The longest two nights of the week

The weekend part of my night shift is always the hardest. After working forty hours, I then have to work an extra 24 (two twelve-hour shifts) right off the bat.

I don't like twelve-hour shifts, for obvious reasons. They're long, and they actually take up more than half the day, because of the prep and travel time. Forty-five minutes to get ready before work, forty-odd minutes to get there, and forty-odd minutes to get home. It amounts to an extra two hours out of my day, which leaves ten hours in which to get eight hours of sleep and maybe watch an episode of X-Files, oh and feed the cats and eat. So whenever I end up working a twelve-hour shift, it essentially means my day is shot, especially if I'm working night shift.

That being said, I did manage to put together 2/3 of one bookcase yesterday. All that's left is to finish nailing the back, and then to put in the shelves. I moved the cat tree, and so when I get home I'll finish it up and hopefully put it into place. Then if I'm not too fried I'll try setting up the other one.

The next ten days or so are going to be devoted almost entirely to house and garden stuff. I have some serious spring cleaning to do, in the form of finding homes for a few boxes that have yet to be unpacked, Freecycling a bunch of stuff, maybe trying to sell a couple of things on Craigslist, and washing windows. Oh, and fussing with setting up my furniture to go the way I want it to.

I also want to get out in the garden to turn the compost and turn the earth in the raised beds, and get everything ready for planting season. There are leaves that must be raked, and sweeping to be done, and lots of exciting garden things that probably only I really care about.

I am also planning on cooking up a storm, to finally re-stock my freezer and pantry whose supplies have been dwindling alarmingly due to my working so damned much. I haven't done any baking in forever, and I am overdue to bake some bread. Haven't done that in... gah, about a year. Maybe a bit less.

The weekend is going to be spent in the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, or at least in Ottawa, taking my Canadian Firearms Safety Course, so that I can then apply for a RPAL. I don't actually want to own a gun right now, but apparently there's a nice little gun club in LaSalle (so fearsclave tells me) where I can probably get in some practice and see what it's all about. I'm looking forward to this, because I get TONS of questions at work about the CFRO, and I don't always quite know how to answer them. So this will be a great opportunity to learn.

I also have to find my camera cable, in unrelated news.

Next up is getting a nice set of garden furniture and a barbecue. I am thinking of having a housewarming barbecue, likely sometime in June.

All in all, it's going to be a busy but hopefully relaxing and productive two weeks. I should invite my parents to dinner at some point too. *makes mental note*

I'll see you on the flip side, everyone. Right now I'm just waiting for the night to end (two and half hours to go!) so that I can go home.

Why me?

Nothing like coming home after a twelve-hour night shift to find that one of the cats has puked on your computer.

No lasting harm, but seriously. Eww.

Crap.

I just realized I put together one of my shelves the wrong way on the bookcase, and it's the permanent top one. It's backward, and now it doesn't look nice.

Crap crap crap.

I have no idea how to even begin fixing that. I am quite upset with myself.

The second bookcase was much easier

So once I had the hang of the first bookcase, I was able to put together the next one lickety=split, without assembling any of the bits backward, to boot.

I forgot that the BILLY bookcases are a few shelves short, though, so I guess I'll have to go back to IKEA and pick up a couple of extra shelves. I still have one left over from my previous shelf-buying spree, but it's not enough. Soon, soon I will have room enough for all my books. Actually, I have some spare room right now, but I foresee it won't last long.

After this, I'll have to start expanding my library into different rooms, because I've officially run out of wall space in this room. The room feels smaller, but much cozier now. There is something very reassuring about being surrounded by books.

I am very pleased, all in all, backward bookshelf notwithstanding. Having assembled all my furniture now means that I'll have plenty of time to do other, more important things next week.

In book news, I just finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and dear God above is it depressing. Unrelentingly bleak. It makes Wuthering Heights seem cheerful. It starts bleak, and it ends bleak, and it's bleak in the middle. Bleak bleak bleak. I think I need to watch Anne of Green Gables or something, now, just to cleanse my palate. Read some Pratchett, or some P.G. Wodehouse.