now, this temporary manager is asking where the other piece of the wall is, and I told him after getting three notices to throw it away that is what I did.
And he just talks some more, like I don't know that he is the one who had the city come out and order the "trash" removed, like none of this is his doing, like it is all someone else's fault, like it isn't the same maintenance guy that started the whole problem in the first place still being in charge (though the guy that came to fix the other problems had nothing to do with it, he was just confirming that there was still this big hole in the wall).
The manager told the maintenance guy that he needed to do some other thing while the wall was still open like that. I don't really get what that was about, just some other thing having to do with the hot water heater.
They were supposed to do the repair yesterday.
I cleaned up the kitchen a bit and moved things around so that the guys could do the repairs. So I had to push the cabinet out of the way and clean behind it, so that they could move the stove away from the wall, and I cleaned behind where the stove was. And then my husband was about to leave for another trip, so we went to Denny's before he left. And I expected the maintenance guys to be there when we got back, but they weren't. But they don't open the office til nine, and it was only about ten, so I thought they'd be by soon.
Having a frig full of leftovers, but no way to heat them up in the microwave with the rearranged kitchen, I went to get gas and a drink and bought a hotdog at RaceTrac.
They did not come by all day.
This morning I slept late, but I wasn't in a hurry, since I was still up by eight and they didn't open the office til nine. I was just about to get a bath when one of the maintenance guys showed up ready to work.
I told him to come back in an hour, as I had not yet washed my hair or the dishes.
He didn't argue.
Well, I can't shower with a stranger in the house, and I can't wash dishes while he works on the wall, cause there isn't room for us both to be next to the sink at the same time.
He came back about ten, and did whatever it was with the pipe from the hot water heater, and now he's gone to lunch and to get some materials for actually fixing the wall.
I wonder if it might actually get all done today.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
I have created a monster
Okay, so as I go through my little routine of looking at the stuff and trying to decide what goes where, or what I should get rid of, or whatever, I am now trying to find stuff that I would like to give to someone. Like, I paid good money for this, and it is still in good shape, and even if I'm not using it right now I still don't want to throw it away or give it to Goodwill. But giving some of this stuff to specific people is somehow different, and it makes me feel better, sometimes.
Like, I thought at one time I would get into beads, but then I didn't really. D was into beads. Apparently, D is still into beads. So, I picked out just a few that I just really like and might still make something with someday, and I divided the rest into already made stuff that only a kid would like, and stuff still in the packages that D would want. I gave D most of it, and some necklaces that were already put together (not by me) were given to a little girl that one of my neighbors babysits.
D was just thrilled with the beads and has promised to give me something in return. I really like the promised thing, but I don't need it. I was just wanting the beads to go to someone who would appreciate them. Anyway, D tends to be a bit forgetful. I'll be happy if she gives me what she said that she would, but I won't be mad if she doesn't.
The little girl got a few more things. Basically, if I don't need it anymore, and it's something a kid would want, she probably got it. Except that I'm putting a few things away for someone else, and I'm thinking that some things should go to the club for when we have kid parties or do something in public that involves kids. Like, I have a bunch of little things that were toys from Happy Meals. We could just give those away to random kids if we are out in costume.
So the last thing that I decided to part with was my VHS tape of Watership Down. Watership Down is just the best animated movie, based on a very long novel of the same name. It is about rabbits. I love this movie, but, I am getting rid of most of my VHS tapes, and, my brother has the DVD, which I can borrow any time that I want. So, I saw my neighbor, asked if she still had a VHS player, and said either she or the little girl could have the tape. She asked to make sure that I meant to give it away for keeps, and then she said thank you and all of that.
A few days later, I asked the little girl if she had watched the rabbit movie, and she said not yet. And then she asked if I was still cleaning out my closets, and if I still had any toys, and if I had any play food. (I'm not sure why I should have any play food, but she asks me that a lot.) I told her that I might have a few more toys, but that they were for someone else.
And then she asks me if she can have a toy.
No, I already gave you one. (By now she has been given a VHS tape, jewelry, a plastic tiara, and a stuffed bunny, plus the neighbor has been given microwave bakeware in case she ever wants to try that or to use them as Jello molds.)
Again, she asks me if she can have a toy. Again, I say no.
I move to the other side of the yard to talk to someone else, and she asks again. She just keeps yelling.
Can I have a toy. Can I please have a toy. Can I have just one.
This goes on for a bit, until the neighbor hears her and comes outside to see what all the yelling is about.
We both shake our heads and go back into our houses.
I've created a monster.
Like, I thought at one time I would get into beads, but then I didn't really. D was into beads. Apparently, D is still into beads. So, I picked out just a few that I just really like and might still make something with someday, and I divided the rest into already made stuff that only a kid would like, and stuff still in the packages that D would want. I gave D most of it, and some necklaces that were already put together (not by me) were given to a little girl that one of my neighbors babysits.
D was just thrilled with the beads and has promised to give me something in return. I really like the promised thing, but I don't need it. I was just wanting the beads to go to someone who would appreciate them. Anyway, D tends to be a bit forgetful. I'll be happy if she gives me what she said that she would, but I won't be mad if she doesn't.
The little girl got a few more things. Basically, if I don't need it anymore, and it's something a kid would want, she probably got it. Except that I'm putting a few things away for someone else, and I'm thinking that some things should go to the club for when we have kid parties or do something in public that involves kids. Like, I have a bunch of little things that were toys from Happy Meals. We could just give those away to random kids if we are out in costume.
So the last thing that I decided to part with was my VHS tape of Watership Down. Watership Down is just the best animated movie, based on a very long novel of the same name. It is about rabbits. I love this movie, but, I am getting rid of most of my VHS tapes, and, my brother has the DVD, which I can borrow any time that I want. So, I saw my neighbor, asked if she still had a VHS player, and said either she or the little girl could have the tape. She asked to make sure that I meant to give it away for keeps, and then she said thank you and all of that.
A few days later, I asked the little girl if she had watched the rabbit movie, and she said not yet. And then she asked if I was still cleaning out my closets, and if I still had any toys, and if I had any play food. (I'm not sure why I should have any play food, but she asks me that a lot.) I told her that I might have a few more toys, but that they were for someone else.
And then she asks me if she can have a toy.
No, I already gave you one. (By now she has been given a VHS tape, jewelry, a plastic tiara, and a stuffed bunny, plus the neighbor has been given microwave bakeware in case she ever wants to try that or to use them as Jello molds.)
Again, she asks me if she can have a toy. Again, I say no.
I move to the other side of the yard to talk to someone else, and she asks again. She just keeps yelling.
Can I have a toy. Can I please have a toy. Can I have just one.
This goes on for a bit, until the neighbor hears her and comes outside to see what all the yelling is about.
We both shake our heads and go back into our houses.
I've created a monster.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
I don't like people in my house
Okay, I had grand dreams of being a normal person and occasionally having people over to my home. That happened a bit when I had the apartment. I felt normal, and people came by once in a while, just that they couldn't really stay long, cause I didn't have a couch and such.
Then I got this place about a year or two before I was ready to move, and I thought, now I have space, and we'll get stuff. We'll buy a couch. Not that I want a lot of people over to my house, just that I would have a normal place where people could come by and I wouldn't be embarrassed to let them in.
Six years later, the situation just got worse. And of course, still no couch.
Since I have been in this house, I've had like four storage units. One of those was just to help with the moving, and we didn't keep it for long. Two were mostly for business stuff, and we had those forever but no more. And then I had one that was just my junk. And I didn't have the money to keep paying to store my junk. I thought that it would help me clean the house. I thought that it would allow me to slowly make everything the way I wanted, and once the house was clean and furniture bought and such, I would bring in the stuff from storage (after making periodic trips to storage and getting rid of some of it), and then everything would go in it's proper place and everything would be neat and tidy, mostly. I do too many projects for everything to stay neat and tidy for long.
As it turns out, making periodic trips to the storage unit mostly did not happen, and when they did happen they did not last long or result in accomplishing much work. First, you have to go when the weather is nice, and of course when the weather is nice you probably have something else planned. Then, when the weather is nice so that you can tolerate being in this big metal container, you don't stay long, maybe twenty or thirty minutes, unless one of the things you are storing there is a nice comfortable chair. And then to stay much more than an hour and get real work done I'd need a ladies room, and to really spend the afternoon or the whole day working I'd need a kitchen to get cold drinks and snacks and lunch.
So I never actually did any work at the storage unit like I imagined, and while it helped having a bit of empty space so that I could clean, eventually this did not work out either, as I filled in the empty space with more stuff.
So, the storage stuff came home, and during the week I emptied the space I threw out a few things. I figured that I would sort out the rest a few boxes at a time, and that it would all be dealt with at a rate of about a box per day over a month or two, and then everything would be good, and I would maybe get a couch.
That didn't happen either.
Five years after moving here, I think that it is time for some major stuff and some touch up paint here and there, and maybe some places where the whole wall needs to be repainted. But of course that didn't happen, cause I still had so much stuff.
Recently, I have done some cleaning in areas that I have not seen in about five years. I am trying to empty all of the closets so that I can sweep and clean (and look for termites) and such. I have found damaged stuff that I threw away, and stuff that I mean to give away, and stuff that I don't even know what it is and my husband will have to look through it. And this is a lot of work that takes me a lot of time, and it will all be for nothing if I just put everything back the way that it was.
So I am trying to pull everything out of the closets, which puts stuff either in the hall or the back room, and so the stuff that was already in the hall and back room gets put into the living room or the dining area. And it's going to stay there until I am happy with the closets being sufficiently cleaned.
So while this is going on, I also decide to tile under the kitchen sink (which is still not finished because I have the wrong tools for cutting those last few tiles), and after months of being promised a visit from the exterminator they finally pay him to do the job.
So while I do not normally like to have people in my house and the place isn't clean and neat and tidy, now it is even less neat and tidy than usual, but the exterminator is nice and says that he understands and tries to work around the junk anyway. I did at least know what day he was coming (they told us on a Monday afternoon that he was coming sometime on Wednesday), so I at least was able to clear the hall and the bedroom, cause I needed him to look at that thing growing out of the wall and ceiling. But other than that, there was still junk everywhere.
And then while he was there, he took a picture of the hole in my kitchen wall. A hole in my kitchen wall doesn't really describe the problem. Half of my wall is missing. They cut it away to do a repair and then never fixed it, though they have been ordered to do so twice before. So a picture was taken to remind them of it, and they were ordered to fix it again, though it took them more than two weeks to acknowledge they were supposed to do something about it.
So, I got a phone message, and I thought that they might be coming out on Monday. The drains in the bathroom are slow, and I thought that they should check those before working on the wall, in case it was a serious plumbing problem that would again require them to remove half of the wall. So I called about that, and about a light switch that didn't work, and they said that they did have an order to fix the wall, but that it would be a few days (I'm thinking a week or two when they say that), because other people have broken water heaters and such that have to be repaired first. I mention the bathroom drains and the light switch, and they make a note of it.
So I'm thinking the end of the week or next week. But they come the next day to check the bathroom. Since they didn't say that they were coming, I did not clear the hall or put away some things in the bathroom. In fact, I was halfway into cleaning the tub when my husband suggested I watch some TV cable thing he had downloaded on the computer, and so when the repair guys come they have to push cleansing powder and other such chemicals out of the way in addition to stuff that you normally move out of the way to check for bathroom plumbing problems.
Well, I don't like having these guys around, but after having the exterminator in twice I guess that I'm getting used to having repair people in my house stepping around the junk. But really, I would have cleared those areas first if they would just tell me when they are coming.
They did not fix the wall, cause that would take more of their time than they can spare right now with the neighbors having broken water heaters and such, and they did not say when they might return to fix it, or if there will be repairs to the bedroom wall, which I imagine the inside was all eaten by termites.
So I guess that they will be back at the end of the week, or maybe next week. Or maybe they will again pretend the work is finished and not come back at all.
Then I got this place about a year or two before I was ready to move, and I thought, now I have space, and we'll get stuff. We'll buy a couch. Not that I want a lot of people over to my house, just that I would have a normal place where people could come by and I wouldn't be embarrassed to let them in.
Six years later, the situation just got worse. And of course, still no couch.
Since I have been in this house, I've had like four storage units. One of those was just to help with the moving, and we didn't keep it for long. Two were mostly for business stuff, and we had those forever but no more. And then I had one that was just my junk. And I didn't have the money to keep paying to store my junk. I thought that it would help me clean the house. I thought that it would allow me to slowly make everything the way I wanted, and once the house was clean and furniture bought and such, I would bring in the stuff from storage (after making periodic trips to storage and getting rid of some of it), and then everything would go in it's proper place and everything would be neat and tidy, mostly. I do too many projects for everything to stay neat and tidy for long.
As it turns out, making periodic trips to the storage unit mostly did not happen, and when they did happen they did not last long or result in accomplishing much work. First, you have to go when the weather is nice, and of course when the weather is nice you probably have something else planned. Then, when the weather is nice so that you can tolerate being in this big metal container, you don't stay long, maybe twenty or thirty minutes, unless one of the things you are storing there is a nice comfortable chair. And then to stay much more than an hour and get real work done I'd need a ladies room, and to really spend the afternoon or the whole day working I'd need a kitchen to get cold drinks and snacks and lunch.
So I never actually did any work at the storage unit like I imagined, and while it helped having a bit of empty space so that I could clean, eventually this did not work out either, as I filled in the empty space with more stuff.
So, the storage stuff came home, and during the week I emptied the space I threw out a few things. I figured that I would sort out the rest a few boxes at a time, and that it would all be dealt with at a rate of about a box per day over a month or two, and then everything would be good, and I would maybe get a couch.
That didn't happen either.
Five years after moving here, I think that it is time for some major stuff and some touch up paint here and there, and maybe some places where the whole wall needs to be repainted. But of course that didn't happen, cause I still had so much stuff.
Recently, I have done some cleaning in areas that I have not seen in about five years. I am trying to empty all of the closets so that I can sweep and clean (and look for termites) and such. I have found damaged stuff that I threw away, and stuff that I mean to give away, and stuff that I don't even know what it is and my husband will have to look through it. And this is a lot of work that takes me a lot of time, and it will all be for nothing if I just put everything back the way that it was.
So I am trying to pull everything out of the closets, which puts stuff either in the hall or the back room, and so the stuff that was already in the hall and back room gets put into the living room or the dining area. And it's going to stay there until I am happy with the closets being sufficiently cleaned.
So while this is going on, I also decide to tile under the kitchen sink (which is still not finished because I have the wrong tools for cutting those last few tiles), and after months of being promised a visit from the exterminator they finally pay him to do the job.
So while I do not normally like to have people in my house and the place isn't clean and neat and tidy, now it is even less neat and tidy than usual, but the exterminator is nice and says that he understands and tries to work around the junk anyway. I did at least know what day he was coming (they told us on a Monday afternoon that he was coming sometime on Wednesday), so I at least was able to clear the hall and the bedroom, cause I needed him to look at that thing growing out of the wall and ceiling. But other than that, there was still junk everywhere.
And then while he was there, he took a picture of the hole in my kitchen wall. A hole in my kitchen wall doesn't really describe the problem. Half of my wall is missing. They cut it away to do a repair and then never fixed it, though they have been ordered to do so twice before. So a picture was taken to remind them of it, and they were ordered to fix it again, though it took them more than two weeks to acknowledge they were supposed to do something about it.
So, I got a phone message, and I thought that they might be coming out on Monday. The drains in the bathroom are slow, and I thought that they should check those before working on the wall, in case it was a serious plumbing problem that would again require them to remove half of the wall. So I called about that, and about a light switch that didn't work, and they said that they did have an order to fix the wall, but that it would be a few days (I'm thinking a week or two when they say that), because other people have broken water heaters and such that have to be repaired first. I mention the bathroom drains and the light switch, and they make a note of it.
So I'm thinking the end of the week or next week. But they come the next day to check the bathroom. Since they didn't say that they were coming, I did not clear the hall or put away some things in the bathroom. In fact, I was halfway into cleaning the tub when my husband suggested I watch some TV cable thing he had downloaded on the computer, and so when the repair guys come they have to push cleansing powder and other such chemicals out of the way in addition to stuff that you normally move out of the way to check for bathroom plumbing problems.
Well, I don't like having these guys around, but after having the exterminator in twice I guess that I'm getting used to having repair people in my house stepping around the junk. But really, I would have cleared those areas first if they would just tell me when they are coming.
They did not fix the wall, cause that would take more of their time than they can spare right now with the neighbors having broken water heaters and such, and they did not say when they might return to fix it, or if there will be repairs to the bedroom wall, which I imagine the inside was all eaten by termites.
So I guess that they will be back at the end of the week, or maybe next week. Or maybe they will again pretend the work is finished and not come back at all.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
The end of the two weeks
Okay, my husband has been out of town a bit. First, it was two or three days here and there, and I couldn't go with him because a.) it's hot here and the plants need to be watered everyday except when it rains, and it doesn't rain much, and they still might need to be watered even on a day that it rains, b.) I knew that the exterminator was coming at some point, and I wanted to be here when he came to my place so that I could ask him some questions, and c.) I can't justify little get-aways when there is still so much work to do. And then sometimes he goes out of town for a whole week, which I just can't do at all when I have plants to look after, unless maybe it is very early in the spring and there is a lot of rain, or maybe in the fall when there's rain or just the plants don't need to be watered anymore. The main time that I would go out of town for a whole week would be after first freeze in the fall and before spring planting.
This is August. I usually don't go out of town for a whole week in August, unless maybe the plants have all died or I've just given up on them. And I certainly am ready to give up on a lot of them. I have seven squash plants, and I've yet to get even one squash. They are probably going to die now. I don't know why they didn't have any squash, since they had plenty of flowers, both male and female. I have yet to see any beans, though I'm seeing flowers there too. The popcorn seems to be producing, though maybe not as much as I would like, and it won't be time to harvest that for a while yet. The sweet potatoes seem to be doing fine, but I won't really know until I dig them up in the fall. The cucumbers were really going at it, but now seem to be taking a bit of a break. But I think that the cucumbers are sending out new vines and will get back to work soon. The chayote died when it was about four foot tall. Most of the tomatoes look dead, but they aren't, so they still might recover in the fall. One of the luffa vines has really taken over, while the second one is still quite small, and there are no flowers on either vine yet. I think that I planted the pumpkins too late and nothing will come from them, even if they don't die.
And that leaves the peppers, which are taking a break in the heat, but the plants look good so long as they are watered everyday, and I expect to get a lot from them in the fall if I can keep them alive a bit longer in the hundred degree heat.
So, I am not ready to abandon the plants, since several are still working at producing something. So no week long trips for me.
And, while my husband was out for a week, we found out he was scheduled to work another week in a place that was closer to where he was than here, and he only had the one day off, so he might as well drive to the next place for the next week instead of coming home.
So that was two weeks away. And I had plenty of work to do here, and I usually get more done while he's away, and I try to do all the other things that are best done while I have the place to myself for a bit. But after awhile, two weeks by yourself is two weeks by yourself. It seems a long time to be by yourself when you aren't used to it.
Okay, so he's home now, though probably not for long. Tomorrow, he has jury duty. If he doesn't get picked he'll work two days in Dallas and three days out of town. The three days he is out of town will be 103 degrees here, and no more rain expected (we got some Friday), so I won't be going with him. And then he'll come home for a day or two before heading out again, for a week, and I won't be going then either even though he would have liked for us to head out someplace new as long as he was already nearly out of the state. But I can't leave the plants, and my friends are having a party a week from Saturday.
A week after that, it will be nearly the end of August. Maybe in September we will get a lot of rain.
This is August. I usually don't go out of town for a whole week in August, unless maybe the plants have all died or I've just given up on them. And I certainly am ready to give up on a lot of them. I have seven squash plants, and I've yet to get even one squash. They are probably going to die now. I don't know why they didn't have any squash, since they had plenty of flowers, both male and female. I have yet to see any beans, though I'm seeing flowers there too. The popcorn seems to be producing, though maybe not as much as I would like, and it won't be time to harvest that for a while yet. The sweet potatoes seem to be doing fine, but I won't really know until I dig them up in the fall. The cucumbers were really going at it, but now seem to be taking a bit of a break. But I think that the cucumbers are sending out new vines and will get back to work soon. The chayote died when it was about four foot tall. Most of the tomatoes look dead, but they aren't, so they still might recover in the fall. One of the luffa vines has really taken over, while the second one is still quite small, and there are no flowers on either vine yet. I think that I planted the pumpkins too late and nothing will come from them, even if they don't die.
And that leaves the peppers, which are taking a break in the heat, but the plants look good so long as they are watered everyday, and I expect to get a lot from them in the fall if I can keep them alive a bit longer in the hundred degree heat.
So, I am not ready to abandon the plants, since several are still working at producing something. So no week long trips for me.
And, while my husband was out for a week, we found out he was scheduled to work another week in a place that was closer to where he was than here, and he only had the one day off, so he might as well drive to the next place for the next week instead of coming home.
So that was two weeks away. And I had plenty of work to do here, and I usually get more done while he's away, and I try to do all the other things that are best done while I have the place to myself for a bit. But after awhile, two weeks by yourself is two weeks by yourself. It seems a long time to be by yourself when you aren't used to it.
Okay, so he's home now, though probably not for long. Tomorrow, he has jury duty. If he doesn't get picked he'll work two days in Dallas and three days out of town. The three days he is out of town will be 103 degrees here, and no more rain expected (we got some Friday), so I won't be going with him. And then he'll come home for a day or two before heading out again, for a week, and I won't be going then either even though he would have liked for us to head out someplace new as long as he was already nearly out of the state. But I can't leave the plants, and my friends are having a party a week from Saturday.
A week after that, it will be nearly the end of August. Maybe in September we will get a lot of rain.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Halfway done
Well, I have my new glasses now, but I'm not sure I like them. I could write a whole post on I'm not sure that I like them, but it's been a while since I've posted anything, so I should probably write a catch-up post instead and write about the glasses later.
Okay, so the stuff on my bedroom wall did turn out to be some termite thing. So I guess that the place either had termites before I moved in, or else they showed up about the first year or two, but I just didn't know what they were. I didn't see anything when we moved in, but later there was this brown stuff coming out of a few spots where the wall and the ceiling meet. It wasn't any big deal, but I'd heard that several of the places had serious roof damage, and I figured that's what it was, and that I'd probably make it worse if I didn't leave it alone. The roof repair guys were coming, and I'd just have to wait my turn like everyone else. There was once a few drips that came down in a really bad storm on another spot in the room, but it never happened again, and when the brown stuff did not get worse I thought that was the end of it. The roof guys said that my roof did not need repairs yet. (We have sort of a rotation repair plan, and it wasn't my turn, and I wasn't having any problems to ask to have my roof replaced early.) So I just sort of forgot about the spots.
And then this spring, there was more of the brown stuff, only this time it seemed to have a pattern to it, and my husband is sure it's termites. I am not so sure. I try to find a picture of something like it online, but I only find pictures of holes, not stuff coming out of the wall. And again, this stuff is where the wall meets the ceiling, and I had thought that termites start at the ground and work their way up, not the other way around. But whatever it was, it did seem to me that it was insect related, even though I did not see any insects.
I thought for a while that it might be mold or fungus instead. It did rather look more like the type of mushroom that grows on the side of a tree. Only that wasn't quite it either. It also sort of resembles cauliflower, only not quite. It most looks like brown coral, which it can't be, since we're not underwater.
Okay, so it might be a fungus (which would explain why it seemed to just appear out of nothing overnight), or it might somehow be termites even though we did not find any "tubes" going up to the ceiling, or it might be ants or some other kind of bug damage.
After a while I got over being afraid. If it was somehow termites that got to the ceiling without any "tubes", that's not so bad. Termites don't eat people, they just make a mess. Ants, on the other hand, might attack me or do any number of things, as there are all kinds of problems with ants, depending on what kinds of ants you might have, and I just haven't kept up (except that I know there's a "new" ant that eats electronics). Termites have been around for a long time. There are people who know what to do about the termites. That might be better to have than some sort of fungus that makes people sick.
Anyway, I had to clear all this stuff out of the way to make room for the exterminator to come in and have a look around. He was very nice, and didn't seem to mind that I had two or three storage units worth of junk in my house. He just sprayed around the stuff. And then he looked at the bedroom, and he said it was definitely termites. He didn't even have to think about it. Termites. End of story.
But it was odd that the damage was up on the ceiling and that there were no "tubes". He said the tubes must either be outside (which there were not) or inside the walls. If the tubes were inside the walls, then my neighbor must have termites as well, even though he didn't see any. But he's only being paid to deal with termites that he can see, so my side of the duplex is getting treated and the other side is not.
Okay, so the brown stuff on the walls is apparently made of bug vomit. Which is not quite as bad as I thought it might be, as I imagined that it was bug shit. The stuff was vacuumed away, insecticide foam sprayed into the walls, a little trench dug around the house and holes drilled in the driveway. I'm told the stuff is more like a virus than regular bug spray, so it didn't smell bad. The other insecticide he used didn't smell bad either. So it wasn't near as bad as I feared. And it's supposed to keep the termites away for the next two years, but I wonder if that will work, since apparently there are termites all over the area, and he's only been paid to deal with the ones that we can see. So that was my place, plus the house two doors on my left and three doors down on the right, and that is also a duplex, so there's probably termites on the other side of those too.
Anyway, the office was offered two options, one was to treat only the houses where termites were visible and get a two-year warranty on that, or pay more and treat all the houses even where no termites were seen or even suspected, and we'd get a five-year warranty on that. The office chose the cheaper option, so the termites will probably come back. But at least I'll know what to look for now.
While most of this was going on, my husband was out of town. He was gone for a few days the week before last, and then he went out of town for a week, and then after looking at the schedule it seemed like a serious detour to come home for one night before heading out again, so he'll be gone for the whole two weeks this time. I got a lot done Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I didn't do much except wait for the exterminator and watch him work. Thursday I did some work, but not much, as I had convinced myself that I had nearly finished with the kitchen and there was no need to hurry when I had the place to myself for so long. Friday I mostly ran errands and watched Jonah Hex. Saturday I did some more work in the kitchen.
You might have guessed that I'm still working on the kitchen.
Well, I just don't know what else to do about it. I just don't have places to put things. I realize that I just buy too much stuff, and that is what is wrong with the rest of the house. But in the kitchen I just really do not have places to put the things that people normally have to cook with. I have some storage space under the sink (which I think people usually just keep cleaning supplies), where I try to keep the stock pots and the cookie sheets and the larger things that just don't fit anywhere else. I have four doors of cabinets on the wall over the stove where I mostly keep canned goods and such. I have two more doors on the other wall over the sink and the washing machine, and that is where I keep most of the dishes. I have one cabinet door on the ground, which holds a few small appliances, and above that is my one and only kitchen drawer, which will hold a few small things or the silverware tray, but not both.
So, I have no place for things like serving spoons and cheese graters and spatulas. And there's no place for stuff like plastic bags and aluminum foil. And these are things that a person needs to have in the kitchen. This is not stuff that I should just give up and throw away or give to Goodwill. People need spatulas and such.
I've thrown away a lot of food. I still have more things to throw away, but I did not think it fair to the trash guys to put so much heavy stuff out all at once. But I have all these canned things that either have gone out of date or I just can't find a date, so I'm throwing it out. So now everything is clean (except maybe I should still clean off the top of the cabinets, but I'd rather wait til I'm not the only one here in case I fall off of the ladder), but I still have all this stuff that I don't know what to do with, so that it just clutters up the tiny counter space I have or the top of the washing machine (which then prevents me from doing the laundry until I find someplace else to put the stuff). I also have no place for tall things such as bottles of oil or boxes of cereal, so those go on top of the fridge, and then I forget they are there and they go out of date.
So except for the boxes of stuff I don't know what to do with, I have a clean kitchen. Not that I have a clean dining area. There's still more there, and the laundry is there, and some of the photography stuff is there.
Okay, it isn't normal to have all this photography stuff, but I still think the kitchen just doesn't work for a normal person. Normal people need aluminum foil and spatulas.
I did manage to clean out the back closet, which I haven't done since I moved here. And I threw away a shelf unit that was too rusty. I've wanted to get rid of it for about two years, but there was too much other stuff in the way for me to move it. So, shelf unit gone, and closet mostly cleaned out, except that there's a few things that I don't want to put back in but I don't know where else they should go. So, half of a clean bedroom, a clear hallway, a mostly clean kitchen with a couple of boxes of stuff that I don't know where to put, and a mostly cleaned out back closet, with the rest of the house in it's usual state of chaos.
Oh, and there's still this hole in my kitchen wall. The exterminator took a picture of it while he was taking pictures of termite stuff/damage, cause the maintenance guys might have to come but later and do repairs. So he took a picture of my wall to remind them that they were supposed to do that too. I've been trying to remember when they did this to my wall and did not come back to finish. I was thinking it was a year or two, but now that I'm thinking of who was manager when that happened, and now I'm thinking it's been four years or more. And it isn't like a little hole in the wall. They removed half of the wall to do repairs and just left to work on something else and never came back. So I thought that maybe it was somehow an honest mistake, and with this little reminder they would rush right over and fix it, but no. They haven't even called to apologize or anything.
I am back to thinking that I should just fix it myself, and "upgrade" it somehow. At first I was looking at the pictures where there are little sections of wall cut out to make space for things like spice racks. I have a saw now, so I could do that, but there's so much plumbing and stuff on that wall I couldn't do much with that, and I'd worry about hitting a pipe or cutting a wire or something. And then I was thinking pegboard, and then I could have just hooks and such wherever I wanted. But then I'd be left with a zillion holes to fill in or cover up somehow. Now I'm thinking a few removable hooks at the upper part, and attaching a bunch of magnets on the lower part that I'd have to replace. Then maybe the magnets could hold things like cookie sheets.
Anyway, I'm still thinking.
I have run out of money. I have decided that I should probably buy a three dollar saw blade in an attempt to hand cut a few bathroom tiles. (The tiles are not going in the bathroom, but under the kitchen sink.) Anyway, I had a bit of a splurge on Chinese food Monday. Not a really bad splurge, just about eight dollars, and I got four meals out of it by cooking noodles and rice to go with the leftovers. Then I bought the major expenses, pills, twenty bucks of gas, lottery tickets, etc.... I spent another eight dollars or so on fast food for the week. And then Friday I had money left over and bought a few things that I needed, and a few things that I didn't need, like three dollars for nachos and an extra box of cookies.
And then I realized that I only had ten dollars left, and I have another week by myself, so now I can't decide if I want to spend three dollars on a saw blade.
Okay, I've found Jeremiah on Hulu, and I'm going to go back to watching that while I try to figure out a better place to put the spatulas and such.
Okay, so the stuff on my bedroom wall did turn out to be some termite thing. So I guess that the place either had termites before I moved in, or else they showed up about the first year or two, but I just didn't know what they were. I didn't see anything when we moved in, but later there was this brown stuff coming out of a few spots where the wall and the ceiling meet. It wasn't any big deal, but I'd heard that several of the places had serious roof damage, and I figured that's what it was, and that I'd probably make it worse if I didn't leave it alone. The roof repair guys were coming, and I'd just have to wait my turn like everyone else. There was once a few drips that came down in a really bad storm on another spot in the room, but it never happened again, and when the brown stuff did not get worse I thought that was the end of it. The roof guys said that my roof did not need repairs yet. (We have sort of a rotation repair plan, and it wasn't my turn, and I wasn't having any problems to ask to have my roof replaced early.) So I just sort of forgot about the spots.
And then this spring, there was more of the brown stuff, only this time it seemed to have a pattern to it, and my husband is sure it's termites. I am not so sure. I try to find a picture of something like it online, but I only find pictures of holes, not stuff coming out of the wall. And again, this stuff is where the wall meets the ceiling, and I had thought that termites start at the ground and work their way up, not the other way around. But whatever it was, it did seem to me that it was insect related, even though I did not see any insects.
I thought for a while that it might be mold or fungus instead. It did rather look more like the type of mushroom that grows on the side of a tree. Only that wasn't quite it either. It also sort of resembles cauliflower, only not quite. It most looks like brown coral, which it can't be, since we're not underwater.
Okay, so it might be a fungus (which would explain why it seemed to just appear out of nothing overnight), or it might somehow be termites even though we did not find any "tubes" going up to the ceiling, or it might be ants or some other kind of bug damage.
After a while I got over being afraid. If it was somehow termites that got to the ceiling without any "tubes", that's not so bad. Termites don't eat people, they just make a mess. Ants, on the other hand, might attack me or do any number of things, as there are all kinds of problems with ants, depending on what kinds of ants you might have, and I just haven't kept up (except that I know there's a "new" ant that eats electronics). Termites have been around for a long time. There are people who know what to do about the termites. That might be better to have than some sort of fungus that makes people sick.
Anyway, I had to clear all this stuff out of the way to make room for the exterminator to come in and have a look around. He was very nice, and didn't seem to mind that I had two or three storage units worth of junk in my house. He just sprayed around the stuff. And then he looked at the bedroom, and he said it was definitely termites. He didn't even have to think about it. Termites. End of story.
But it was odd that the damage was up on the ceiling and that there were no "tubes". He said the tubes must either be outside (which there were not) or inside the walls. If the tubes were inside the walls, then my neighbor must have termites as well, even though he didn't see any. But he's only being paid to deal with termites that he can see, so my side of the duplex is getting treated and the other side is not.
Okay, so the brown stuff on the walls is apparently made of bug vomit. Which is not quite as bad as I thought it might be, as I imagined that it was bug shit. The stuff was vacuumed away, insecticide foam sprayed into the walls, a little trench dug around the house and holes drilled in the driveway. I'm told the stuff is more like a virus than regular bug spray, so it didn't smell bad. The other insecticide he used didn't smell bad either. So it wasn't near as bad as I feared. And it's supposed to keep the termites away for the next two years, but I wonder if that will work, since apparently there are termites all over the area, and he's only been paid to deal with the ones that we can see. So that was my place, plus the house two doors on my left and three doors down on the right, and that is also a duplex, so there's probably termites on the other side of those too.
Anyway, the office was offered two options, one was to treat only the houses where termites were visible and get a two-year warranty on that, or pay more and treat all the houses even where no termites were seen or even suspected, and we'd get a five-year warranty on that. The office chose the cheaper option, so the termites will probably come back. But at least I'll know what to look for now.
While most of this was going on, my husband was out of town. He was gone for a few days the week before last, and then he went out of town for a week, and then after looking at the schedule it seemed like a serious detour to come home for one night before heading out again, so he'll be gone for the whole two weeks this time. I got a lot done Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I didn't do much except wait for the exterminator and watch him work. Thursday I did some work, but not much, as I had convinced myself that I had nearly finished with the kitchen and there was no need to hurry when I had the place to myself for so long. Friday I mostly ran errands and watched Jonah Hex. Saturday I did some more work in the kitchen.
You might have guessed that I'm still working on the kitchen.
Well, I just don't know what else to do about it. I just don't have places to put things. I realize that I just buy too much stuff, and that is what is wrong with the rest of the house. But in the kitchen I just really do not have places to put the things that people normally have to cook with. I have some storage space under the sink (which I think people usually just keep cleaning supplies), where I try to keep the stock pots and the cookie sheets and the larger things that just don't fit anywhere else. I have four doors of cabinets on the wall over the stove where I mostly keep canned goods and such. I have two more doors on the other wall over the sink and the washing machine, and that is where I keep most of the dishes. I have one cabinet door on the ground, which holds a few small appliances, and above that is my one and only kitchen drawer, which will hold a few small things or the silverware tray, but not both.
So, I have no place for things like serving spoons and cheese graters and spatulas. And there's no place for stuff like plastic bags and aluminum foil. And these are things that a person needs to have in the kitchen. This is not stuff that I should just give up and throw away or give to Goodwill. People need spatulas and such.
I've thrown away a lot of food. I still have more things to throw away, but I did not think it fair to the trash guys to put so much heavy stuff out all at once. But I have all these canned things that either have gone out of date or I just can't find a date, so I'm throwing it out. So now everything is clean (except maybe I should still clean off the top of the cabinets, but I'd rather wait til I'm not the only one here in case I fall off of the ladder), but I still have all this stuff that I don't know what to do with, so that it just clutters up the tiny counter space I have or the top of the washing machine (which then prevents me from doing the laundry until I find someplace else to put the stuff). I also have no place for tall things such as bottles of oil or boxes of cereal, so those go on top of the fridge, and then I forget they are there and they go out of date.
So except for the boxes of stuff I don't know what to do with, I have a clean kitchen. Not that I have a clean dining area. There's still more there, and the laundry is there, and some of the photography stuff is there.
Okay, it isn't normal to have all this photography stuff, but I still think the kitchen just doesn't work for a normal person. Normal people need aluminum foil and spatulas.
I did manage to clean out the back closet, which I haven't done since I moved here. And I threw away a shelf unit that was too rusty. I've wanted to get rid of it for about two years, but there was too much other stuff in the way for me to move it. So, shelf unit gone, and closet mostly cleaned out, except that there's a few things that I don't want to put back in but I don't know where else they should go. So, half of a clean bedroom, a clear hallway, a mostly clean kitchen with a couple of boxes of stuff that I don't know where to put, and a mostly cleaned out back closet, with the rest of the house in it's usual state of chaos.
Oh, and there's still this hole in my kitchen wall. The exterminator took a picture of it while he was taking pictures of termite stuff/damage, cause the maintenance guys might have to come but later and do repairs. So he took a picture of my wall to remind them that they were supposed to do that too. I've been trying to remember when they did this to my wall and did not come back to finish. I was thinking it was a year or two, but now that I'm thinking of who was manager when that happened, and now I'm thinking it's been four years or more. And it isn't like a little hole in the wall. They removed half of the wall to do repairs and just left to work on something else and never came back. So I thought that maybe it was somehow an honest mistake, and with this little reminder they would rush right over and fix it, but no. They haven't even called to apologize or anything.
I am back to thinking that I should just fix it myself, and "upgrade" it somehow. At first I was looking at the pictures where there are little sections of wall cut out to make space for things like spice racks. I have a saw now, so I could do that, but there's so much plumbing and stuff on that wall I couldn't do much with that, and I'd worry about hitting a pipe or cutting a wire or something. And then I was thinking pegboard, and then I could have just hooks and such wherever I wanted. But then I'd be left with a zillion holes to fill in or cover up somehow. Now I'm thinking a few removable hooks at the upper part, and attaching a bunch of magnets on the lower part that I'd have to replace. Then maybe the magnets could hold things like cookie sheets.
Anyway, I'm still thinking.
I have run out of money. I have decided that I should probably buy a three dollar saw blade in an attempt to hand cut a few bathroom tiles. (The tiles are not going in the bathroom, but under the kitchen sink.) Anyway, I had a bit of a splurge on Chinese food Monday. Not a really bad splurge, just about eight dollars, and I got four meals out of it by cooking noodles and rice to go with the leftovers. Then I bought the major expenses, pills, twenty bucks of gas, lottery tickets, etc.... I spent another eight dollars or so on fast food for the week. And then Friday I had money left over and bought a few things that I needed, and a few things that I didn't need, like three dollars for nachos and an extra box of cookies.
And then I realized that I only had ten dollars left, and I have another week by myself, so now I can't decide if I want to spend three dollars on a saw blade.
Okay, I've found Jeremiah on Hulu, and I'm going to go back to watching that while I try to figure out a better place to put the spatulas and such.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Busy day
Well, I finally know when the exterminator is coming. He's coming tomorrow. And of course, I am not ready. And of course, now that I know when he is coming and should ask my husband for help moving things away from the walls and such, he is going out of town.
And while I am not ready with the cleaning and such, my husband has made no attempt at cleaning and making things neat at all. So this room hasn't had anything done to it at all. There's just stuff piled on top of more stuff. So I guess if the exterminator comes in the house he'll just have to spray the stuff instead of spraying around the stuff.
I can't do anything about this room, because I have other rooms to straighten, and there is major work to be done in the kitchen. I had given up on the exterminator coming, or thought maybe he had already sprayed outside the house and that would be the end of it. So Sunday I had started a little project, which involved pulling out everything from under the sink. And so today I must finish up with that project (or, finish up enough of it so that I'm at a good place to stop for a bit) and then put everything back where it was. And this of course is in addition to having to wash a rather large stack of dishes and do laundry and the usual stuff. So I will have a very busy day today.
And I'm still just not sure that the exterminator is coming in the house. They never have in the past ten years that I've lived here and in the apartment (or else they came on a day that I was out of town and I just didn't know about it). So the plan for Wednesday is to go outside every ten minutes or so to look for him, and if he is not going inside houses that I should have to stop him and ask him to come in for a moment.
And of course all of this is going to happen when my husband is out of town, and there will be no one here except for me, and I'll be the only one asking questions. And so probably I will forget what to ask when the guy gets here. Hopefully he will just see the problem and tell me what to do about it.
So I am a nervous wreck, but at least it is going to be over soon and I will know one way or another what is going to happen.
And while I am not ready with the cleaning and such, my husband has made no attempt at cleaning and making things neat at all. So this room hasn't had anything done to it at all. There's just stuff piled on top of more stuff. So I guess if the exterminator comes in the house he'll just have to spray the stuff instead of spraying around the stuff.
I can't do anything about this room, because I have other rooms to straighten, and there is major work to be done in the kitchen. I had given up on the exterminator coming, or thought maybe he had already sprayed outside the house and that would be the end of it. So Sunday I had started a little project, which involved pulling out everything from under the sink. And so today I must finish up with that project (or, finish up enough of it so that I'm at a good place to stop for a bit) and then put everything back where it was. And this of course is in addition to having to wash a rather large stack of dishes and do laundry and the usual stuff. So I will have a very busy day today.
And I'm still just not sure that the exterminator is coming in the house. They never have in the past ten years that I've lived here and in the apartment (or else they came on a day that I was out of town and I just didn't know about it). So the plan for Wednesday is to go outside every ten minutes or so to look for him, and if he is not going inside houses that I should have to stop him and ask him to come in for a moment.
And of course all of this is going to happen when my husband is out of town, and there will be no one here except for me, and I'll be the only one asking questions. And so probably I will forget what to ask when the guy gets here. Hopefully he will just see the problem and tell me what to do about it.
So I am a nervous wreck, but at least it is going to be over soon and I will know one way or another what is going to happen.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Rearranging boxes
A fellow blogger asked us if we had any rituals. I asked if pretending to clean stuff and get organized, only to put everything back the way it was and start the whole process again the next day counted. This is really starting to annoy me. I don't feel like I've been hit by a truck, I'm now back to what now passes as physically okay, but I just don't seem to be getting anywhere. I empty a box, look at the stuff, possibly move it to a different box. The next day I'll probably move everything back to the first box.
This isn't entirely true. I've gotten rid of a few things, just not enough, and I can't even see that I have any extra space where I got rid of things. Like, I got rid of a box of jeans that are too small for me. (This box and some other boxes are small, so really it should only count as half a box.) Okay, so I got rid of half of a box of jeans. And I got rid of half a box of things that don't make me happy any more. And I moved half a box of things. And I got rid of some records. And today I got rid of another half a box of clothing, which was stuff that I liked but had some defect, and so I was putting it aside thinking that someday I was going to make something else out of this stuff. Today I decided that stuff could go. So adding up the half a box here and there, I should have either two empty boxes or empty shelves or something, but I need to do more than that, and right now I can't even tell that I've done that much. I know that I have done at least that much, cause I see the bag of stuff that will go out with the trash tomorrow and the other bag of stuff that will go to Goodwill, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent empty space in the room that I'm trying to get organized.
I've now found about eighteen bags and boxes of things like cough drops, and about a dozen boxes of different size plastic bags. The bags were not in the kitchen because while they do have a use in the kitchen, they are also used to separate craft stuff and to help when packing for a trip (cause you should put your shampoo and such in a couple of plastic bags before packing, just in case they start leaking into the suitcase).
And there's just no place to put all that cough suppressant stuff or all of those plastic bags, and there's no place for the other odd things that go from one box to another.
Today I've decided that I can part with three or four more books, and a few magazines that I'd kept for the pictures, and some things that I had printed out for art classes. That doesn't even add up to half a box, and it took about four hours to convince myself to part with those few things.
I guess this is as far as I get with it, and I just never really noticed before. I get to the point where I put everything in boxes, and I'm just happy that there's not stuff falling off of the desk and such and on the floor. And I think that when I have time I'll go through those boxes and get rid of more stuff. It's just that this past week I haven't done much else except look at things in the boxes, so now is that time I've thought that I would get rid of stuff, but I can't seem to figure out what to get rid off.
I had to read some books just to get this far with it.
Those books are a little odd to me, but they deserve their own post.
Anyway, I'm going to go back in the other room and look at the stuff again while I watch some DVDs of movies I saw last year.
This isn't entirely true. I've gotten rid of a few things, just not enough, and I can't even see that I have any extra space where I got rid of things. Like, I got rid of a box of jeans that are too small for me. (This box and some other boxes are small, so really it should only count as half a box.) Okay, so I got rid of half of a box of jeans. And I got rid of half a box of things that don't make me happy any more. And I moved half a box of things. And I got rid of some records. And today I got rid of another half a box of clothing, which was stuff that I liked but had some defect, and so I was putting it aside thinking that someday I was going to make something else out of this stuff. Today I decided that stuff could go. So adding up the half a box here and there, I should have either two empty boxes or empty shelves or something, but I need to do more than that, and right now I can't even tell that I've done that much. I know that I have done at least that much, cause I see the bag of stuff that will go out with the trash tomorrow and the other bag of stuff that will go to Goodwill, but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent empty space in the room that I'm trying to get organized.
I've now found about eighteen bags and boxes of things like cough drops, and about a dozen boxes of different size plastic bags. The bags were not in the kitchen because while they do have a use in the kitchen, they are also used to separate craft stuff and to help when packing for a trip (cause you should put your shampoo and such in a couple of plastic bags before packing, just in case they start leaking into the suitcase).
And there's just no place to put all that cough suppressant stuff or all of those plastic bags, and there's no place for the other odd things that go from one box to another.
Today I've decided that I can part with three or four more books, and a few magazines that I'd kept for the pictures, and some things that I had printed out for art classes. That doesn't even add up to half a box, and it took about four hours to convince myself to part with those few things.
I guess this is as far as I get with it, and I just never really noticed before. I get to the point where I put everything in boxes, and I'm just happy that there's not stuff falling off of the desk and such and on the floor. And I think that when I have time I'll go through those boxes and get rid of more stuff. It's just that this past week I haven't done much else except look at things in the boxes, so now is that time I've thought that I would get rid of stuff, but I can't seem to figure out what to get rid off.
I had to read some books just to get this far with it.
Those books are a little odd to me, but they deserve their own post.
Anyway, I'm going to go back in the other room and look at the stuff again while I watch some DVDs of movies I saw last year.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I feel like I've been hit by a truck
Okay, not really that bad. But I'm probably not going to get anything done today. I'd rather skip the cleaning and the gardening, get covered in muscle rub or some such thing, and just go back to bed.
It is very frustrating to be in such pain over things that other people take for granted. And while I know that if I dig a big hole in the ground I'm going to hurt later and probably the next day, and that should be expected if I'm going to do that much work, but going for long walks and other things should not make me feel bad. Other things make other people feel better.
This makes me think that I should give up on life entirely and spend most of my days in bed either watching TV or reading large print books. No more trying to get even tiny amounts of exercise, no more trying to have relationships with other people, no more garden, no more watching what I eat, no more trying to make anything better, etc....
Someone I know has lost twenty-nine pounds in about ten weeks. I do not have the money to do what he is doing, but I think that I could do something similar if I put some thought into what I eat and plan out what I'm going to do a day or so ahead of time. But instead I am sitting here drinking a Coke and eating animal crackers.
And the bedroom still isn't clean. Forget cleaning the rest of the house, just getting this one room in order seems totally beyond my abilities, unless maybe I just throw everything into one of the other rooms and make the mess there worse.
Of the cleaning that I did get done, I've found all of these bottles of vitamins and over the counter medications. I buy something, it falls off of the shelf or something, I can't find it when I need it the next time and I buy another one. So yesterday I threw away a lot of stuff like expired aspirin. There's still a lot left that isn't expired, but I don't know where to put it. It doesn't all fit where it is supposed to go. Medicines don't all fit in the medicine cabinet, even if that is all that you keep there, which usually isn't the case. I guess it's just that medicine cabinets aren't very big, because people used to have fewer medicines and cosmetics and such.
I have fifteen bags or boxes of things like cough drops. Most of them are just things from the dollar store that I lost and then bought more of and then lost again. About six of them are stronger stuff that I stocked up on for the flu season, but then I lost them too. So now I have fifteen, about half of them are opened.
So I need to figure out what to do with all of this stuff, but it isn't going to get done today, cause I feel so awful. And I didn't dig any holes or cut any branches or move any furniture. Just did a little bit of exercise that other people take for granted, that is supposed to make you feel better, and all I feel like doing is going back to bed.
It is very frustrating to be in such pain over things that other people take for granted. And while I know that if I dig a big hole in the ground I'm going to hurt later and probably the next day, and that should be expected if I'm going to do that much work, but going for long walks and other things should not make me feel bad. Other things make other people feel better.
This makes me think that I should give up on life entirely and spend most of my days in bed either watching TV or reading large print books. No more trying to get even tiny amounts of exercise, no more trying to have relationships with other people, no more garden, no more watching what I eat, no more trying to make anything better, etc....
Someone I know has lost twenty-nine pounds in about ten weeks. I do not have the money to do what he is doing, but I think that I could do something similar if I put some thought into what I eat and plan out what I'm going to do a day or so ahead of time. But instead I am sitting here drinking a Coke and eating animal crackers.
And the bedroom still isn't clean. Forget cleaning the rest of the house, just getting this one room in order seems totally beyond my abilities, unless maybe I just throw everything into one of the other rooms and make the mess there worse.
Of the cleaning that I did get done, I've found all of these bottles of vitamins and over the counter medications. I buy something, it falls off of the shelf or something, I can't find it when I need it the next time and I buy another one. So yesterday I threw away a lot of stuff like expired aspirin. There's still a lot left that isn't expired, but I don't know where to put it. It doesn't all fit where it is supposed to go. Medicines don't all fit in the medicine cabinet, even if that is all that you keep there, which usually isn't the case. I guess it's just that medicine cabinets aren't very big, because people used to have fewer medicines and cosmetics and such.
I have fifteen bags or boxes of things like cough drops. Most of them are just things from the dollar store that I lost and then bought more of and then lost again. About six of them are stronger stuff that I stocked up on for the flu season, but then I lost them too. So now I have fifteen, about half of them are opened.
So I need to figure out what to do with all of this stuff, but it isn't going to get done today, cause I feel so awful. And I didn't dig any holes or cut any branches or move any furniture. Just did a little bit of exercise that other people take for granted, that is supposed to make you feel better, and all I feel like doing is going back to bed.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The cleaning isn't going well
I know, I say that all the time, but somehow it seems a bit more frustrating this week.
A week or so ago I got a bag of clothes together for donation. It is gone. Great. And I was going to get another bag together this week. Going to try on all those pants and get rid of those that are too small and most of those that are too big. You need some stuff that is too big and too small unless you have some weight gain or loss, but just some, not this much stuff. So, I was going through all of the old jeans, and there wasn't so much as I had imagined. Maybe I got rid of them last year and forgot. Anyway, most of them still fit, and I put most of them back, except that I decided one pair was too frayed and then I made cut-offs of two other pair. There's only really three or four pair that I wear on a regular basis, but I will eventually have to retire the gardening clothes.
The rest of the sorting is hard. I imagine that I want to get rid of a lot of stuff, only my reaction instead is more like--oh, I've been looking for that. I'm sure that I'll be looking for it again, as it still isn't stored in a good place.
And then I found more jeans. Okay, so I hadn't gotten rid of them, I'd just put them aside in case I needed them. I decided that I didn't need them. I had to try them on just to make sure, but now I am sure, and out they go. So I will have another bag of clothes for Goodwill, but it still doesn't seem to have made much of a dent.
It isn't that this is actually more physical work than gardening, it's just less rewarding. If you do a lot of hard work and dig a new garden bed, you end up with a new garden bed and all sorts of possibilities as you think about what you might grow in it. Sorting clothes is different. You start out with a big pile of clothes that maybe doesn't look so good on you, and you sort through the clothes and wash the clothes and try on the clothes, and then you end up with a slightly smaller pile of clothes that probably still doesn't look so good on you.
Okay, I have emptied two boxes. One contained things that will now go back in their proper places (such as the kitchen), and one contained things that reminded me of something that used to make me happy. I've had them in a box for four years, thinking that they might make me happy again and I would feel terrible if I threw them away, but no, they still do not make me happy. Time for them to go. I guess I just need to figure out where they need to go, as it still seems a waste to actually through them away, but I'm going to get upset if I see them somewhere like at the Goodwill.
I have finally convinced myself to part with some of my records. I've kept my LPs all this time. In the back room, I have a record player that probably still works, and I probably know how to fix it's main problem if it does not work. But I so rarely get it out and use it. I'm not sure that I've used it since we moved to this house. And, after one of the floods, the album covers were ruined. So I've now convinced myself that most of the records should go (probably straight into the trash since most of the covers are ruined, and I think that might be a major reason that a person would still want an LP is to look at the album cover), and that I will keep mostly the soundtracks and a few others that would be hard to find. The rest are just songs, and if I get to a point when I want to hear songs again I'll buy CDs or download them or whatever people do at the time. But I've not wanted to hear songs for about four years now. They all remind me of something.
So, a bag of clothes gone (in addition to the one I got rid of a couple of weeks ago), two boxes gone, and about half a shelf of records gone. And still, it just doesn't make that much difference. There is still all this stuff to deal with. I'm making a big mess trying to do something constructive, and I don't even know why, since I think that I have done a lot of this recently and shouldn't be doing it again so soon.
But there is still a room full of stuff, so I guess that it does need to be done.
A week or so ago I got a bag of clothes together for donation. It is gone. Great. And I was going to get another bag together this week. Going to try on all those pants and get rid of those that are too small and most of those that are too big. You need some stuff that is too big and too small unless you have some weight gain or loss, but just some, not this much stuff. So, I was going through all of the old jeans, and there wasn't so much as I had imagined. Maybe I got rid of them last year and forgot. Anyway, most of them still fit, and I put most of them back, except that I decided one pair was too frayed and then I made cut-offs of two other pair. There's only really three or four pair that I wear on a regular basis, but I will eventually have to retire the gardening clothes.
The rest of the sorting is hard. I imagine that I want to get rid of a lot of stuff, only my reaction instead is more like--oh, I've been looking for that. I'm sure that I'll be looking for it again, as it still isn't stored in a good place.
And then I found more jeans. Okay, so I hadn't gotten rid of them, I'd just put them aside in case I needed them. I decided that I didn't need them. I had to try them on just to make sure, but now I am sure, and out they go. So I will have another bag of clothes for Goodwill, but it still doesn't seem to have made much of a dent.
It isn't that this is actually more physical work than gardening, it's just less rewarding. If you do a lot of hard work and dig a new garden bed, you end up with a new garden bed and all sorts of possibilities as you think about what you might grow in it. Sorting clothes is different. You start out with a big pile of clothes that maybe doesn't look so good on you, and you sort through the clothes and wash the clothes and try on the clothes, and then you end up with a slightly smaller pile of clothes that probably still doesn't look so good on you.
Okay, I have emptied two boxes. One contained things that will now go back in their proper places (such as the kitchen), and one contained things that reminded me of something that used to make me happy. I've had them in a box for four years, thinking that they might make me happy again and I would feel terrible if I threw them away, but no, they still do not make me happy. Time for them to go. I guess I just need to figure out where they need to go, as it still seems a waste to actually through them away, but I'm going to get upset if I see them somewhere like at the Goodwill.
I have finally convinced myself to part with some of my records. I've kept my LPs all this time. In the back room, I have a record player that probably still works, and I probably know how to fix it's main problem if it does not work. But I so rarely get it out and use it. I'm not sure that I've used it since we moved to this house. And, after one of the floods, the album covers were ruined. So I've now convinced myself that most of the records should go (probably straight into the trash since most of the covers are ruined, and I think that might be a major reason that a person would still want an LP is to look at the album cover), and that I will keep mostly the soundtracks and a few others that would be hard to find. The rest are just songs, and if I get to a point when I want to hear songs again I'll buy CDs or download them or whatever people do at the time. But I've not wanted to hear songs for about four years now. They all remind me of something.
So, a bag of clothes gone (in addition to the one I got rid of a couple of weeks ago), two boxes gone, and about half a shelf of records gone. And still, it just doesn't make that much difference. There is still all this stuff to deal with. I'm making a big mess trying to do something constructive, and I don't even know why, since I think that I have done a lot of this recently and shouldn't be doing it again so soon.
But there is still a room full of stuff, so I guess that it does need to be done.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A week to myself
Sometimes I like being alone for a bit, and sometimes I don't. I suppose this time it is a bit of both.
I should know by now to have a bag packed and ready to go at all times, but I don't. It isn't so much that I don't have a bag mostly packed with clean underwear and makeup and such, cause I do have that. But I don't have other things all packed and ready to go. Like, if I'm going away for more than a day or two, I want to take knitting with me and probably a book, or else I'd just go crazy sitting in the motel room, even if there is good stuff on cable, which often there is not. And then there's the plants, which I cannot leave for more than a day or two, unless it is going to be raining a lot while I am away. I would have to arrange for someone to come and water them, and there is really no one that I trust to come to my house that has a clue about plants. So if I'm not going to hire someone, and I don't have money to do that, I worry that my plants will mostly die while I am away.
There has been some rain, but probably not enough that I would have felt good about going away for a week.
I didn't get a lot of work done yet, but some. I have removed all but the last bit of honeysuckle vine at the corner. I hope that we will get a new manager and new rules and that the honeysuckle will grow back. The backyard really looks sad without it. And with the vine covering most of the fence I felt like I had some privacy, and now I don't. It is sort of like that dream where you go to school and find out you're naked. I don't like it.
I was going to take pictures of how after I removed the honeysuckle there were all of these weed trees on the other side of the fence, but my neighbor decided to come out and cut those. He was actually going to go out and cut them with a hand saw, but when I saw him trying to do that I loaned him my new toy instead. So he got all of his work done in the one afternoon. On the other hand, I am still clearing away pieces of dead vine. But that should be done by Saturday.
I can't believe that I have done all this work on making the place look ugly, and that has left me with so little energy to do the work that really needed to be done. But I suppose that will have to wait. It is just to late in the year and too hot to do much about it now.
My husband called Monday to tell me that he had arrived safely (and has neglected to call back since then), and that something that I wanted to do is only a twenty minute drive from where he is staying. So if I had been able to go with him, that would have been nice.
But I couldn't have gone with all this stuff going on. The temporary manager is just an outright bully. My neighbor told me that someone a couple of streets over was told to remove the saplings within 48 hours. In my opinion, even the simplest of violation warning should be given at least a week, even if it is just cutting the grass. Other things take more work, and more time. The guy who received this warning about the saplings learned English as a second language always mows the grass and such, and was totally baffled that he was getting a warning about the yard, and he didn't even know what a sapling was.
The temporary manager supposedly doesn't even want the job, but he sure does a lot of extra work in the job that he doesn't even want.
I'm now taking a break from the depressing yard work to try and deal with the bedroom. I'm trying to convince myself to part with clothes that I don't wear much anymore. My goal is to get it down to three extra boxes, not counting costumes and such. I think right now I still have five or six boxes.
It is Thursday. I got a lot of work done Monday (mostly helping my neighbor with removing the plants), but not so much since then. Everything always takes longer than I imagine. Throwing away junk takes a very long time. Clothing has to be washed and then tried on, even if it is eventually to be discarded. How would I know that I don't want it anymore if I don't try it on? So, I am still at it.
Between washing clothes and such, I am watching Something Is Out There, Nowhere Man, and The First Wave. I mostly missed The First Wave when that was on, and I didn't know it had lasted three seasons. Something Is Out There is okay, but somehow it doesn't quite live up to my memories of it. The mini-series was good, but somehow the series itself didn't do it for me. Maybe I don't like that in the mini-series I was left with the idea that they would become a couple, and then in the series they both date other people. And most of the shows don't have anything to do with aliens, so they aren't that great anyway. I'd forgotten how great Nowhere Man was. This was one of those FOX shows that they tried to pair with the X-files. At least they gave this one a whole season. It is The Fugitive, with maybe bits of The Prisoner. And it has been long enough that I don't remember what happened, so I'm really enjoying it.
So, that's about it. Enjoying the old TV shows while not so much enjoying the work.
I should know by now to have a bag packed and ready to go at all times, but I don't. It isn't so much that I don't have a bag mostly packed with clean underwear and makeup and such, cause I do have that. But I don't have other things all packed and ready to go. Like, if I'm going away for more than a day or two, I want to take knitting with me and probably a book, or else I'd just go crazy sitting in the motel room, even if there is good stuff on cable, which often there is not. And then there's the plants, which I cannot leave for more than a day or two, unless it is going to be raining a lot while I am away. I would have to arrange for someone to come and water them, and there is really no one that I trust to come to my house that has a clue about plants. So if I'm not going to hire someone, and I don't have money to do that, I worry that my plants will mostly die while I am away.
There has been some rain, but probably not enough that I would have felt good about going away for a week.
I didn't get a lot of work done yet, but some. I have removed all but the last bit of honeysuckle vine at the corner. I hope that we will get a new manager and new rules and that the honeysuckle will grow back. The backyard really looks sad without it. And with the vine covering most of the fence I felt like I had some privacy, and now I don't. It is sort of like that dream where you go to school and find out you're naked. I don't like it.
I was going to take pictures of how after I removed the honeysuckle there were all of these weed trees on the other side of the fence, but my neighbor decided to come out and cut those. He was actually going to go out and cut them with a hand saw, but when I saw him trying to do that I loaned him my new toy instead. So he got all of his work done in the one afternoon. On the other hand, I am still clearing away pieces of dead vine. But that should be done by Saturday.
I can't believe that I have done all this work on making the place look ugly, and that has left me with so little energy to do the work that really needed to be done. But I suppose that will have to wait. It is just to late in the year and too hot to do much about it now.
My husband called Monday to tell me that he had arrived safely (and has neglected to call back since then), and that something that I wanted to do is only a twenty minute drive from where he is staying. So if I had been able to go with him, that would have been nice.
But I couldn't have gone with all this stuff going on. The temporary manager is just an outright bully. My neighbor told me that someone a couple of streets over was told to remove the saplings within 48 hours. In my opinion, even the simplest of violation warning should be given at least a week, even if it is just cutting the grass. Other things take more work, and more time. The guy who received this warning about the saplings learned English as a second language always mows the grass and such, and was totally baffled that he was getting a warning about the yard, and he didn't even know what a sapling was.
The temporary manager supposedly doesn't even want the job, but he sure does a lot of extra work in the job that he doesn't even want.
I'm now taking a break from the depressing yard work to try and deal with the bedroom. I'm trying to convince myself to part with clothes that I don't wear much anymore. My goal is to get it down to three extra boxes, not counting costumes and such. I think right now I still have five or six boxes.
It is Thursday. I got a lot of work done Monday (mostly helping my neighbor with removing the plants), but not so much since then. Everything always takes longer than I imagine. Throwing away junk takes a very long time. Clothing has to be washed and then tried on, even if it is eventually to be discarded. How would I know that I don't want it anymore if I don't try it on? So, I am still at it.
Between washing clothes and such, I am watching Something Is Out There, Nowhere Man, and The First Wave. I mostly missed The First Wave when that was on, and I didn't know it had lasted three seasons. Something Is Out There is okay, but somehow it doesn't quite live up to my memories of it. The mini-series was good, but somehow the series itself didn't do it for me. Maybe I don't like that in the mini-series I was left with the idea that they would become a couple, and then in the series they both date other people. And most of the shows don't have anything to do with aliens, so they aren't that great anyway. I'd forgotten how great Nowhere Man was. This was one of those FOX shows that they tried to pair with the X-files. At least they gave this one a whole season. It is The Fugitive, with maybe bits of The Prisoner. And it has been long enough that I don't remember what happened, so I'm really enjoying it.
So, that's about it. Enjoying the old TV shows while not so much enjoying the work.
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