Well….after I had a brainstorm yesterday, I think I’m going to start thinking differently about this house and what is acceptable as I clean it up and repair the big faults in the walls and everywhere else…I think I’m going to start thinking of this place as an old French chateau or an Italian villa instead of the pristine American house where it is necessary for everything to be perfect…when you look at some of those old European houses, they seem to embrace the age and flaws in brick work, walls and floors instead of covering them up and trying to make them perfect….and that is part of the character of those old houses…now, this one is not 150 years old or sitting on a hill in Provance but I can treat it as it is and take my mantra of letting the next owner make it perfect to it’s logical conclusion….is this a rationalization for not wanting to spend the time or money to make this place perfect? Yes, it is….but it also serves the purpose of quieting the guilt for running out of steam as I get older and as I stare at the huge missing pieces of the plaster skim coat in the big bedroom that I know will still be visible when I’m done with them….and I do need a way to accept how they come out no matter how good or bad…so, I’ll give that a try and see how it works….may change it tomorrow…who knows?
All posts by James DeVol
April 3rd
Well…man, I feel lousy this morning and I hurt even more than normal and that is getting pretty tiring….and I’m getting tired of my eyes being full of crap and blurry in the mornings and I think I’m edging toward changing up my allergy meds to try to fix that…or I may even have to see an eye doctor to see what is going on…it was a little nicer going out for the paper today but it’s supposed to start raining and snowing again after the 3 inches of snow we got out here yesterday…luckily it all melted overnight but it is still damn depressing that it is still snowing in April…and it’s not supposed to get warm,other than Tuesday, until next week but then it goes right back into the 40’s again and that will last until almost the end of April and that really, really sucks….I need to get started on the border for the garden here soon and get the veggies planted downstairs…or I may just wait til I can get them already started this year….and I need to get the seeds for the perennials I want to plant around the house and get them planted in the next couple of weeks so I’ll have flowers when it gets warmer…and I need to repair the fence and rake up the leaves since the yard waste pick up starts this week….so I really do need to get my butt in gear on the bedroom this week but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done in there….the door alone is going to take 3 days or so…and I’m tired…not much to do today…I do need a day off but I may have to skip them starting next week…I guess I could do the plaster today but I really don’t feel like it right now…maybe after more coffee….more later…
Lynyrd Skynyrd is dead to me…
Well…sitting here watching a Roger Waters concert and the good that he is trying to do through his music, and that took me to the asshole Johnny VanZant, who reformed LS after Ronnie was killed in a plane crash in 1977…and they were nothing more than mediocre after that…and now he is writing songs to support Ron DeSantis of Florida and his hatred of the LGBTQ community…and he goes on and on and one how great ole Ron is….the typical fascist crap and you can bet this moron is a maga asshole, too….so, as of today, Lynyrd Skynyrd is dead to me…and anyone who thinks that ole ronnie is the new savior of the US as Johnny does can go right to hell with him….
I hate dust….
Well…I hate dust….and after eating it all morning, I hate it even more but it had to be done to make progress on the bedroom…had all of the plaster patches that were just slapped into place that needed smoothing but the sander wouldn’t dent them so I took my grinder with a 60 grit flap disc on it and that worked…but I had to run the box fan on high pointing out the window to be able to see anything in there and it looked like the house was on fire with how much dust was blowing out of the room….and I had to hit another 5 places where there were ugly patches so I was pretty white with dust by the time I was done….and then I had to sand all of the paint that was left on the walls to smooth it out for painting…still will be able to see some of it since I’m not going to to sand it all off…and it took me almost a half hour to clean up all that dust….and had to clean the filter on my shop vac 4 times as I cleaned to keep the suction working….did I mention I hate dust? But now I’m done for the day other than some light cleaning in a bit…I do need to take something for the pain in my hand that always comes after I use the sander, even though I used my left hand a lot today…just hurt too damn much….maybe more later…
Come over to our side…
Well…I wonder when business is going to get a damn clue that the repubs are not the party of business anymore? After Disney objected to the hatred that DeSantis and his cronies in Florida passed in the “don’t say gay” bill that the Florida idiot signed last week, almost every damn repub across the country along with all of the personalities on fox news have started to threaten Disney and almost every damn business they don’t like with retaliation for them speaking out against the hate. Now, it’s always been okay for business to keep the cash flowing to the repubs and it is perfectly fine with them if they support their racist, homophobic hate, but if they do anything to be inclusive and to say that “hey, maybe it’s not a good idea to hate on Americans”…that is the last straw and the fascists in the repub party threaten to ruin them. So, I have suggestion for business in this country…come over to our side where we don’t retaliate against opinions that differ from ours…now, I will say that hate, homophobia, misogyny, and criminal behavior is not acceptable to us, but we will listen and try to make the US a better place for all Americans…not just the white, straight ones that the repubs think are the only people that deserve to live their lives…and guess what? I’ll bet a lot of these people are your customers or are like me who is and old white, straight guy who thinks that everyone should have the same rights to aspire to happiness…not just the chosen few that the repubs favor…and it’s a lot easier over here…no crazies spouting Q bullshit all day….so, come on over…the water’s fine….
April 2nd
Well…that was early…out of bed at 5:34 this morning but I feel okay so I can live with it….and my eyes are better today but the allergies continue to get worse as the days go on and I’m not sure if the little red allergy meds are going to do it any more….darn….and I have another long day of work on the bedroom today where I have to go over all of the walls with a sanding block to make sure I have all of the residue off the walls and can start working on the repairs…I am damn tired of dust…every day I work around here, I put another coat of dust everywhere no matter how much I do to try to contain it…and I am looking forward to the summer and not working on anything that will make dust…I have let this place go and haven’t done any of the normal cleaning that I should be doing so it looks like I won’t have my Sunday off like I have been doing to heal up after working all week….but I will stay off the bike at least…I am still really sore after the work this week and I wonder if I should just power through the bedroom and get it done…but, the door needs to come off and the door frame is going to take a good day or two to repair it since it has dripping paint glopped all over it…I do have to remember that I have until the end of May to finish both the bathroom and the bedroom and will need to get paint for both this week…so I’m going to spend around 60 bucks on paint this week with needing two greys and another gallon of white…ugh….not much to do today….hope to be done with what I want to do by noon or so today and I may clean the stove up after cooking for lunch since it has dust all over it from peeling the wallpaper off the bedroom….how that happens with the door closed and a fan blowing out the window, I don’t know…more later….
Irony is alive and well in NY..
Well…just a short one on a bit of good news that happened today on Staten Island in NY…an Amazon warehouse workforce voted to approve a union and it is the first one that Amazon hasn’t been able to lie, cheat, and steal to prevent…and the delicious bit of irony is the union organizer was a former worker that was fired for promoting the union…which is really against the law but Amazon got away with it somehow…okay, we know how…payoffs and millions of dollars to professional union busters that come in and lie to and threaten the workers with the bad things that will happen to them if they vote for the union…and with the record of abuse that Amazon piles on it’s workers, it is easy to understand why it would scare the workers into voting against the union. But, not this time….and it is a brand new union that Amazon is going to have to negotiate with as they try to make Amazon pay a living wage and actually adhere to the labor laws that they regularly ignore or break. So, congrats Amazon union… good job and let’s hope it’s just the start…after all, Jeff Bezos can surely afford to compensate his workers fairly…but, as we see with all these billionaire assholes, they are not happy until they have all the money that they make on the backs of their workers…oh, and one last thing…a quote from the organizer, Chris Smalls…”we want to thank Jeff Bezos for going into space, because while he was up there we were organizing a union”….a good bit of shade there…
Progress…
Well…after waking up and feeling sore as I have in a while, I really never entertained taking the day off to heal…so, after a good bike ride, I get started on removing the leftover wallpaper backing and adhesive in the big bedroom…and 3 1/2 hours and 3/4ths of a gallon of wallpaper stripper later, that part of the job is done and making progress made me notice the pain a little less…not completely, but a little less but I do have to pay attention to how my body is reacting to all of the work…as you know, I’m not young anymore and just powering through a full day’s work on this place just isn’t in the cards…it is nice to have a clear path to finishing the room and that starts with hitting the sloppy patches with my grinder Monday to see what has to be done to smooth them and make them less noticeable…I may start with my sander first just to see if I can smooth them without spreading dust everywhere….I may start on filling the divots tomorrow since that takes little work and I can even sit on a stool while I do the low ones…but, I’m done for the day…I do have to remember that I’m not trying for perfection on the wall surfaces…just clean and better than it looked before…again, the next owners are the ones who can shoot for perfection….or they can live with my work…I’ll be dead so I won’t care….
God I hate republicans…part infinity…
Well…how terrible can one group of people in this country be? Cripes, it appears that the repubs are again racing toward the record and they are all smiles while doing it…just yesterday, after the repubs promised that if the dems separated the price of insulin from the big budget bill, they would vote for it to help people paying thousands every month for the drug that will keep them alive and take it from 1200 a month to a cap of 35 bucks a month…so, did I mention that repubs lie their asses off all the time? And this time is no different as 192 repubs voted against the bill…and their reasons are full of the inarticulate bullshit that they normally spout or they won’t explain it at all… but, we all know that the big pharma companies got to them and paid them off to keep a drug that costs 10 bucks to make at over 1200 bucks a month…and they don’t give a damn after hearing from Americans who have to ration the only thing that is keeping them alive since they can’t afford it…how the hell are we losing to these guys? This vote needs to be tattooed to the forehead of every damn one of them that just sentenced Americans to death with this vote…and then they have the gall to go on tv and whine about gas prices that are up a buck and try to blame Biden for it when it is the oil companies that are driving the price increase…now, I hope you get why I just hate these assholes….geez…
April 1st
Well…it appears that the two day pain rule is in effect today and I hurt everywhere from scraping the last wall Wednesday with how hard it was…but I am going to be back at it today to try to get the remaining paper and adhesive off the last three walls…and then I’ll have to wash it to get the stripper off the walls before I start the repairs of all of the divots and missing plaster….I am a little depressed that my allergies are really bad today and my eyes are affected and filled with crap that is making my vision blurry…just used eye drops to try to fix that and it seems to have helped a bit but the small print on my tablet is still a bit of a chore to read…when is the damn snow going to stop out here? We got another couple of inches overnight and the ground is covered again and that is a bunch of crap for it being April 1st….and, with just one nice day day next week, we are going to be two weeks into this month before I’ll be back out on the bike outside….I am tired of it being in the 40’s…but I have to remember that I shouldn’t waste my energy thinking about it or I’ll just got more depressed….not much to do today….just the walls in the bedroom, the bike ride, and cleaning the bottom of the fridge to get the blood out of it from the pork chops I thawed the other day when the bag leaked…what a pain in the butt…but I am going to get to have a marinated pork chop for lunch and that almost makes up for it….not quite, but almost….more later…