Well…not sure if things have changed but it feels a little like it…but the mundanities of life go on as they have forever so here we go…have been up since 5 since I couldn’t sleep any more and feel a little worn out so I may take the day and think a bit….I did get the bedroom painted yesterday and it was supposed to be the end of the work for the summer since I had estimated it was going to take me to the end of May to finish it and the bathroom….but it is still 5 weeks until then and I could possibly get the dining room painted…it took the full gallon of paint to do two coats on the bedroom and I was happy I was able to stretch it and get it done so I think it will take more than that for the dining room…we’ll see…I may take a run out to ollies to look at area rugs this morning since I can get a 5×6’7 one for only 29 bucks and that will cover a lot of the ugly floor in the bedroom and then I can use it for a pad under the downstairs bike if I get carpeting put in the bedrooms…but that will make a hundred bucks I’ve spent in the past few days and I need to stop spending for  a while….the damn weather is going to suck after three good days and we will be back in the 40’s for a week or so and I still think there will be no spring this year…I did get the manure I need for the garden and need to work it into the soil as soon as it gets warm but need to remove the weeds that have grown in the garden soil first….and I think I’ll spend 20 bucks and go out to get the tubing I need to fix the front gate but I want to get the old corners off first and I can do that this week….not much to do today…just want to take some time to reflect a bit and use this as a catch my breath day….it’s weird how things turn….more later….

Well..I knew this was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier….my brother Mike died this morning….just talked to one of my younger sisters and she passed on the news….hadn’t seen him in quite a while but he was still my brother and that means something…will write more tomorrow after I try to get my memories straight….

Well…okay, just got off the phone with my brother the realtor and he talked me down from the doom and gloom that had descended on me from finding out about the rentals across the street….he doesn’t think the new rentals will have any effect on the worth of my house since the neighborhood is over 50% rentals already and feels that the studies I read didn’t deal with that fact but were looking at the effect of rentals on an all owner occupied city…and he said he thinks he would list my house for 139K and we’d get that price or more for it after the work I’ve done to make it nicer…so, I guess I will have a place to live for the summer and I can take the summer off as I had planned and can plant a garden and keep working and enjoying the lakes and bike rides…I may even be able to sleep tonight which I haven’t done since Friday….now I need to do some introspection to figure out why I reacted so strongly to something I can’t control….and revel in the idea that I’ve made 50K on this place in 14 months instead of losing money as I had feared…and I can enjoy the final season of “Better Call Saul” that starts with two episodes tonight….damn, I feel better…

Well…damn, another 2:41 morning and had such a hard time getting back to sleep that, after I finally got back to sleep about 4, I didn’t get out of bed til around 6:30…and that makes me running late this morning with lots to do…and the big decision now is whether to get on the bike or not….it is nice that this is the last painting day probably til the end of summer unless I decide to do the dining room with having 5 weeks until the end of May which is my original goal for being done for the summer…we’ll see….it is nice that just taking the battery out of the laptop and resetting it made it work almost like new and I don’t have to wait for it to start or to change from page to page…thought I was going to have to buy a new one and that is just not in the budget right now….slept on my right shoulder most of the night last night and it just aches today but the rest time starts this afternoon and I sure hope my hand gets better along with it…still have a hard time gripping anything and probably should take some ibuprofen before I start on painting…I need to clean this place up this afternoon and tomorrow morning since T may be coming out for a visit tomorrow and I need to put all the tools away and clean the dust up in the dining room and kitchen…it will be nice to stop using the dining room as a work room…so, I need to get moving and start the day so I can get the painting done by noon or so….still damn tired…more later…

Well…after spending an hour looking at every big box store to try to find the blinds I want for the bedroom with no luck, on a whim I tried amazon and they had the one size I needed on sale for only 19 bucks so I ordered it but needed another 6 bucks to get free shipping so I bought another pair of riding gloves for 7 bucks since I’ll need them later in the summer…so I spent another 28 bucks today even though I wanted to not spend anything for a while…and I’ll spend another 30 tomorrow getting the paint, trim pad, manure, and garden soil at depot so I can start on getting the garden planted downstairs so the plants can go out as soon as they sprout….and I did find my seeds from last year that I think I have enough for another garden but I may need some cukes since I only have a few of those seeds left…and I may buy some onion seeds just for the heck of it to see if they’ll grow…maybe some lettuce and cabbage, too? Had too many tomatoes last year and could free up some room for them….still feel like I didn’t accomplish anything today and I think this will be my last day of taking Sunday off since I have so much work to do….

Well…just finished up getting the bedroom prepped for painting tomorrow and I am just darn tired from not getting any sleep last night…had to clear out the sawhorses and other stuff that I needed to paint the shelving for the closet and then dump the last of the paint, wallpaper, and glue that was in the trash can outside and put the drop cloth down to catch any paint drips that may happen tomorrow….and I have been fighting problems with my laptop that appear to be fixed and I think it was from not shutting it off for a month or so…it just froze up and I had to pull the battery out of it to get it to do a complete restart…and that took about a half hour for it to figure out if it wanted to work or not…luckily it did and I’m back at this…and now they are playing the Doctor Who episode that never showed up on Plex that will lead into the new season that starts right after it so my afternoon is planned…so I need to finish this and get ready….more later….maybe….

Well…okay, feeling better this morning about the rentals across the street but didn’t sleep for crap and part of that is that damn Lowes sent me a text at 2:14 in the damn morning and it took me an hour or better to get back to sleep…but it’s my day off so I can cope with that pretty well…and I had a memory flash last night where I remembered a tool that I can use to edge the trim in the bedroom I’m working on…it’s a little pad with rollers on it that you slide along the top of the baseboards and the ceiling corners to get a nice straight line for the grey paint so I can paint the bedroom without masking the whole thing off…and the cool thing is that the tool is only 4 bucks and that is half what a roll of tape would cost…and that means I can paint the bedroom and finish it up tomorrow and start moving in by the end of the week….need to find an area rug to put in there with how crappy the floor is but I can live with the small one I have for now…have been living without one in the small bedroom so I’m used to it…and I can even start on doing the small bedroom but I’m not sure how much I want to do in there before summer…certainly get rid of the dropped ceiling and work on the baseboards but I need it for a work room to do the doors so I don’t have to drag them downstairs…but that is work and I don’t want to talk about that right now….I am looking forward to resting my body some since the skin on my hands is so dried out from all of the washing I do when working on this place…I do still want to buy a kayak but I’m not sure how much I’d use it and I really hate buying things I won’t use a lot…like a grill…my brother said he had one he’d let me have but I haven’t heard from him since last fall so I guess that’s not going to happen and I don’t want to spend 200 bucks on one….I do want to buy a couple more plastic Adirondek chairs for outside just in case anyone ever comes out to visit so I’ll have to look for those here in a while….I am looking forward to getting on the yard this week and doing the cleanup and prepping the garden for planting…I want to get some crabgrass preventer/food and get it on the lawn this week, too, and work on the mower to get it ready but those are fooling around jobs that can be fun…not much to do today…there is a new football league starting today and there is a Michigan team in it so I may take a look at that at noon and I need to clear everything out of the bedroom so I can paint tomorrow along with ordering the blinds…so an easy day…and I need one of those….more later….

Well…feel like I was sucker punched today when I saw that the two new houses across the street are going to be frickin rentals and I am so damn pissed that I can’t see straight…in the whole damn neighborhood, they put up rentals across from me and with all of the bullshit that comes with rentals up here…after all, every damn noise complaint I’ve had to make, over 80 and counting, was for people in the tons of rental housing up here already…the one thing we don’t need is more rentals and the noise and bullshit that comes with them…I mean renters don’t give a crap about the neighborhood they live in and have no “skin in the game” as we owners do….and just the act of them putting up a “for rent” sign cost me 15K on the price of my house since rental housing always lowers home values in any neighborhood they are in…and yes, I’ve read the studies that support this fact and I am going to go to the city commission meeting next week to let them have it about them costing me money and them not caring since they don’t live up here. I am just stewing about this and am about ready to stop working on this place since I’ll never get my money back for what I’m putting into it or rewarded for making this a better neighborhood with all of my damn work cleaning up after the pigs that live up here…I will say that I’m done taking care of the vacant lots up here since all of my work has been nullified by the act of putting up a for rent sign across the street…so, I guess I’ll start looking for other houses but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to afford anything as nice as this place…so, it looks like I’m stuck here for now…and really, really depressed…crap…