Thursday, August 30, 2012

Thursday-4am

What am I doing up at this hour?  I really don't know.  *sigh*  I slept from midnight till 3am, woke up, and wasn't able to get back to sleep.  Sure, I'm extra sore (excursion--you'll see below), but I can usually get back to sleep.  If I am still lying there an hour later, though, I might as well get up.  
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I took a pain pill and here I am.  Not sure if I am getting sick or what.  Extra warm (that was why I couldn't get back to sleep) and don't feel very well.  But when you ache all over all the time it's hard to tell when you're actually sick.  Plus, both Dagan and I can run below normal or reverse temps when we're sick (I know, odd but true) and I am running 97 right now and I've been up for half an hour so it should be back to normal (mine drops way down when I am sleeping).  Well, anyways...here I am...awake.  So I thought I'd post since I have a ton of pictures again today.  ;)
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First of all, I called on the AC on Monday and the maintenance man came and pulled the unit out to clean it.
My filter was nice and clean, BTW, for those of you who wondered.  He even remarked on it because so many people forget to clean them.  But the AC had never been pulled out since they built the building nine years ago--and it was GROSS back there!!  There were such layers of dirt--well, to the point he thought at first that there was old paper or leaves back there, but it was just layers of crud falling down.
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It only got up to 85 on Monday so that was the best day this week to lose your AC, I guess.  I opened the place up, was so hot I tossed my socks off (which Karma claimed, of course), and... 
 ...was envious of the rattling, whirring AC next door.
You can see the dumb design of putting the ACs on the side walls so that they face a wall and blow across the ends of the living rooms instead of facing into the room.  Duh!   
Karma slept on the porch all afternoon. 
He took the AC apart and completely cleaned it because it was still trying to push cool air.  When he brought it back he told me to wait two hours before I turned it on...something about the oil settling back into place.  Cautious Swede that I am, I waited three hours to be on the safe side.  
The AC has been working much better.  I am not hot tonight because it is warm in here.  It's not.  It's me.
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I've spent days puttering.  Avoiding moving books for a while.  Been spending time at my desk sorting through various odds and ends from the bookcases that are in binders and folders.
Got to empty out before I can fill. 
Still shuffling things about.  The stacks grow higher in some spots and lower in others.  No big news on the organizing front. 
The big news is that I made it over to see the house with Dagan last night.  :)  He came over for dinner, helped me get more storage room on my phone, and prodded me to take a tour.  (It was 95 degrees!)  He wouldn't tell me a thing about whether it had a roof or anything just to torture his old mom.  By the time we left it was beginning to cool down (92-lol!).  I was glad I went.  ;)
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Dagan said in the past two days they put in all the windows and shingled the roof!  I hadn't actually been over there for like three months or so and have only seen the same pictures you have. What totally shocked me was... 
...there were houses everywhere!!
None of these houses were here! 
Or these!  Look at them all! 
When I was here last there was ONE house--over on this side street---and that was it!  The neighborhood is literally popping up!  Wow! 
And Dagan and Leah's is really starting to look like a house now--whoohoo!
We went in through the garage.  This is the side by the smaller garage door where Leah wants to have her workshop. 
They have stairs into the house in the garage entry now. 
When I came into the house this is the shot looking out toward the front door.  There will be a side window, I guess. 
Now I am at the far end of the entryway hallway still looking toward the front door trying to show you the garage door and the stairways...
...down to the basement... 
...and up to the second floor. 
But first...the main floor.  Here I am standing in what will be the kitchen looking toward the living room area.  Those windows have been raised from where they had cut the hole too low.  The entryway hallway is off to the right.
Now I'm standing in the living room showing you the dining room area by the sliding glass doors.
Now it gets harder to tell, but I am aiming in the direction of the kitchen.  On the left there will be an archway into a small bathroom and then off to the right behind the kitchen... 
...there's going to be a big pantry!  Like 6-7 feet square!  Cool! 
Next we went upstairs.  This is a shot looking back down to the landing.  They were supposed to make the landing one big level area the same as it is on the basement stairs landing--but it's not.  The company has been informed.  Wonder if they can fix it or not?  You should get what was planned.
  Dagan, that sneaky guy, was taking a video for Leah and didn't tell me--LOL!  Here he's standing in one of the bedrooms.
Okay--I get a little confused and I took the pictures!  Anyways, there's four bedrooms, a bathroom, and a laundry room upstairs.  Here's the master, I believe...
...and this is the walk through closet for the master bedroom.  Oh, and the master has it's own bathroom, too. 
This is the bedroom next to the master. 
When you come up the stairs there's two bedrooms in the back of the house--master to the left and smaller bedroom to the right--and then two in the front of the house. 
Here's the first one in the front... 
...and here's the second one.  Oddly this isn't the master bedroom, even though this is the side that has the high ceilings and those extra windows you see on the front of the house from the street.  But since this faces west, maybe that's a good thing.  Would make a super office space or a wonderful guest room.  They haven't decided yet. 
This is going to be the laundry room, I think.  There's also a bathroom off the hallway, but I think the bathroom is what I forgot to get a shot of.
Sorry this is a little blurry.  I shot it through a dirty upstairs window just to show you how much activity is going on now on their street!  Like a building bee hive! 
Next we went down to the basement.  This is the storage area that runs under that entryway hallway from the front door. 
There's more storage space under the stairs. 
They got the bigger, nicer window wells made out of wood... 
...and it really makes a difference in the look and with extra light down here. 
Here's Dagan in the utility room...
...and here's a shot of the big basement main room which won't be finished off. 
Lastly we went outside and walked around the house.  Dagan mentioned the full moon.  What moon?  I was so focused on the house...
...that I didn't even see this beautiful early moon. 
The master bedroom will be there above the sliding glass doors. Eventually they will have a deck off the back. 
Were shocked that a man opened up the sliding glass door when we were back here.  He asked if we were the home owners...turned out he is going to be a neighbor to them.  When the houses are still unlocked people can wander through, I guess.  Dagan told me he and Leah went and walked through some of the other houses in the evenings while they were still open.  It's kind of understood that they can do that, apparently.  Kind of a form of free advertising.  But it sure startled me.  LOL!
We said goodbye to the house... 
...and Dagan dropped me off at home.
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Okay...I have a chiming alarm set to go off at 8pm to remind me to take my melatonin.  I discovered that it does not shut itself off.  Karma was highly stressed and started crying loudly at the door the second she heard my key at 8:45pm.  I could barely get the door open because she was rubbing against the door and then she was under my feet proclaiming her tale of woe...and all I could hear was that loud chiming!  Poor baby!
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She was quite clinging last night.  And was still sleeping with me when I woke up at 3am.  Apparently her emotional crisis has passed, though, because she is not up here with me in the middle of the night.  After she got her treat and saw I was going to be on the laptop...she went back to sleep in the bedroom after the exhausting travails of her solitary tortuous evening.  ;)
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Me.  I may try to join her before the sun comes up and catch a few more winks.  I'm still feeling really off and queasy, but that may be from lack of sleep.  Not a big deal.  I've felt a lot worse.  ;) 
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Well, I hope you have a restful weekend with good weather, delightful surprises, and good company.  :):)
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"In the continuous flow of blessing our heart finds meaning and rest."
David Steindl-Rast

Monday, August 27, 2012

Monday-10am

This is what it feels like doing a big project in a small space--LOL!

Do you remember these sliding number puzzles?  Classic.  I wonder if they still make them?  They used to be one of the favorite things to win at the kiddie carnivals they held in grade school.
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It was in the 90s and miserable again for another stretch last week.
Karma was happy to go out and chomp on her cat grass, though. 
Then Friday, toward morning, we had a thunderstorm and the temps broke for the weekend.  It was still raining in the morning a bit.  As I took this picture of the puddle covered with rain drops... 
...I noticed a fire off in the distance.  It got bigger, thicker, and blacker before it finally went out.  I even recorded the local news (normally never watch the news--if recorded I could FF through sports and political commercials), but they had nothing to report about a fire.  I always hope everybody got out safely, you know? 
I digress.  As usual.  ;)
What have I been doing since Thursday? 
Moving books!
Slowly moving books.
The bottom three shelves of art & craft books in this bedroom bookcase... 
...are now in the hallway bookcase. 
No.  They didn't fit on the same shelves, but that's okay.
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And that led to my rearranging the entryway bookcase.  I moved all the art & craft magazines to the new bookcase on the top shelf. 
I got cut off in mid-stream.  My body, the current work supervisor, demanded there be no overtime.  So I had to walk around stacks of books for the last couple days. 
Oh, and that included in my bedroom, too, because the entryway reorganizing led to the oak bookcase (dedicated to books) I have in there.  

I had to move everything off "Karma's chair" by the window, so now my desk is in the process of getting covered, too.  Miss Karma apparently wanted her chair back and started biting the blinds during the night even though I had them open at the bottom for her--exactly like I do on "her side" of the craft table by the porch door.  Geez Louise!!
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I also spent one entire morning and into the afternoon reorganizing my ink pad shelves that are up over my AC next to the window.  
This is how it goes...from one area to the next...the chaos spreads.  ;) 
I wanted a complete list of what refills and ink pads we still needed...made my list...went online...and, horrors!  I discovered that the Ancient Page ink pads have been discontinued.  We have four of them with no refills!  
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So, I spent a while online looking for somebody who still has them.  All the bigger, popular websites were out or down to refill colors I don't need.  I finally found a couple odd places that had all four of them--and I'll have to hope they still do by September when I can order them.  Otherwise--what a waste!  When they go dry they would have be tossed in the trash instead of being able to use them for years.  I'll let you all know...even if this is only traumatic to crafters--LOL!  ;)
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  Karma obviously couldn't claim the stacks of books by laying on them (although she knocked the low stack over rubbing her head against it), so she laid next to them...  
...all afternoon yesterday.  Karma believes strongly in the acknowledgement of change. 
Today.  
Well, first thing is I do have to get those stacks of books out of the entryway and hallway because I need to call about my AC.  It just hasn't been working right for quite a while and they are talking being back to the hot-hot 90s days again now this week.  I didn't used to even have to run my AC on high.  Now I run it on high all the time and it never gets chilly in here like it used to on high...or even very cool.  And when I move around at all, even on a day I am not organizing, I get sticky and sweaty.  Time for them to take a look at it.  (Leah doesn't even want to come over anymore!)  So that is what I am going to do right now.  Not even going to organize those books--just get them up and off the floor.  I'm still too sore to do much else with them right now.
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It may look like a total mess, but I am making headway and it is exciting!  I can only actually work on it about every other day...sometimes every third day (which is happening with the books, no surprise).
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BTW--I've been catching up online, too!  Whoohoo!
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Well, today's supposed to get up close to 90 and by Wednesday close to 100...better go move some books and make a phone call.  See you Thursday!  :):)
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"Rings and jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts.  The only true gift is a portion of thyself."
Ralph Waldo Emerson