Corner of Bourbon & Division

I had planned to be up around 7:00 this morning. I ended up sleeping through my alarm, however, after spending a very fun (but unplanned) two-plus hours on the phone last night with BorderCrossing (who has no LJ). I'm having dinner with her tonight, but it's not as though we've run out of things to talk about just yet

That being said, I am very tired today. I have about three hours now in which to get ready and get some packing done, and then I am slated to do some canning with ai731. I also have to call my mother. *goes to do just that*

The night is almost over. I can survive three and a half hours. Absolutely.

I have a looooong week ahead of me.

I have been having paranoid thoughts about this all week, too. Like, what if I'm severely underestimating the time it'll take me to pack my stuff? What if something goes horribly wrong?

It doesn't help that so far I have exactly two people who have volunteered to help me move. I don't have much stuff, and realistically I can move 90% of it myself, but there are about three pieces of furniture that I can't move on my own.

Anyway, today will be spent doing a LOT of packing. That will give me an idea for the next four days of how screwed or not screwed I am. On the plus side, no one is moving into my current place right away, which means I can always make multiple trips up and down the stairs over the course of a few days if needs be.

Back to the grindstone.

Since when was it past the middle of August?!?! Who authorized this? I demand to speak to the person in charge!

"Procrastination" doesn't even begin to cover what I've been doing of late. As of next Monday, I'm on vacation, and four days after that I'm moving.

The Procrastination Fairy has to take a back seat this week, night shift or no night shift, overtime or no overtime. She and the Overtime Fairy can duke it out (preferably somewhere where I'm not at ground zero).

I have less than two weeks to get ready.

ACK!

*flails and panics*

Thanks to the job and to my unexpected sick day, I have totally lost track of the passage of time.

I remember having a pretty intense dream just before awakening, but right now can't remember what it was about. It involved magic and spywork and something about those spiralling fire escapes we have in Montreal, I think.

The cats are confused, but were very happy to have me home all weekend.

I wrote a lot, but had started a new document, and my computer did the let's-randomly-reboot thing, and I lost ALL of it. That'll teach me not to save as I go. *sigh* I need a new computer, but new purchases are on hold until I move. Gnarr.

Work is pretty much as I left it. Right now it's the calm before the storm, I suspect: early mornings are usually pretty calm, and then things go insane starting at 09:00 all the way to 19:00. I'm glad I won't be here past 14:30. Also, the a/c appears to be malfunctioning or switched off: I'm really too warm, and the air isn't circulating at all. I may go in search of a fan soon.

:::ETA::: Done. I was way too uncomfortable.

The packing and cleaning were a wash yesterday and Sunday. I'm going to start again tonight. Yeesh. I refuse to freak out about this just yet. I got a grace period, anyway, since the person who was supposed to see the place tomorrow has (unfortunately) made different arrangements for her accommodations. Back to the drawing board to find a responsible tenant to take my place.

Otherwise, I'm feeling much better. Sleep is still a bit screwed up, but it should all be back to normal by tomorrow. I blame this on hubris: I was just patting myself on the back last week for not having had insomnia in a really long time.

I didn't take the bike into work today. I'm still a little wobbly, and I didn't quite trust myself in traffic and still overtired. Better a live and undertrained Phnee than a fit but dead Phnee, right? Right. Look at me, being all sensible and stuff. Shithead is telling me that I'm a slacker with no follow-through, but Shithead is an idiot and needs to shut up.

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (she of The Poisonwood Bible fame), and thoroughly enjoying it. She is a Like-Minded Individual who moved to Appalachia with her husband and two daughters to live off the land. The book is a memoir of their first year making a go of it on their own, and is both funny, touching, and informative. She's really done her homework on the industry of agriculture in the U.S.A., and tries not to be too dogmatic in her writing. She is finely nuanced in her thoughts on tobacco culture, for instance, having grown up among tobacco farmers who depend upon their crops for their continued survival. I don't have too much time to go into it here, but I may give this its own entry eventually. I'm taking my time reading it, to give myself time to reflect on what it says. While she didn't quite start from scratch (the homestead was already in part-time use), she does make having a garden and livestock sound feasible. She even makes her own cheese.

Okay. Back to work.

Slept all of Monday. Was rather sleep-deprived after a whole weekend of, well, little to no sleep. So caught up a bit on Monday.

Dinner with the parental units, who spent a great deal of time at dinner lamenting the fact that they hadn't seen me in so long. I pointed out that 1) I had breakfast with them last Sunday (sacrificing four hours of sleep to the endeavour, no less), and 2) they were the ones who went to France for a month. Thus, no daughterly sympathy. :)

Spent almost all of yesterday and today with the spectacular luvenditti, catching up, watching movies, chatting, and making food. She and I (mostly she) made the most wonderful, mouth-watering pork with apples and fennel recipe ever. I just about died it was so good. Took the recipe home, and will likely be cooking it when I invite my parents to dinner in the new place.

Bought a "starter kit" of moving boxes and tape and a tape dispenser so that I can get a start on packing. Mostly I want to see how many books fit into various boxes, and how heavy/transportable the whole thing will be. We're moving in exactly one month, so I have a lot of preparing to do.

Back to work tomorrow, then I have the weekend off. Then work again, without reprieve until my vacation the last week of August. Not really looking forward to all that work, but what can you do? My co-workers have been teasing me about being able to pay my house cash by the end of the year. I wish. ;)

The rain conspired to keep me away from my good resolution: I am not yet equipped to bike to work in the rain. So I walked to the metro instead, which still makes for a little bit of exercise.

This weekend's plans now involve getting some waterproof gear and some proper bike shorts so that this will no longer hamper my biking efforts. I'm not looking forward to hiking all the way out to MEC (they are far from public transport, drat them), but I may do so anyway to show support.

The biking is going well, otherwise. The last two days I actually managed to bike all the way up Courcelles, without having to get off and walk my bike at all. I am very pleased with this. I also got my lights attached to my bike with duct tape to prevent them flopping around, and this amuses me to no end. One day I'm sure I'll be technically proficient enough to install them without using The Force, but for now the duct tape will have to suffice.

The date has been set for the Great Move (when ai731 and t! move not too far away from the Godforsaken Howling Wilderness, and I take over the downstairs apartment): Saturday, August 30th. I am very excited, but also vaguely anxious because suddenly I have a lot less time to pack than I thought I did. Part of me knows that I have very little to pack, overall, and that I can do it in a few days' time. That means that starting now would be ridiculous and counter-productive. Another part of me is panicking because, and I quote, "it'll never get done in time." Ridiculous.

Oh well.

Tomorrow marks my eight-month anniversary at the RCMP. It feels like no time at all has gone by.

Firefox keeps a record of my subject lines, and apparently I comment on how quickly time goes by a lot. I'm moving in six weeks, and nothing is ready.

I'm going to bike into downtown today and bring my computer in for repairs. It's starting to shut down and reboot randomly as well as the aforementioned problem of the screen going dark at anything more than a 45-degree angle. No idea how long it'll take to fix, but I may be updating only from work for the next little while.

I need to get my act together and go soon. I have stuff to do before leaving, too.

George and Gretzky are giving each other a very aggressive bath. I am ded of teh ky00t.

Arrogant!Dude is watching the Family Guy take on Star Wars. I like Star Wars (the original trilogy) and I kind of like Family Guy, but so far it's leaving me cold. A couple of good lines, but that's about it. Actually, that's my general attitude toward Family Guy, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Three more nights, and then I have three days off! Whee! Well, two days and a bit. I leave Wednesday evening for Québec City.

I have a bunch of stuff I really ought to do this weekend. Like wash my floors and do laundry, and actually get some cooking done. I feel as though I've been cleaning forever, but really I haven't done much except the bare minimum all week. I've procrastinated enough on the floors, methinks. The problem is that, naturally, I'll still be on night shift, and thus will be tired and out of sorts and may end up not doing any of it.

( Boring nattering about moving and re-decorating )