Well…forgot to talk about trying to order the blinds for the bedroom yesterday and got the crappy surprise that they are out of stock both in the store and online and don’t know when they will be available again…so, I think I’ll check at Lowe’s and Menards to see if I can get them there…but doing that is such a pain when I get free delivery from depot…and they are such a strange size at 30 by 64 inches that very few companies even make them…so, darn…I guess I’ll have to live with the newspaper on the window until I can find something…and the ones in there, in the small bedroom, and in the living room need to match so that makes it even a little harder…oh, well…only the first glitch and I will have the room painted tomorrow so I can still go forward with moving in there…
Monthly Archives: April 2022
Man, I’m tired…
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….
Bird flu…
Well…damn, just when I finally get birds coming to my feeder, the experts are saying to take it down and not to feed the birds until summer because of the bird flu that is starting to kill birds all over the US…and yet, they say that songbirds are not really affected by it right now…and the thing that I don’t understand is why feeders? The grackles out here travel in huge flocks and feed right next to each other and there are never more than two birds on my feeders at a time so the chance of spreading the virus from bird to bird is quite small….so I guess I have to make a decision here in a while…do I fill it or take it down? Have to think about that one…..
April 17th
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….
Rentals…
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…
Got some painting done…
Well…not sure why I did this to myself but I had another damn schedule to meet this morning and got up already behind…and that is kind of funny when I got out of bed at 5:37….so I was on the bike before 7 today and done by 7:45 and then right into painting to get done before Man U came on but I shouldn’t have bothered with them playing with no defense again…I mean up by 2-0 and losing the darn game?…Okay, that was wrong…they won by 3-2 but against Norwich City? I turned it off after they were tied…but, I did get the closet painted to a certain point….ran low on this grey paint and needed to save some for touch ups so I couldn’t do two coats on the entire closet but settled for the outer part that I’ll have to look at…but without a light in there the rest doesn’t matter and can wait until I have leftovers from the next gallon of a little darker paint….so, after I finished painting and could put my painter clothes in the washer along with the rest of the laundry, I ran a load and I am waiting for the dryer to finish so I can put the clothes away….and that met my schedule for the day when I was supposed to have the day off…oh, got some bad news that I will relate in the next one….
Can’t think of a political one so how about some music?
Well….as the title says, I can’t think of a political one that grabs me enough to cut through how overwhelmed I feel about the happenings in the world…just too much going on right now and I don’t have the energy to sort through it…so, let’s talk about music for a bit…when I was on the indoor bike yesterday, it dawned on me that the music that was in my ears was all nearly 50 years old…the Allman Brothers live at the Filmore east, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the Cars, CSNY’s 4 way street, the Beatles and on and on…and I wonder if any of you are the same way? I’ve talked about this before that I have stopped listening to new music and I wonder why that would be? I know I may be one of those snobs that think that the best music was done when I was young…but, can you argue with “In memory of Elizibeth Reed” live from the Allman’s in 1970? Or “Southern Man” from 4 way street? Or the story from “Doctor Wu” that takes you from happiness to despair and back again in a 6 minute song? I admit that as I age the emotional aspects of songs have more meaning to me…or maybe I’ve become more perceptive to them as I spend more and more time alone? Who knows? I’m sure I’m bringing some of my own interpretations to the meanings and that fits with what is going on with me right now…to a point, but a lot of it relates to what I’ve been though in this life from the time my older brother played Elvis, Buddy Holley, and Roy Orbison that I guess I absorbed without knowing it at the time. Don’t get me started on Steely Dan or Pink Floyd…especially Dark Side where the run of “Time” and “Great Gig in the Sky” always takes my breath away and talks to me as I get older…and with SD, I see myself in the characters and worlds they create…about the losers and the underachievers and the people who just can’t help themselves like in “Black Cow” where the protagonist has poured everything into helping his friend or lover “talk it out til daylight” but then realizes that it’s over and sends her away…or from “Your Gold Teeth” where a woman comes back into a man’s life that she burned at least once before but he knows what’s coming and the dismissive line “you don’t have to dance for me, I’ve seen you dance before” describes that fact…I guess what I’m saying in this long one is that music has always been important to me and I wonder if anyone else has the intimate connection that I have or if it’s unhealthy? I know that even if it is, that won’t change how I feel….
April 16th
Well…dang, the moon was so bright last night it looked like a spotlight was shining into my bedroom from about 2 am on and that was not good for trying to sleep…after tossing and turning for a few hours, I gave up and got up at 5:37 but still feel okay so I can live with that…my hands are pretty puffy this morning from all of the abuse I’ve been heaping on them and that won’t stop today since I want to paint the closet in the bedroom after doing the trim yesterday for some reason…but covering the dark blue in there is going to take two coats…and I need to get that done before Man U plays at 10…why, I don’t know since they have been stinking up the place for months now and will probably do it again today…I was going to take the weekend off and clean but that can wait til this afternoon….and I am going to take the entire day off tomorrow to get ready for the big push to finish the bedroom next week…and I am wavering on taking the summer off since I could get the painting done in the dining room and living room in a couple of weeks….but I may take a few weeks off anyway…with the bedroom going better than I thought, I still may be able to get those rooms done before the end of May which was my goal anyway….not sure if my body will hold up, though, and the yard is going to take about a week of prep work to get it ready for summer…damn, all I do is talk about work anymore…I wonder what happened to science, astronomy, and sports? I will make an effort to broaden the topics out in the future…it seems I have tunnel vision right now but working on the house has become my life and I know I’m getting tired of it….not much to do today…need to get on the bike here in a few minutes and the straight into the closet painting and I know I’ll have paint all over me from the tight space…but it will be worth it….still have dust patrol to do later since I am so tired of having everything coated….more later….
Still worked today…
Well…you know, I was going to take the day off today after painting the bathroom yesterday but, you know me, I just can’t do it…so after the bike ride today, I headed out to run errands and try to get parts to rebuild my front gate and got the corners I needed but they only sell the rail I need in 10 ft lengths and I only need about 30 inches…and it was too cold to put the top down on the car and stick it in the seat and up in the air, so I couldn’t buy that part of it…the rail costs 20 bucks so the repair now is about 32 bucks but still cheaper than the 120 bucks they want for a new gate so I guess I can live with it…so, I’m going to have over 7 feet of rail left and I need to figure out what to do with it…maybe use it for the hummingbird feeder hanger that I wanted to make? I decided against the blocks for the garden border since menards is such a pain to deal with when you need construction materials…and once I measured the garden, it was going to take 50 bricks and I just don’t feel like setting that many of them right now…and can always do that later if I get bored this summer and have some extra cash…but I did work on the closet in the bedroom…cleaned it up and painted the baseboards and trim in there and will need to paint it grey in the next couple of days…but I’m not going to paint the ladder right now…just going to clean it and leave it for another time since it needs so much detail work…oh, and I hung the new blinds in the bathroom, getting one step closer to finishing it…just need to do the register next week when it’s warmer and I can paint it outside….so I did work today…maybe I’ll take the weekend off…yeah, right….
Texas runs our foreign policy?
Well…when you go to the grocery store and avocados are 5 bucks each and you can’t find any veggies, thank the idiot governor of Texas who has taken it upon himself to run both foreign and trade policy in direct violation of the constitution. This bullshit started earlier in the week when he told his state police to do “truck inspections” for every truck coming across the border from Mexico which has resulted in miles long backups at the border and lots of rotting fruit and vegetables as the trucks wait for days just for a stunt as Abbott tries to make inflation worse to hurt Biden and the dems in this fall’s election. And now, he has taken foreign policy into his own hands which the constitution says is the purview of the federal government only by making “agreements” with the heads of Mexican states to allow their trucks to freely pass as he extorts them probably into giving him cash for his re-elections which is also against the law. My question is what is the biden admin going to do about it? They need to hold this asshole accountable by fining suit today to force him to stop this illegal bullshit and the companies who are losing their drops to spoilage need to sue him for damages today to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and do it personally so the taxpayers of Texas don’t have to foot the bill for his criminality…typical repub bullshit….geez…