DragonBlog

"OOOh! Just smell that Flat Latex White!!!"

I can't smell paint fumes. Oh, there's a vague alcohol-based odor in the background, but seriously, I can't smell them. Most people linger over a paint can and roll their eyes before backing off, while I hover there, peering in at the paint color instead. Another one of those things that is totally weird about having one's olfactory nerve smooshed when your brain swells from head injury. Normally I can smell "noxious" things - gasoline and some others. But paint fumes just pass me on by.

And, I spent ALL of Saturday either plastering or painting.

Ow. Oh, my head.

But, on the positive side, the light gray color we're doing the bottom half of the room is done. I'd taken care of the upper half over a few prior sessions, painstakingly going over the nasty texture stuff with a fresh white paint brushed on. On Saturday I also took care of the heat-resistant white we needed to do over the heat ducting, which was a nasty, oil-based paint that splattered all over me in the process. And I went around and edged the ceiling, so that we just have a little more brushwork to do around the fans before we can roller it. Hopefully we won't have to do that one more than once - I had to do the light gray paint twice. I'll probably have to do the dark gray trim twice too. And I still have to do one wall in white, since it's panelling and doesn't have the divider in the middle like the rest of the room. I spent all Saturday breaking my back, inhaling toxic fumes, and STILL I feel as if we're only about half done.

Brian's folks were kind enough to babysit the kids, so he was working on it all too. He trimmed down the shutters so they will finally fit the space they are in, and he pulled a bunch of stuff out of the room itself, into the next room over so that we can throw a tarp over the rest for painting the ceiling and not have as much to move out of the way for when we can have carpet put in. Which, I hope, will be soon. We need to have this all finished by the end of the year (including the bathroom and laundry rooms adjacent to the family room) or else we don't get the rest of the insurance money for the project. It's going to be a tight few months until it's done, although Brian's recent promotion will help us a bunch. I'm not quite ready to breath a big sigh of relief yet, but maybe some little happy panting noises at least. Maybe there is more than just a big bug zapper at the end of the tunnel after all. Maybe.

Anyway, more later. Thought I'd update again since I'm taking a little rest time today as it's "shots day" for the allergies and I'm still purging the nauseating feeling that comes from a day of paint fumes. The headache seems to have gone down to a dull ache, but I feel tired, worn out, and just plain... buggered. Then again, other new and decisions have got me weary too. Tired. Disappointed.

I think my New Year's Resolution at the end of this year will need to be about moving on and moving forward. Time to turn my back on some of the things that cause me pain, even if the act of doing so causes me pain too. *sigh*

Why does everything have to be so... complicated all the damn time?

Later...

Current Mood: tired

Utter Lack of Copeability...

To be perfectly honest, my ability to cope with the crap life likes to throw at me is just starting to shut down. It's like these little things happen (okay, maybe 4-5 inches of water covering a good majority of the basement/family room floor isn't a "little" thing, actually) and my brain starts to shut off in some sort of panic mode. The tears start welling up, my stomach starts hurting, and my chest gets all tight. I panic. I'm not sure if I'm afraid of trying to deal with the situation at hand, or afraid of what might happen if I can't deal with it.

On one hand, my computer survived the water "disaster" we had here today. All computers that are important seem to be safe and sound. Both Brian and I are hooked up to the internet again from the safety of our living room. I still need to hook up a couple of the printers and what-not, but most of the essentials ae running again, however displaced from their normal locale they might currently be. And, not a ton of papers and other important stuff got wet. A few items here and there have been found that are nerve-wracking, but so far nothing has been discovered (that I'm yet aware of anyway) that was super-important and yet destroyed. I think more things were broken in the flurry of moving stuff around in the cleanup than were lost in the water damage. Unless you start talking furniture. But we can't be sure on that stuff for a few days yet. There are big, loud fans/dehumidifiers all over the basement, drying things out. Time will tell how well the furniture fared.

On the other hand, the carpet and padding were all taken away earlier today by the Servicemaster men who the insurance company sent. There is this butt-ugly linoleum tile down there. We didn't even know there WAS tile under the carpet! There are also carpet tacking strips (those little wood slats with nails sticking out of 'em to hold the carpet in place along the edges?) all over at the walls and threshold areas. The stairs downstairs are soggy. There are watermarks on the walls.

And then there's the matter of the several-hundred-dollar plumbing bill. The guy who was supposed to come between 9 and 11 am in the morning finally arrived late in the afternoon. We wanted the pipe sweat soldered higher up along the wall (the pipe burst at an area by an old water softener we weren't using anymore), but it was $200 cheaper to have him solder it out at the end of the spot where the water softener met with it. Whatever. It cost more than we'd budgeted for all our solstice gifts combined next month, just to solder a little copper elbow onto a couple copper pipes. So much for Brian and I giving each other gifts. We'll scrape enough together for Jareth to get his, but that's probably about it. Let's just say it's a damned good thing Brian has already gotten the first paycheck from the new job. Otherwise we wouldn't have had the money in the bank. But it'll still be tight. And we don't yet know how much the insurance is going to cover and all. We may need to cough up a deductible soon.

It's. just. not. fair.

Just when we thought things were about to start getting better, what with Brian's new job to make the financial end of things a little easier and our schedules about to smooth out. Just as I was starting to think we were formulating plans and things were looking up.

SLAM!

I hate my house.

And I'm feeling particularly bitter about life today. Very cynical indeed.

I want to break something, I'm so upset.

But that would be counter-productive, since so many things are already broken, now wouldn't it?

*sigh*

I'm going to go to sleep now. Maybe things will look brighter (or at least less dim) in the morning...

Current Mood: angry

Because I just didn't have ENOUGH chaos in my life right now...

HOLY FUCK!!! LOTS WATER!!!

I am typing this quick before I sign off, shut down, and pull my computer up into the living room where I hope I can get everything working properly again. I am also typing this with my feet in flip-flops that are resting in about an inch of water. On my family room floor. This is NOT where water belongs.

Grrrrr.

At about 5:30 am this morning I got up to go to the bathroom. I heard water. It's been raining, but not THAT hard. And the pipes were making noise too. So something was running. I went downstairs. The ceiling in the kitchen was raining again, but we have a pan to catch that - we're used to that little problem. Annoyed by it. But used to it nonetheless.

I stopped short when I got halfway down the small flight of stairs to the family room. There was water on the floor. And the water I heard running was gushing. I bolted back upstairs to get Brian. He went down into the danger zone and turned off the water main.

We've got a pipe broken. We had several inches of water in the bathroom, laundry room, and family room. There's stuff inevitably destroyed. Insurance has been called.

Thankfully, my computer seems to be working. I had it on an inch-thick board on the floor, to keep it off the carpet. It looks like it might have been just enough to do the trick. However, it's getting moved RIGHT NOW.

I am NOT amused.

More later, assuming there aren't further problems.

Current Mood: distressed

The Yellow Roman Princess Room...

It's finished! Well... mostly. There's a few minor touches that need to happen still, but my daughter finally has a bedroom of her very own...

Maybe it's the ends of the curtain rod (seen above) or the way the white trim and such contrasts the yellow. I like that the white baseboard brings out both the yellow on the walls and the warmth in the wood floor. We're very proud of the floor, since we both managed to hurt ourselves sanding that sucker. We liked the color of the natural wood so much that we left it unstained, and just varnished it over to protect it.

There's still hardware that needs to go on the windows, which ought to be pulled out and painted to match. You can't tell at a glance, but they are still the old white color from before. I painted the trim around the windows, but haven't pulled them out yet. Then I have handles and new locks for them. I'll get to it eventually.

I also have a small shelf unit and possibly a little cupboard that I'll be putting in there, as well as a desk that needs to be painted (my sister painted it black and silver... when she borrowed it. eww. NOT gonna match until I sand the sucker down and paint it.) I wanted to paint the dresser white too, but the wood looks nice enough that I might not worry about it yet. At the very least, it could use refinishing. I also need to sort out her drawers, now that I've got the space to work in...

We also need a fresh new mattress before she gets old enough to move onto the bed itself. Meanwhile, however, I'll probably get a pretty comforter to throw on top or something. The only trick will be that I'd like to match the lamp above it, which Brian and I picked online. The sheer curtains were actually ON the windows when we got the house, along with some nasty blue drapery. I kept the sheers and washed them and got the idea to use them for her bed. When she's old enough to use the bed, we'll adjust accordingly. I really doubt they would stay up very long if we leave it like that!

But, most importantly, she FINALLY has a bedroom. Which means she can start sleeping in it. We hope. We got the crib set up and useable Monday night, but she's yet to successfully sleep in it. For the moment we're making the transition slowly.

Yay!

Now, on to the next project... the garage. We have a work day planned on Sunday where Brian's family is going to help us clean it up and organize it some. I have no idea how that will play out. There's a LOT of stuff jammed in that garage and more queued up to go in there. Ugh.

Well...

*sound of cracking knuckles*

Back to work.

Later!

Current Mood: accomplished

'Round and 'Round it Goes...

This past weekend, for the third time since we initially moved into our house, we rearranged the family room. There are three viable corners in the room itself (the fourth having two doorways and a furnace intake in the way) and my desk has officially lived in all of them. I've returned the the space I had before the previous rearrange, although I have an entirely new desk (thanks to someone on Freecycle) that forms an "L" and has a riser in the corner for my monitor. The monitor seems so far awaaaaaay right now, but I'm getting used to it. Also, I hated the keyboard tray, but was hurting my wrist with the mouse being up higher than I'm used to. So, last night, Brian played Bob the Builder (Jareth's favorite show, by the way) for me and made the keyboard tray smaller and moved it over so that it is now officially a mouse tray instead. Very cool.

Now I just need to weed through all the piles of crap that have accumulated around me. Jareth has my old desk and an official space in the room finally, and Brian also got a new desk through the same freecycler that he's still in the process of setting up. Partly, we still have boxes in the way of where the desk is actually going to end up, so I'm hoping to get that resolved today.

Anyway, maybe more tomorrow. Possibly even the promised pictures, although that depends on if I have time to size them down for the web or not. I take the photos in the highest resolution my camera is capable of, which would not only take me a looooooong time to upload, it would also be a pain for you to load the pages. But picking the best ones, resizing them, and then loading them up onto the server takes a little time and I've been busy. I'll get to it soon, hopefully.

Later!

Current Mood: working

Just in case we thought we were done with small disasters this year...

We recently have been having a little problem around here. I, especially, have been getting bitten by something - mostly on my legs while asleep in bed. Figuring we had a little spider or something that got in there, we washed all the bedding in hot water (since normally I do most laundry in cold), tumbled the pillows in the dryer and figured that would fix it. It seemed to go away at first, but then we noticed similar bites on Jareth as well. We washed his bedding similarly, and tumbled his pillows too. It seemed to be going back and forth, presumably since Jareth sometimes crawls into our bed with me some mornings before we wander downstairs, and I sometimes nap in my "house clothes" in the bed in the afternoon, possibly transferring whatever it was to Jareth's room later on if it was something smaller.

Last night, while we were sitting in the living room at one point, Brian managed to find the source of our problem when he was able to catch a little, hopping bug bouncing about on the couch. We'd been agonizing over what to do lately, worried that whatever it was had made its way into Jareth's stuffed animals at this point, so finding out the source of our troubles was a necessary step. We just hadn't seen one of 'em yet.

He snagged one on a piece of tape, allowing him to inspect it...

Fleas.

We have fleas?!?

Damnit!

By now, they're likely EVERYWHERE in the HOUSE!

*cries*

Now understand that, while I don't keep the house particularly dust-free on any regular basis, we are NOT living in a pigsty here! I do try to keep things relatively clean, and Brian helps out when he can too. The kitchen counters where we cook, for example, are usually immaculate. We vaccum, we do laundry, and all that. I keep trying to get rid of clutter too, so that maybe the dusting part won't seem to daunting and will get done more than two or three times a year.

And our cats don't leave the house. So it's not as if THEY brought the fleas in here.

One possible source was a bag of clothes I had gotten from a resale shop. The items that I saw would need some measure of sewing in order to be useable got left on the bedroom floor in the bag from the store, instead of getting washed right away. We washed it, just in case, when we started seeing the problem, but that's when we weren't sure what we were dealing with. Technically, it could have come in from any number of sources. I have one of those large body pillows in bed with me, for example, and replaced it a few months back. I've bought things before that I found bugs on afterwards - namely a houseplant I once got - so it's possible that it came in from that source too. Or maybe someone brought something into my house without knowing it... I'm baffled, personally. I'm the type of person who makes people take their shoes off at the door to keep the floors clean longer, so this is frustrating the hell out of me. I don't like to clean, so I try, instead, to just keep things clean in the first place to avoid major cleanups.

So here I am with this situation. Now, the solution involves a bug bomb (two, actually). We'll have to vacate the house for something like three hours, after which we will have to clean the residue from it off of everything we own. Or, rather, Brian will have to. I'm already recruiting family and friends to help him, but I have to bail out on cleaning up the chemicals. I'm having enough troubles with this pregnancy that I'm not going to risk making it worse by inhaling anti-flea dust and the what-not. If it kills fleas and flea eggs, it CAN'T be good for my unborn baby. And right now, I don't trust my body to filter the crap out and keep my baby safe. I'm already having to play a more active part in making sure this baby stays healthy as it is, with the diabetes situation. I'm not taking any stupid risks here.

So we've planned a date, a week from Saturday, since we're not going to try and recruit help on a holiday weekend and I want to try and prep the house for decontamination before it happens. I've got to wash and bag up certain stuff to keep it from getting bombed (like Jareth's toys that aren't fabric in any way, and any boxes of crackers or such that are normally out on the counters) and try to at least tidy my house up in ways that will hopefully make the post-bomb cleaning an easier process. After the bombing and cleaning, I expect I'll end up handling the mega-loads of laundry as we wash pretty much every item of clothing we own. We're still investigating things like - do fleas/flea eggs die if you submerge them in hot water? and how safe would the iguana be if we just put a tarp over her cage or do we need to box her up for three hours too? While we are already setting up to borrow a second carrier to get both cats out of the house, we generally don't transport the iguana unless it's an emergency. The last time there was an emergency, she still fit in a cat carrier. She's too big now, so we might have to configure something with a heavy-duty box.

You know, I do HATE it when life gets all extra-complicated on me. *sigh*

And what the HELL is it with us and BUGS anyway? This makes it FOUR of the six different places Brian and I have lived together in that have had some sort of bug problem! We've had crickets, ants, flies, and now fleas! What's up with that? And there's always a LOT of them. The ants, for example, were in our motorhome - they crawled up a wheel and into the engine and out the dashboard until eventually I had one drop off the ceiling onto me! The flies were in our last apartment before this house - they came in from the basement (we were 1st floor there) and up the heat ducts. We had flytape in the windows that got really, really, full! Ewww! And the crickets were in the house just before the motorhome - they came in through the attached garage somehow. I found that crickets make an interesting *THWUMP!* noise when you get them with the hose on the vaccum cleaner. *shudders at the memory* And baby crickets make much more noise than adult ones do. This is NOT trivia I wanted to find out the hard way!

And now - fleas eh?

Crap! Crappity-crap-crap-CRAP!

What a way to herald in the new year...

G'night!

Current Mood: irritated

The Evil Laundry Monster...

I am surrounded by laundry. Clean and dirty alike, I feel as if the loads are somehow multiplying. Laundry mitosis. They're out to get me. I know it must be so.

It would have only been four loads. Pretty impressive, actually, since laundry itself was long overdue to be washed. The plumbing problems negated my chances to get it done earlier in the week as I had originally planned. Thus, today became "laundry day" as Jareth quite literally couldn't wait much longer. I still refuse to turn on the heat since just Wednesday we were broiling in shorts and t-shirts while picking apples. Jareth woke up this morning with ice-cube hands though, so I bundled him up in the last warm pants he had clean, and a double-layer top - undershirt with long-sleeved shirt on top. I also upgraded him to the thick, thick socks I'd gotten at the tail-end of winter last year on sale, thinking ahead for this year. I wish I'd bought sweatpants that way too, but then I don't recall seeing them put on sale.

Of course I might not have had to change his sweatpants - he was already wearing another pair - if he hadn't of leaked pretty thoroughly out of his diaper this morning. I didn't notice right off as he gets out of bed on his own and walks around. But when he climbed onto OUR bed while I was changing my own clothes (in preparation for laundry day and JUST prior to changing his diaper) he plopped his wet butt down on OUR sheets. When I was pulling on a sweater over my own t-shirt he decided to come over and steal MY spot in the bed. In the process I snagged him up and set him standing up on the floor when I saw the WET BUTTPRINT he left on the fitted sheet, just below where Brian's pillow sits. In one swift moment I knew that I was adding not one but TWO full sets of bedding to todays wash.

Right now, all I want is a nap. But that requires that I make the bed first, which just sounds like something I don't have the energy for. I've got the mattress pad cleaned and dried and sitting up there, and a different set of sheets (time for the flannel ones to come out anyway), but it takes a bit of energy to make the king-sized bed we've got and I just don't have it in me. I've also got two loads of laundry sitting on a chair that got pulled out of the drier earlier in the week when we washed the towels we'd used to mop up the wet floor after the pipes backed up. I've already folded all of Jareth's laundry and put it away, as well as made his bed up. His nap got delayed to 4:30pm as it was because we were waiting for his comforter to dry. He's all tucked in, safe and snug, under a warm (fresh from the dryer warm) comforter and clean, snuggly sheets. I'm jealous. Seriously.

In the meantime, Brian ought to be home soon from work. Guess who's getting stuck with making the bed? Yup. I'm pretty sure I can fanagle him into it. After all, I'll be busy folding, folding, folding... *sigh*

I still think it's trying to get me. All this laundry. I'm dooooooomed. I've still got three more loads that haven't even made it to the washing machine yet. At least the very last one will be our sheets, which can just sit in the dryer overnight. If the sheets are a little wrinkly, it's okay. They usually sort themselves out once they've been sitting folded for a while anyway.

I hate laundry. I really, really do. *grumble, fold, mumble, fold, bitch, fold, complain*

Well, I'd better get back to it. Check out what RainMoon picked up at the resale shop today. It scares me. It looks like it ought to eat small children, not amuse them. *shudder* But her daughter likes it. The things we do for our kids...

G'night!

Current Mood: scared

All Plumbed Up

Well, at least someone was able to enjoy our plumbing predicament today. The plumbers showed up a little early, and parked across the street, obviously waiting for someone that wasn't with them already. They had told me they would arrive at 9:00 am to get started. At almost exactly 9:00 am, I watched the plumber guys put their van into gear and start moving towards my driveway, so I stood up from where I was sitting, half-awake on the couch. I then watched them use my driveway to turn around and then drive away.

???

Oookay. So I went about taking care of some little stuff around the kitchen, contemplating getting Jareth up even though he wasn't stirring quite yet in his room since he's used to getting up closer to 9:30 or 10:00 am - when I usually roll out of bed. Or, when he wakes up earlier, he's usually content to play quietly in his room for a while. After all, that's why we wanted to move him to his "big boy bed" and why we've got toys up there in his room - so he can play in there when I'm too wiped to get out of bed right away. Since he doesn't get to play in there very often otherwise, I think it's a decent arrangement. But, I digress...

A few minutes later they drove back and did another turn-around in my driveway. This time I could see they had acquired some paper cups of something (probably coffee) to sip at while they waited. A few more minutes passed before a pickup truck pulled up, pulling a trailer with a little backhoe on it behind him. That was the point when the plumbers pulled their van officially into the driveway and got out. Instead of the usual "sign this, confirm that, flush the toilet for us, run the water for us, sign that, now write the check" scenario that getting rodded out usually entails, this time I was asked to put a permit sign in the window showing they'd gotten the right permits to dig my yard up and replace pipe, and then was left alone until it was time to write up a check at the end.

In the first few moments as I watched in horror while the backhoe tore chunks of grass out of a section of my lawn, a vaguely awake part of me remembered just how much my son loves trucks right now. It's the "truck phase" that most little boys apparently seem to go through. I bolted upstairs and sprung him from his bed to show him the "digger" through the front window. After a few moments I wanted to get him breakfast too, but he would have none of it - he wanted to keep watching the amazing vehicle that was getting to destroy our front lawn!

We compromised by my moving his high chair into the living room in front of the large front window where he had a full view of everything happening while he munched away at his multi-grain Cheerios. I'm quite sure I made his day. He was laughing and chattering on with words like "dirt" and "digger" all throughout his breakfast. Afterwards we stayed up in the living room where he played and I watched a television special I'd taped ages ago and never gotten around to watching. I don't know for sure how long it was, but it only took them two or three hours to dig the hole, replace the bad chunk of pipe, and push the dirt back into the hole again. I now have this nasty large lump of dirt in my front lawn, although the guy who took the check said that it would settle back into place in time. I hope so. It looks pretty terrible right now.

The amazing part was that they never asked me not to use my water. Not that I was, mind you, as I knew that they were taking apart the line out to the sewer and didn't want to run around doing laundry and having it flood the new hole in my lawn. But I guess they just assumed I wasn't clueless and would limit my water usage until they were done. Which I did. I don't think I even flushed the toilet or ran any water at all while they had the chunk of pipe actually out. I just thought it was interesting that they didn't say anything. The part where they swapped the pipe out must have actually gone pretty quick.

It's good to know that we won't back up again for a while at least. We still have some occasional problems with how the basement plumbing is laid out, but usually that is handled with some Liquid Plumber from the store instead of a need for actual rodding. At the very worst we should only need to be rodded out once a year again. That's a relief.

In other news, it looks like I've gotten a bid on one item I've got up on eBay at least, as well as a couple people watching one of the other items. I don't expect to make a lot, but every little bit helps right now. I'll need to find time to get some of the other stuff I've got set aside photographed and put up for auction too. It's just tricky to figure out where my time gets balanced when I've still got boxes from rearranging the room sitting behind me to be sorted out and a little boy who likes to snuggle up in my lap and demand my full attention all day too. So much to do, so little time to do it all in. Some days it gets too entirely overwhelming.

G'night!

Current Mood: crazy

eeeeeeeeBay!

The first, in a series of installments I hope, of auctions on ebay went up today. I've put five items up there, although it's not like they are anything serious where I can expect to make a mint. Every little bit counts right now though. It took me quite a bit of time to put them up there, between cleaning items up to make them look spiffy, taking detailed pictures, writing up the descriptions, weighing and so on. Those five actually took me most of the day. I packaged them up too though, so if they sell all I have to do is slap a label on most of them and head to the post office.

The plumbers came and rodded us out this morning. Last time they showed up a half hour early on me and I was glad I'd managed to get out of bed on time that morning or I wouldn't have been awake. This time I rolled out of bed four minutes before they were due to arrive. Fortunately (I guess) they were a half an hour late instead. I gave them the downpayment for all the work and tomorrow they come dig in my yard and replace the chunk of pipe that's bad. *sigh* I guess I'd better dig some more eBay stuff out of the garage to help pay for this little disaster. I so much prefer giving stuff away to people who need it on freecycle than selling it to the highest bidder. Now I find myself asking for items on freecycle instead.

You know that part where things start turning around for the better? Yeah... anytime now... *taps foot impatiently* it can start anytime...

G'night.

Current Mood: gloomy

The Great UnPlugging, and Other Rearranging Adventures...

Well, we did it. We successfully moved all but two items of furniture in this room. Admittedly, a couple of items ended up precisely where they had been before they'd been moved, but there was still effort involved so they count too. Two items actually stayed put and never required moving. We also shlepped a ton of stuff off shelves and into boxes which went first upstairs and then back down again once the furniture was in place. Brian did most of the shlepping of said boxes, for which I am extremely grateful. My own body managed to wait until after the furniture had been moved at least before starting to give out on me. I had similar problems with my legs and hips as I had back when we went to the Ren Faire a few weeks ago. It started at about the point I went to start putting computer stuff back together, which made some of the wiring tough, but everything is in working order again now.

For the first time ever while moving my computer around I managed to have the computer itself working completely when I booted it back up afterwards. The only issues we seem to have run into were in setting up the USB hub with the printers, which I had already been having trouble with in the past. In fact, a little work has the printers working better than before - at least my computer sees all of them now - which is a start. I just have to figure out why two of them aren't printing. I'm pretty sure that one of them is having a cartridge problem, but the other one needs troubleshooting. I'll look at it when I have time. It's not a big deal at the moment, actually.

I have some stuff unpacked again and set up, although I still have a slew of boxes sitting on the floor behind me, waiting to be emptied back out and sorted through. I did set up an entire area of shelves just for jewelry stuff though, and now have part of my desk set aside with a clear area that I can work at. I just have to keep myself from piling stuff there is all, which means I've got to make sure I leave myself a proper spot to put my "inbox" where I DO pile stuff.

I suddenly don't have desk drawers though, as I've swapped desks with Brian. His desk (now mine) didn't have any drawers at all, while mine was a standard office desk with drawers on both sides and a slim one under the center. I had lots of stuff crammed into those drawers. Most of it I haven't needed in ages though, or should really be in a communal "office supply" spot as it is. I've set up a communal spot for that and I plan to get rid of stuff I have no real use for. I hope. I'm not so good at purging.

Jareth seems to like the new setup. His computer moved too, and now he sits at a spot darn near in the center of the room between us when he's at it. The new layout now means that he really can't hide from me behind my desk anymore. I wanted it so that I could just turn and see him in the room - something that had been bothering me about the previous layout. He can get quiet on me sometimes and if he does that AND I can't see him, I have had to get up and look to make sure he was okay and not getting into mischief. There's more floor space for him now, and less places for him to hide from me. I think it sounds like a good tradeoff. *grin*

I suspect I'll hit the sack early tonight. I'm pretty well wiped from all this and I've still got more to work on tomorrow yet, emptying all those boxes. But we made HUGE progress, which is cool, and I didn't really have to do much heavy-lifting at all, as Brian was wonderful and handled as much as he could alone. He's gotten some "brownie points" out of this today.

Okay, my brain is slowly admitting to being fried as well, so I'd better stop typing already.

G'night!

Current Mood: tired

Rainy Day People...

Rainy Day People was always one of my favorite songs by Gordon Lightfoot. Although Don Quixote was my very favorite. Mostly I just liked the music on Gord's Gold. I have it on album and cassette (somewhere) and finally got it on CD not long ago.

Not that this post is about music or Gordon Lightfoot. No, that was just one of the usual sidetracks I tend to make. Today is about rain. Or, rather, how that rain is totally screwing up our plans for yardwork tomorrow. Because it rained today and the percentage chance of rain tomorrow when I last checked was greater than the chance of rain today. And, if my theories are correct, chainsaws and rain don't generally go together unless they absolutely have to. Regardless, I am not going to be kneeling in the mud pulling weeds all day if I'm being rained upon. There's a HUGE difference between running outside to play in the rain and actually trying to do productive work in the rain.

So, instead, we will be rearranging the family room. Where the computers are. And a whole lot of heavy furniture. Ooof. At some point (long after our Quick Shtick Writing posts have been posted) there will be THE GREAT UNPLUGGING. When computer equipment gets *gasp* turned OFF and removed from both the desks they reside upon and the receptacles they are plugged into. THE GREAT UNPLUGGING is always a very scarey thing, and is NOT done often. The last time we tried it, it took me several frustrating hours to figure out that something hadn't been plugged back in correctly.

And all the RE-PLUGGING will occur AFTER the heavy furniture has been moved. Although - I recently saw the handy-dandy disky thingies I had that you stick under the legs of your heavy-ass desk so you can scoot it across the floor instead of giving yourself a hernia trying to lift it. I just have to remember which "easy to remember next time" spot I stuck them in when I found them last. Oy.

So, that's our Rainy Day Project. Some stuff will get moved entirely out to the garage, never to return. Some stuff will go bye-bye via a recycle bin or garbage can. Some stuff will merely shift from one pile to a fresh new pile awaiting my attention. Hopefully, by the end, we will have made room for a small workshop area for me to work on jewelry, as well as opened up the room more so I am better able to keep an eye on my son's antics while I work.

If nothing else, I always like rearranging rooms. Not the actual work of doing it - but the result. It frequently feels like a different room and a fresh space. Something about it is always at least temporarily rejuvinating for the area that has been changed. So that's the part I'm looking forward to.

Wish us luck. We're gonna need it. Did I mention the furniture in here is HEAVY? Yeah. Ooof.

G'night!

Current Mood:(temporarily) energetic

From The Vault of Memories...

We'll put this post under "house projects" as it is on ongoing project on my list: Get all the crap I have in storage to my house somehow, sort through it all, and get rid of the stuff I don't want/need in some way or other, hopefully getting some cash to upgrade a few things (like some of my dishes) in the process.

Today we made a trip to storage and I have three towering stacks of boxes sitting in my kitchen, waiting to be sorted through. Some is old paperword I don't need, like utility bills from when I was in the first apartment Brian and I shared together. They will likely just end up in the paper recycle pile and end up on the curb next week.

Other things, warrant some eBay attention. Like the tea and biscuits set - gold-edged plates that have little indentations in them where the gold-edged saucer is meant to sit. They are from my grandmother's house, after she died. I have now realized that I really, honestly, don't have a need to serve THIRTY PEOPLE tea and biscuits all at once. Yes, that's right. I have enough to serve thirty people all at once.

*blinks*

I also have no idea what I was thinking when I packed them in with the other items I took from the house. I had to fight my uncle to get the antique dry bar, which I have storing my barware in the family room and love dearly. But there was no contest for the set of THIRTY tea and biscuits plates and cups.

Yeah. I'll post a picture and a link to the auction for that one once it's up. Egads. What could I possibly do with it otherwise?

So. Much. Stuff. Must. De-clutter.

And thus, the nesting period begins.

Jareth, however, now has chairs and a racoon rocker from when I was a little girl. I've cleaned them and glued one of the chairs back together for him. He loves them.

G'night!

Current Mood: busy

First Harvest

The tomatoes in my garden seem to be doing better than any of the other things I have potted around them. I don't know when broccoli is supposed to start looking like broccoli, for example, but mine sure isn't there yet. My chives seem to be doing well enough, but my onions are still tiny. I think I may have needed to plant them deeper into the pot to begin with.

On the other hand, a short while ago I just picked my first small selection of cherry and grape tomatoes:

And yes, they ARE yummy. I'd say about 1/6th of the tomatoes seen in that picture have already been devoured. WHOLE. Squish! Squirt! Mmmmm!

There are more coming, but we'll see how long they stretch out for. Next year, I may need more plants. *grin* Maybe I should just plant those in my side beds and the heck with planting flowers! I wonder what my neighbors would think of THAT! Mwahahahaha.

That's all for now. Maybe more later. Maybe not. *shrug*

Current Mood: devious

If Found, Please Call...

I have lost my brain. If found, please leave very precise directions in easy-to-read layman's terms in the comments for this post. Although it is very likely I have hammered, ratcheted, or otherwise inadvertantly built it into the swing set. There is also the possibility that my brain isn't lost at all, I may have just finally USED IT UP. *blink-blink*

Jareth was feeling better this morning, and we had already cancelled our plans for the morning (and promptly overslept as a result too) we headed out into the back yard and built the swing set. I rigged up a mister off the hose that I had bought sometime last year and never had the chance to use yet. Even with the wind occasionally blowing the cool mist at me, and the bottles and bottles of cool water I poured down my throat, I left lots of drippy-sweaty water spots on the instructions as I agonized over them. Most of it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, although four of the screws they sent could have been shorter. I found a way around that though, with bits I chose not to use elsewhere or that were extra. They sent two extra screws for the slide that fit what I needed elsewhere perfectly, and there were washers I didn't use on one spot that I was able to use with the two other, longer, screws. Everything is tightly fastened together and swingy-slidey now. I will get a picture of it at some other time. When I have energy again. Which may mean NEVER.

Oof. Tired.

The asprin has been taken, the victory beer has been opened (more brain cells go bye-bye in the swishy-foamy beeeeeeerrr), and dinner has been consumed. It may not be long before I crawl under the sheets tonight...

Perhaps my brain will find me while I am asleep, and leak back in through an ear. I hope so, or I will still feel like an exhausted, mumbling idiot tomorrow.

G'night!

Current Mood: tired

First off, I've been meaning to mention RainMoon's new blog (which I designed, by the way *grin*), and officially welcome her back into the blogsphere. I kept getting distracted, mostly be being sick, but I reminded myself last night when we went for coffee. Although technically neither of us actually had coffee, mind you. I had a root beer and some tapioca, which was a poor choice of edibles when the topic of snot came into play. Which it did. Eww. No. More. Snot. Please. Eww.

So stop on by when you have the chance and you can see the cool moon I put on there, which Jareth kept saying "moon" and pointing at when I had it up on the screen during the design. She's mostly blogging in the "daily journal" style, and though she's had a live journal before, this is her first time with a Movable Type blog so cut her some slack if she makes the occasional html error. She's already figured out how to do links on her own and I haven't had a chance to have her over and show her the ropes on what all her new little program can do. I was sick, remember? Snot? Eww? Yeah.

Today, however, was the tomato plants project. I timed it so that I could stop off at the hardware store before I went to the gal's house and got some of the wayward tomato plants that had strayed across the rest of her garden, threatening to inundate her with a scattering of tomato plants in places she wasn't going to actually want them. She helped me gather some of the best ones up and I popped them into a bucket I'd brought along for that purpose. Then we zoomed off home for a quick lunch and a slathering of sunblock on Jareth before we headed out into the back yard to begin.

Three hours of hard labor (digging and transplanting the grass to some bare spots in the back yard) later, I have a small strip of garden alongside my patio.

I added some garden soil and topped it off with some mulch and we'll water them and see which ones survive their abrupt transferral of living quarters and which don't. Once we separate the weak from the strong, we will spend our time hoping that the local wildlife (and loose pets) don't make their lunches off our new little tomato plants. Right now they look all limp and unhappy. I'm hoping they perk up in a day or two. I really don't know how long it takes - it's been a very, very long time since I tried my hand at any real gardening efforts.

Now, however, we have a very tired little boy. He got to run and play in the yard for hours and then got a shower and a short nap. He's eating dinner as I write this, nearly an hour after we finished ours because we realized he wasn't going to actually eat anything while he was that tired! I expect he'll sleep good tonight. I hope so, at least, as tomorrow we're going to a local petting zoo place. Hopefully that will help make up for all the times I told him "no" today to keep him in the yard while I was working. I did sit with him for about a half hour afterwards though, playing with bubbles. Amazingly he was actually a really good little boy though. He was curious to see stuff but didn't try to go out of the yard much at all. I think he's finally starting to learn about boundaries, much to my relief.

That's all for now.

G'night!

Playing with power tools and other fun things to do on a Saturday...

Finally, the table is fixed. It's been on Brian's todo list for the last few Saturdays. But first, there was problems with his back, then other plans kept him too busy, then he was sick! So, today it finally got taken care of. I helped him quite a bit, since the power tools are pretty much mine anyway. I tend to be Mrs. Fixit on most occasions, although I refuse to get on the roof and there are a couple other tasks here and there that I specifically delegate to him instead.

Jareth, however, is terrified of the sound of the drill. And we used it frequently to make pilot holes for the new screws. 34 times, to be exact. Well, 34 holes anyway. And it didn't help that the power screwdriver makes a similar noise while we were putting all the screws into their respective holes. So, basically, Jareth cried through most of our work. Poor little guy.

But the table is fixed! Yay! Now I don't have to be worried that tomorrow, when there is food on it and the in-laws are over having dinner, the whole table will collapse inward. That would have been bad.

Since I helped with the table, thus saving a bunch of time for Brian, I invoked my right to shower - as in a nice long, hot shower where I actually had time to use a pumice stone on my feet and let the conditioner sit in my hair for a minute. It was nice. I don't seem to get that very often. So the boys played for a bit while I got all clean, and then I helped tuck Jareth in for his nap. Since then, I've been kicked back at my desk, sorting through e-mail, web comics and rss feeds from blogs I read that have them. I love rss feeds. It makes it so much easier to follow them. Some of the blogs I follow don't have them and so I don't always get to them as often as I might like. But the rss thing shows up for me in a separate section that works like e-mail does, so I can look in one spot and see if there are new posts. The Atom feed from blogger doesn't work though, which I'm finding annoying.

One thing I seriously need to make some time for is weeding out my blogroll. I've been adding some new links lately, but I've got a lot that I don't really read anymore. There's also some links over there that aren't blogs at all, but I wanted linked on my site. I need to pull those off the blogroll and set them up separate. It's getting long and messy over there and I can't find anything.

But, not today. Today I'm getting other stuff either caught up or taken care of. And, I want to leave some time for fun. Fun is always a good thing on Saturdays. Between putting Jareth down for his nap and my sitting down at this desk, there was already a little "fun" in this house. I think the remainder of the fun today will be a little more... whole-family oriented. *grin* No guarantees though. Jareth does go to bed before we do!

All the more reason to get my blogging in early today!

G'night!

Dishing it up...

Well, I got to call the cable company and tell them to turn off my cable TV today. I now have a satellite dish somewhere on my roof, although it was a little dark by the time Brian got home and we went to see precisely where it's mounted - so we didn't even see it up there! Which is good news, as it means that it won't be an eyesore from the front of the house at least.

It seems to work well enough, but I've found that I have a small problem...

Ever since my head injury a few years back, I've noticed that there are a few things I have trouble with. I can't multi-task quite the way I used to, for one - I find myself constantly having to ask people to repeat themselves if I get the least bit distracted by something else. Which can get rough when you have a small child and want to write fiction... heh. Mostly I try to time the more thought-intensive stuff to happen at points when I'll have the least distraction. Another thing is that I occasionally have to search for the word I really want to say a whole lot more than I ever used to. It used to be that I would have a word and not be sure if it meant what I thought it did, but nowadays I sometimes just plain can't come up with the word, even though I might know it.

I've also noticed that I have trouble with certain types of devices now. I can pour through a complicated page of HTML or CSS and figure out what stuff means, but hand me a VCR remote and I'll give you a look of alarm! I need to learn stuff like VCRs slowly and methodically now, or I get flustered and baffled. This didn't used to happen to me, and I can only think that it happened because of the head injury - it seems to go back about that far anyway.

I don't know how it is that I can handle one complicated task, and not the other though. I had no trouble figuring out the PDA that my sister-in-law's boyfriend gave me - I'm happily installing all manner of crap onto it and figuring out which stuff needs to be deleted back off. I've put in all the names and addresses I need. I just downloaded a program to put my kid's medical stuff into too. Not a problem.

But the installation guy punched buttons on the remote and showed me how to get to the guide and the record functions... I might as well have been in another room! It didn't help that he'd tracked mud in on my floors, made me move furniture out of his way, acted all impatient with me, and seemed like he was in a hurry to leave while he was showing me how to work it all. I wanted to curl up in a little ball and cry! I felt utterly stupid and helpless. I sat for hours after he left, agonizing over the damned remote and manual, trying to figure out how to record a show!

The same goes for our stereo. We used to have this nice, simple, little five-disc cd player in the stereo. My father-in-law happened upon a 100-disc player and bought it, but then decided he didn't even own 100 cds, so he didn't really need that much capacity. He found out that it was the same brand as the stereo equipment we buy, and offered to trade us for our five-disc. At the time, it seemed like a wonderful idea. The problem is, now I never play music on the stereo. I'm intimidated by it. I only know how the most basic functions work, and I get flustered easily by trying to figure any more out. I know there's supposed to be a way I could just slip one or two discs in there and listen to just them if I wanted, but I don't know how it's done. So I never listen to music up there anymore unless I want the radio or to listen to the discs I know are already in there. Brian keeps a bunch in there normally as background for when we're gaming. They are good cds, but I don't know how to make it play just the one I want. It's frustrating as hell. I want my five-disc back, but it's too late. At some point we'll have to buy the one we like and sell this one. Damn.

I don't know what happened exactly. It seems so odd to me that one thing can be so easy for me to acclimate to - like most new computer programs I encounter - but something else can be so difficult, even if it is somewhat similar. It's like somebody put a blockage in my mental capacities - like a clogged artery that leads to my ability to properly digest information when a remote control is involved.

Nonetheless, I've managed to program the damned thing to record the shows we watch on fridays. And I've made a favorite channels list for myself. All, like, six of them - plus a few I'd like to know I could find quickly, like CNN and Headline News. I should probably add the weather channel, but I actually loathe the weather channel. My mother used to watch that like we teenagers watched MTV in the 80's. Some Enya songs make me think of the weather pretty quick - that was often the background when they did the local weather at the time.

And, I gleefully called the cable company and told them to turn it off immediately and come get their damned box! There was one "hidden charge" with the dish, but it still comes out to more than $20 savings each month than we were paying for the cable. And we'll review the bill to see what's what. It's $20 we're not paying anymore. $20 that can be used for food or most of a tank of gas or saved. Yay!

And now - we can pause live television too! For $20 less I can not miss anything when I need to stop watching to attend to my son. For $20 less I can pee when I need to, instead of waiting for a commercial. Oooh - and we have a skip button that can make it easier to zoom over commercials if we're watching something recorded. I'm gonna like all that. Assuming I can get acclimated to all the damned buttons, that is.

G'night!

Arts & Crafts Day!

Today we made more progress on Jareth's room. Brian and I got his blinds and curtains up, and put a threshold down to cover the edges of the carpet from the hallway until we eventually reclaim that wood floor as well. Then we began more work on the more artistic touches. We're planning to do more, but we're hoping to get him moved into the room before Thanksgiving, so we're getting all the major stuff done ASAP. I took some digital pics to share:

That's all for now. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

G'night!

From owww to OWWW in four hours or less...

Felt icky today.

Decided to blow stuff off and relax.

Somehow ended up in the bedroom with Jareth and Brian, bouncing Jareth on the bed and playing.

Then, one thing led to another and...

No, not that kind of thing! More like one conversation topic led to another. Get your mind out of the gutter already will ya? Sheesh!

...the next thing we knew we were moving furniture so we could have the headboard behind our bed.

Our bedroom looks entirely different now. The furniture is all in different spots, including the bed itself.

I think I like it. We'll see how it feels when I wake up tomorrow morning - that's the real test.

But for now...

I ow.

What was I thinking? That wasn't relaxing!

oof.

G'night!

Got Closet? (also known as: Shelving - Plan B)

So....

Not long after we moved into this house, we realized we'd need to redo the shelving/hanging rods in the closet for the master bedroom. They were poorly done and flimsy, and there wasn't enough room to hang all the clothes.

The master bedroom itself is only called that because it happens to be the biggest of the three teeny bedrooms we have. It's not bigger by a whole lot, and the closet is the usual double sliding door kind of thing, nothing special. The bedroom was only exciting in that it was bigger than that of our last apartment (which barely fit our king bed and dresser - Brian had to crawl over me to get out from his side of the bed - and a shelf unit that had a tv on it) and we could actually put nightstands on either side of the bed. We're planning to re-arrange it soon, after we paint the headboard we found at a garage sale not long ago. The fact that there actually is more than one possible arrangement is also a plus.

So I went to the local Wal-Mart, and found this shelf "kit" for closets. Seeing as how it was inexpensive, and I'd need two to make it work, I was happy to pay the low price of $20-$25 per kit. It seemed a whole lot better than that $500 price tag that the Elfa stuff seems to rack up to.

Silly, silly me.

Today, we redid the closet again, after it made yet another attempt at "closet suicide", wherein the topmost shelf/hanging rod took a plunge, taking all of my husband's shirts with it. This was not its first attempt, and my side has required some creative repairs as well.

We were not, however, going to pay that $500 for the Elfa stuff, seeing as how we're unemployed and all, so off to Home Depot we went, searching for other options after measuring the dimensions of our little closet.

We ended up creating a setup that looks awfully similar to that $500 getup in the catalog I had from a store that sold the Elfa stuff - but for a measly little price of $160 instead. It is a different brand than the Elfa ones, but works on a similar track system and seems nice and sturdy.

And I got to use my power drill too! I like power tools. They give me a rush.

One day I'll get my table saw. Oh, yeah baby!

In the meantime, however, I'll just have to wait for space in the garage for a proper workshop. Once we finish moving boxes and boxes out of the way.

*sigh*

But, in the meantime, at least I have a closet that finally works! Yay!!

Not only that, but bonus points today - it's the first time in the time that we've lived here that I have a place to hang dresses! They've been crammed on one of those "over the door" hooks on the back of our bedroom door. Now I actually have a space in the closet to hang them without having to bunch up the bottoms and have them get all wrinkly! Yipee!

Of course, I did just admit to owning dresses, didn't I? Pffft... there goes my tomboy image.

So today was a "project day", which was cool, since we did the project together.

Anyway, that's today.

Tomorrow will likely be different.

Yep. Prob'ly.

Yeah, I am in a wierd mood. It might have something to do with the silly image a friend of mine sent me in an e-mail today (wait for it...)

Primer vs. Black Paint, round three...

Oof.

I have blisters on my blisters.

Did you know blisters sting like all hell when you get shampoo on them? Yep. OW!

So, anyway, I got back to work on my son's upcoming bedroom today. Got all the staples out of the wood that held the carpet padding down. Now the floor needs sanding next. But not yet, as I've taped the floor so I can get the trimwork primed and painted down there as well. I got the first two coats onto the baseboard today, the third coat onto the door trim and some of the window trim... Did I mention she painted the trim black? Why, oh why, did she have to have black? (nevermind that I caved on that one... it was a compromise - she wanted the whole room black at first!!!) It takes three coats... I say again... three coats of primer just to make it ready for the white paint I'm using for the trim.

RAWR...

I also got the second coat up on the darker purple walls, so they should be about ready for the blue that's going on the walls and ceiling. I still have some touch up here and there, mostly in corners and I have to finish the rest of the window trim and put the third coat down on the baseboard. But I'm getting close to the actual "paint" stage at least. Phew. I wonder if this paint will go on nicely in one coat or if I'll end up having to do two of that as well...oy!

I took such a quick shower that I still have teensy little speckles of white here and there on my arms. And I'm pooped. It was warm and humid up there, even with the fan going - it was pulling out though, not in - and I was dripping everywhere. I started carrying a separate towel just to mop my face with. At least I should have dealt with a few calories today, but with it all hot and sticky I don't feel it. Yeccchh.

I don't mind the hot. I DO mind the sticky.

The whole kit and kaboodle...

The work on the bedroom continued today - I'm learning even more about this stuff as I go.

I pulled up the carpet, to reveal some lovely wood flooring! I have to finish removing the staples that were used to tack the padding down, but I've got the carpet off and the tacking strips as well. I was amazed at how much dirt accumulates beneath the carpet. Then again, I think that my sister may have only vaccumed it four or five times in the almost three years we've lived here.

I've got a bunch of books on how to do these projects, so today I read all about floor refinishing. Looks like we'll be renting a sander at some point in the near future, as well as picking out the color stain we'll want and a nice durable varnish for the top. At least it doesn't look like I'll be needing many tools from the hardware store this time - a relief for my husband I'm sure!

I will need to put new hardware on the windows though - they were all painted over! Yuck! One of the windows looks like it needs to be replaced completely, though that one's not my sister's doing - someone blocked off the holes meant to let the window drain, and there's serious water damage to the frame structure. The house needs new windows all around though, so it will be on the project list once we've saved enough money. For now, we'll have to just keep an eye on it. I did scrape the caulk off the holes though, so hopefully it won't get worse in the meantime.

The black trimwork my sister insisted on is a real pain to cover up! I'm needing three coats of Kilz before I'm getting it white enough to paint white over it and have it actually look white. *grumble* I got the second coat up on some of it today, and taped the glass on the windows to get the frames their first coat.

Of course I feel like I neglected my kid today in the process of trying to get him a proper bedroom... *sniff*

Which meant I promptly spoiled his dinner after I was done, by curling up in front of my computer with him and some fun snacks. I find it amusing that he doesn't even bother looking at the TV much if we happen to have it on, but he'll watch the stuff on my computer with rapt attention.

This egg thing is his favorite - I say "peek-a-boo" whenever the face comes into view and he giggles up a storm! It's from the same guy that did the balloon on a string thing I mentioned in a previous post.

Tomorrow I've got some paid work to get done before I try to get back into the bedroom work, so we'll see if I'm able to get much done or not.

G'night!