Getting ready

I got ambitious the other day and got the work bench moved out of the cool tub area and got that area cleaned up and ready for the new furniture. Still haven't heard anything on the delivery and I go back to work today. May have to have one of the neighbors sign for it, hopefully not tho.

It slid right out with about an inch to spare. I didn't have to take anything apart to get it out of there. It spent the night on the patio since I hadn't decided where I was going to put it, plus, it got too hot too fast to do any more grunt work.

Yesterday I disassembled the grow bench and put the work bench in it's spot and put the grow bench on top of the work bench. That is good for now. We don't get a lot of rain, so it should be good for a while. If I decide to turn the work bench into a window seat I can reassemble the grow bench.

The cool tub area is now sporting one of the new rugs I bought over the weekend and my two folding chairs. I have been sitting out there the last couple of days until it gets too hot to stay outside.

I think the new furniture will fit just fine. I hope.

It is still too hot to do much of anything outside. I have plenty waiting to be done, but it will have to wait until it cools off some. Hopefully very soon. My tolerance to the heat seems to be less this year, but it could be just perception. Hot is hot, with or without humidity. The humidity adds another layer to it tho. Going to be another high electric bill this month. 

Just about time to get the garden up and going again, but it has to cool down some so I can get the new liner and soil into it. 

Jake Marsh 08/30/1955 - 02/26/2010

Today would have been Jake's 62nd birthday. I still miss him each and every day.

Happy Birthday Jake.

A splurge

I have made it thru my three nights, and it is downhill from here. 5.5 hours today, 8 tomorrow and I am done for the week. Yay! I am getting so sick of the same old, same old every week. I need the weather to break so I can start doing something. Soon! I am also tired of being hot and sweaty whenever I am not sitting in front of my fan indoors with the AC on. Every freaking minute. At least I am not in Texas. Harvey hit landfall in Rockport. That is where I spent several days with Kali Cat when she got sick. It was a nice town. I wonder what it looks like now. The campground I was in was only a few hundred feet from the water. I imagine there is going to be a lot of damage. Port Aransas, where I was heading when Kali Cat got sick, was also hit pretty hard. I never made it there.

I just splurged and ordered this set from Walmart. They were out of the red, so I went with what they had. I will probably cover the cushions anyway. It should be here next week. Delivered to my door. 

This is going to go where my work bench is on the patio. My cool tub area will finally have some decent furniture. I have been using a zero gravity chair, but it isn’t comfortable. I will probably put both of them in the yard sale this fall. I need something I can put my feet on without stressing my foot and the zero grav chair isn’t doing it for me. With the way the seat bows when I sit in it, too much stress on my hips, and my feet are never comfortable. I considered just getting another recliner like the ones I already have, but found this set and it is only $50 more than just the one chair. More for the money. Yes, it is a splurge, but I think in the long run, it will end up being a necessity. Tired of having to disassemble chairs to move them around and I will have two areas to chose from - private sitting area and not so private. Eventually I might swap the sets around, but we will see which set is most comfortable where. Would also make a nice indoor set. I could also mix and match the two sets.

Still haven’t decided where the work bench is going yet. I may still cut it down for the living room, or, when I get the shed cleaned up, try to squeeze it in there. I would have to relocate the tool chest. We’ll see how it all works out. First thing I will have to do is get it moved out of the space. Then I will decide what to do with it. Moving it is going to be a pain in the ass, I am going to have to take down part of the wall to do that. Good thing it isn’t mortared in.

Hmmm…a small outdoor living room to decorate for Christmas…getting ideas already. The cool tub itself will be stored at the back of the house by then. 

I think I am feeling a bit better today. I had cottage cheese for dinner last night, took some probiotics and some fiber pills. Will keep that up for a couple of days, but at least I don’t have the pains today. Just a little sore from yesterday.

We have our end of season clearance sale going on this weekend and I did buy a rug. Normally $35, I got it for $17.50. I may grab another today, there are only a few left and that is a good price. I can put it in the trailer and either use it there, or just store it there until I find a spot for it. The one I did buy is going right here in the cool tub area. It is going to be nice when it is done. 

I also picked up this sign for the garden, again, half price. :) Been waiting for that to go on sale.

I still need to talk to Tom about my vacation. Would like to get that scheduled before anyone else asks for time off. Janet has already requested two days at the end of September. I would still like to wait until October, but that is up to Tom. We might be too busy by then. September should still be cooler than August. I am ready for a break. Big time. Customers are pissing me off left and right lately. More than usual. I just need a break. It has been one year and two months of full time labor. I’m afraid that I am not going to want to go back after my vacation is up tho. But I will just have to deal with it. 

Early morning ramble

It is 3AM and I have been up for a while now. I fell asleep in front of the TV after eating dinner last night and got up and went to bed around 8 or 9. So now I am wide awake. At least it is cool enough to sit outside in the wee hours. It is warmer tonight than it has been the last few nights, I have the fan going. Humidity is up as well, so we might get some rain in the next few days.  I am so ready for the heat to break and cooler weather. Something under 100 degrees and cooler nights.

Wednesday I am going to try a new pair of Teva's at work. I think I have worn out the pair I have been wearing, there is no more cushion to them even with the weekly inserts, and I am walking heavy. It is a real effort and I feel like my legs and feet are really heavy. Hoping it is just the shoes and a new pair will make a difference. With all the bending, lifting, pushing and hauling I do my whole body is sore and achy by the time I leave. I am getting too old for a job this physical. I don’t complain, I just do it. Then I come home and recover and go back and do it all over again. It is wearing me down.

I have a lot of things I would like to do today, but am not feeling overly ambitious. If it is like any of my other Monday’s I will sleep a lot of it away. I would like to get the weed cloth up in the garden and the new soil in there and off the patio, need to straighten out the mess from the roof project, would like to re-arrange the cool tub area and have a real sitting area there, re-organize the shed, and so much more. I should also go get some produce at the store and I haven’t been to Salvation Army in weeks. I need to get a feeder hose for my hose filter so I can get that up and working again too. Lots to do, so little ambition. Plus, it gets too hot too fast. If I do anything, I need to get the hose working again. I need to add water to the tub, and would like to fill the baby swamp cooler so I can try that in the cool tub area. Maybe haul one of my outdoor recliners into the area temporarily until it is cool enough to actually do some work back there. I should also defrost the freezer before my new Schwans order is delivered later. But then again, maybe I will wait one more cycle for that. I need to use up the shredded cheese I have in there, plus there is some chicken that needs to be used. Labor day is coming up and I think that means I won’t see the Schwans guy for a month this time. So waiting might work out better. 

So, if I can manage to schedule my vacation right, I can have nine days off in a row. Starting on a Monday, and getting in my two weekends, and I wouldn’t have to go back until Wednesday the following week. That would be great. I’m hoping Tom is amenable to that. Not sure what I would do with those days, I need to do something. I can't just sit around for nine days. Taking the trailer out would be good, but it might still be too hot. We will have to wait and see. If I can’t do that, maybe a road trip for a couple of days. I haven’t seen the west coast yet, and I am so close. Don’t know if I want to do that trip on my own or not. I guess I will just have to wait and see. There is also Vegas…that is only two hours away. Haven’t been there yet either. Again, not sure if I want to do that alone. I haven’t had my cameras out in ages, that is something I could do too. I will have to see what is “local” that I haven’t seen yet. Maybe a couple of day trips. I was much better about doing stuff alone when it was my way of life. Now I am back to not wanting to do stuff alone. Sigh…if I still had Ody, that would be different. The trailer isn’t quite the same as traveling fully enclosed. I would love another smaller motorhome, but then you have the expenses of registration, insurance, maintenance, etc. I can’t afford all of that. That is why I went with the trailer. Register it once for life and no additional insurance required. Especially for one week out of the year.

I would go visit Howard and Barbara in Yuma for a couple of days, but they are in Island Pond this summer. I could go northeast and see if I can find my property in Holbrook. Might be a bit cooler there too. Can’t take the trailer tho as I would have to put new tires on it first. But I could splurge for one (or two) night in a hotel. It is about a five hour trip from here, the high desert. Should be considerably cooler. From there it is only another four hours to Belen NM where my other property is. I won’t bother with Dell TX tho. Too far, and Texas isn’t one of my favorite states. Although I did enjoy my time in Rockport. Dell is in the northern part of the state, Rockport was on the coast. Something to think about. Worse comes to worse, my car is big enough that I could sleep in it if I had to. 

Some day I hope to become a snowbird. Northeast in the summer, southwest in the winter. But I can't afford to do that because if I don't work, I have no income. Hopefully I will still be healthy when I finally get to retire and will be able to do some more traveling.

Kitchen backsplash

They got started on the roads really early yesterday and wrapped up around 3 PM for the day. From what I have been told, only my street and the next one over is left. I’m hoping it is done early, should be since they did most of the park in one day and only have the two streets left. I didn’t even attempt to go out. Sounds like they are getting ready to get started now, so they should be long gone by the time I have to leave at 3 today. It’s going to start smelling like paving very shortly and I will have to close up the house.

For the first time this summer it is actually cooler outside than inside and I have it opened up again exchanging the air. But they are starting on the roads again and the sun is coming up so it is just about time to close it up again. I don’t think my AC is running as often. Yay, hopefully that means a bit lower electric bill this month.

I finally got my backsplash tiles up. It wasn’t too hard, and isn’t a perfect job, but looks so much better than that fugly wall paper. I had one package left over and will save that for replacements or repairs. These are faux tiles, peel and stick. They weren't too hard to install. I hope they stay up.

      

Not sure what the next project will be, bathroom walls or the living room and kitchen floors…I should see how much it would cost me to have them all done in laminate flooring. I’m sure it is out of my price range tho. And those cupboards need to either be replaced or resurfaced. Problem is, they are laminate and won’t be easy to deal with. I could try rearranging the cool tub area, but the work bench won’t have a spot until I decide if I am going to chop it down into a window seat or not, and I don’t want to bring that indoors until the floors are done. I still need to clean up out in back of the shed and the garden from last week’s roofing project too. I may take the black wire shelf from in back of the shed and use it in the cool tub area. Have to find a spot for the scrap lumber I have and am thinking of putting that in the storage bench. That would go a long way towards neatening up the area. I save the scraps for firewood and small construction projects. And of course, the shed, again, needs to be cleaned out and organized. I can’t walk in there yet again and the benches have a bunch of stuff on them. The shed is my dumping ground. So lots and lots to do around here. 

There is always something to do around here. Projects galore.

Back to work today. Sigh....

Catching up

I was reminded the other day that I hadn't posted in a while. A lot and nothing has happened since I last wrote. My increase that I mentioned was an automatic annual increase, I did get another quarter after that. I am not quite so cranky about it. Although, 20 years ago, I still made more money than I do now.

My foot is being managed. The bursitis is under control, but it takes me about ten minutes a day to get my feet ready for work. I am still taping the heel because if I don't the bursitis kicks in. I am also taking ibuprofen before work and a topical pain killer. It gets me through most of my shift. I change the insole weekly in the right shoe and am wearing shoes with no backs on them. The thought of putting on a shoe with a back makes me shudder. That is what caused the bursitis to begin with. I may be stuck in Teva sandals for the duration of my "career" at DG.

It has been very hot, too hot to spend much time outdoors. And since I am indoors in my tiny home most of the time, I get bored looking at the same thing during all my waking hours. I got an itch to work on the kitchen so I got rid of my stove (hated the thing and gave it away), put in a new section of counter top and got a counter top electric cook top. I ordered faux tiles for the back splash, but due to our wonderful USPS service and the fact that the sender dropped my PO box number off the package, it got returned. Eight weeks later I finally have my tiles. I'm hoping to get them up on Monday. But I am already itching to move on to the next project which is to remove the carpet in the living room and put something else down. I think it is going to be berber carpet squares to keep the cost down and those I can do myself.

I have had several encounters with Arizona wild life. Caught lizards in the store, had a rattle snake relocated, had a small lizard climb me. A kangaroo rat in the yard, and of course the bunnies and coyotes. 

And this last week I finally got the clear roofing installed on the garden. That was pricey, but it should prevent big pockets of water when it rains. 

I ordered a lot more soil for the garden as it is almost planting time again and the soil has settled a LOT. 

The garden is pretty much dormant right now. I have a few things that have survived, two desert willow seedlings, some green onion and some rhubarb chard and my dandelions of course, but nothing that is producing. Everything else basically dried up and blew away.

Big storm blew through on Friday doing quite a bit of damage. Was without power at work for almost three hours. Was a scramble to get things back up and running when it finally came back on. But we got it done. Lots of damage around town, but I only lost a cactus and a shade sail.

I already have the replacement, I had ordered two last year when I had to replace it then. 

And some photos from the storm...

We lost another tree at work, and there was a dumpster rolling down the street. Lots and lots of water and wind.

My new roof on the garden held up just fine. :)