mousme | Entries tagged with house stuff

1- State of the Phnee( Read more... )

Current Mood: determined

I think I’m just going to have to accept that updates are going to be sporadic for a while. I’m finding my home setup not especially conducive to sitting at the computer to write updates, because it either means putting my entire bed up, which is inconvenient, or else sitting on the edge of the bed to type, which is not super comfortable and puts pressure on my lower back. So I mostly get the opportunity to update when things are quiet at work, and things have not been quiet for a couple of weeks now. It wasn’t even quiet enough the last two nights to give me a chance to update. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a very long update, so I will put it behind a cut.

1- State of the Phnee

( Update under the cut! )

Current Mood: stressed

1- State of the Phnee

It’s been a rather sleep-deprived weekend, entirely of my own doing. I was up late on Friday night for the usual writer’s meeting for Project Nimrod/the Soopar Seekrit Prodjikt I’ve been collaborating on since last September (ish), and then I couldn’t get to sleep right away so I only got about three hours of sleep before I had to get up for work. Then yesterday was the first session of the new D&D Eberron campaign, and once again I was up until about 1am and had to get up at 4am to go to work. *cries in very tired*

It was worth it, though. D&D is amazing, and it’s nice to have a creative outlet for writing again, even if I’m only doing it sporadically.

I have been procrastinating on my Quakerly duties this week. I have to draft the State of Society Report and come up with a draft of the queries for the Claremont Dialogue on hybrid Meetings. I am feeling decidedly uninspired, and I need to learn to write even when I’m not feeling it, because responsibilities and deadlines don’t wait for inspiration.

I’ve also booked train tickets to visit my parents this coming week, which will hopefully go well. My parents and I typically get along really well (ever since I stopped living at home), but after a few days we usually all end up remembering why we don’t live under the same roof anymore. It should be fine, and I do genuinely enjoy spending (limited) amounts of time with them. We will probably have more conversations about the future, because they’re both getting older and dealing with more limitations. In an ideal world I’d build them a fully accessible bungalow on my property, but I don’t have the money for that and they are understandably incredibly reticent to get a loan against their condo in order to finance that sort of endeavour. So in the meantime I am encouraging them to figure out how to maintain their independence as time marches inexorably forward, because I live just a tiny bit too far away to be of real use on a daily basis.

2- State of the smallholding

The polar vortex is in full swing. It’s been -26 Celsius for the past two days, and my poor GSVCO (which long time readers will remember is the name of my 15-year-old Yaris) is struggling a bit in the cold but has been rallying valiantly the whole time. I have been in touch with Steve the Wonder Mechanic because she needs a bit of TLC, but he hasn’t yet got back to me about when he’ll be able to see her. This work was supposed to happen right before Christmas, but he had a scheduling conflict, so things have been pushed back quite a bit since then.

We’re going through a worrying amount of propane to heat the house. When I first signed up in October the nice lady I spoke to said that based on the previous owners’ usage, I could expect to pay about $1,500 a year for heating. However, we’re at the end of January and we’ve already had three deliveries totaling $1,100, so I am starting to doubt those numbers. We’re not even cranking the heat—I’ve been keeping the thermostat at 17 Celsius which, while not cold per se, is still on the cooler side of things. We’ve been averaging one delivery per month, at about $400 a pop, and given that I got accustomed to paying about $100 heating with natural gas, is a bit of a shock to the system, especially since summers are expensive now due to the horrifying cost of air conditioning. I’m not a huge fan of A/C, but it’s non-negotiable for KK, so A/C it is. *sigh*

Part of me is wondering if it’s an insulation problem (at least in part). I’ve basically run out of money at this point, but I’m going to add “fix the basement insulation” to “build a wheelchair ramp” on the list of things I need to do to make the place more accessible and hopefully less expensive in the long run. Somewhere in the next few years I’m going to need to do something about the septic system too, but that is considerably more expensive than the smaller projects (anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 depending on the work, which I very much do not have).

*lies on the floor*

Why is home ownership so freaking expensive? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the place, but I thought I was getting a pretty “turnkey” house, and it turns out that there is still a shit ton of expensive work to be done. Woe.

3- State of the news

*grimaces*

So, uh, this all seems… horrible, to quote Bruce Banner.

Minneapolis is up in arms, and rightly so. ICE has murdered another protestor (and yes, I’m using that word on purpose). Alex Pretti was an ICU nurse out there protesting and filming/observing ICE’s atrocities. He tried to help a fellow protestor who’d been hit with (I think) pepper spray, and when he did that ICE agents swarmed him and executed him on the spot. They’re now trying to spin it, saying he had a weapon (he did by some accounts have a gun for which he had a permit, which he had NOT drawn), calling him a terrorist, accusing him of trying to assassinate ICE agents and whatever other lies they can come up with in the moment. There’s a strong counter-narrative emerging, singing Pretti’s praises and documenting all the good things he’s done in his life, but honestly even if he spent most of his spare time kicking puppies and taking candy from babies, he still would not have deserved to be executed in the street simply for exercising his right to protest.

In less horrifying but still depressing news, Trump is once again threatening tariffs against Canada because we had the temerity to sign a trade deal with China (which Trump was all on board with last week, as I recall, but whatever, we are not expecting coherence out of him). He’s got his panties in a twist about Carney’s speech at Davos, very clearly, and has now started spouting off about “Governor Carney” and the “51st State” the way he did in November of 2024, and you’d be safe it’s getting the same reaction as it did the first time he tried this shit.

Speaking of home ownership being expensive, my township has approved a 5.46 percent increase in municipal property taxes, a 2% increase for water and sewage (not applicable to me since I have my own well and septic) and garbage taxes are going from $165 to $180. It’s not unmanageable for me, at least while I’m still employed, but I can imagine it’s going to be a struggle for the lower income people in my area.

All right, that’s it for me. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

1-State of the Phnee

Today was very light on the sleep and very heavy on the Quaker. To quote one of my favourite TikTokers: “I shall explain.” (Seriously, if you are on TikTok, check out Philogène, she is hilarious!)

I think I mentioned that I had to sacrifice some sleep today because of the Worship Sharing on Health Concerns. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal, but boy howdy was I wrong about that! We were plagued by the weirdest tech problems I have ever experienced using Zoom. I started out by clicking the new link the organizer had sent just last night, and it didn’t connect, but kept showing a message that it was “waiting for the host to connect.” Now, I knew this couldn’t be right because the host/organizer has set up this meeting to not have a lobby/waiting room. I exited the meeting and went back to the original link that had been sent out a few days ago (identical to the one I clicked, I might add!) and immediately found myself in the meeting with two other people, but with no sign of my co-hosts, which was very weird as it was now a few minutes past the hour.

Before I could figure out what had gone wrong, though, I had to go into de-escalation mode with one of the attenders. She is one of the main reasons we started this worship sharing circle, because she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s sometime last year (if memory serves). She had been worried when no organizers were there when the meeting started and then struggled with the mute function and promptly burst into tears because she was so flustered and upset. We worked through it, but it was pretty distressing to have her become upset by the very thing which we hoped would be helpful. Alzheimer's is a terrible disease, folks, even in the very early stages.

I got hold of the host by phone, and she was in a state because her internet had gone down, and then once it was running again Zoom insisted on updating, making her very late to her own meeting. That was when she told me that she and the other host were in another meeting with three attenders because they couldn’t get the first link to work at first. I have no idea how that’s even possible, but here we are. She agreed to bring everyone over because I didn’t want to force the attender with Alzheimer’s who was already super upset to have to log off our meeting and then log onto another one, but a few minutes later she texted to say they couldn’t do it and so we were going to simply have separate meetings. Oof.

Things actually went well after that. The two attenders and I had a quiet, intimate conversation about the challenges they were facing, and I talked a little bit about the challenges we’ve been having due to KK’s increasing levels of disability, as well as the frustrations I’ve been having at work trying to get a very simple accommodation (I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before, but basically I have nerve damage in my spine from 2022 and I need a functional headset to do my job. One of the workstations at work has a phone which cannot take a headset because the jack is broken, and I’ve been asking them to replace it for nearly a year with no apparent progress.). It was a really nice conversation. The other attender is a really nice lady, but she is VERY ADHD and kept talking long past when the attender with Alzheimer's had mentioned she was tired and wanted to stop, so I stepped in after about five minutes when she asked yet another question and firmly but gently told her we were going to stop and have a few moments of worshipful silence. And THEN, bless her heart, she KEPT TALKING during the silence about how great silence was and how much she needed it. *facepalm* She is a sweet lady, but my God, the irony.

Once we were done, instead of being able to go back to bed, I then had to debrief with the other two hosts, because of course we weren’t privy to the contents of each other’s meetings. That debrief took another hour, so it was nearly 1pm by the time I was able to go back to sleep.

On the one hand, I am lamenting my lack of sleep, but on the other I am glad that I did choose to go, because otherwise who knows how upset that first attender would have been when no one showed up to talk to her? And my co-hosts and I were able to talk through some solutions for next time. We’ll be implementing some best practices moving forward so that we have some redundancies in place.

I’ve been working on Quaker stuff on and off since I got to work, too (when not dealing with actual work, that is). I’ve realized now that I’m the clerk of Ministry & Counsel that I really need to step up my game. I’ve been sort of coasting in a more advisory role for the past two years but now is not the time to be indecisive about things. The first thing I’m going to work on is our organization and communication. I decided after some deliberation and discernment with the other members of M&C to create a dedicated Gmail account for us. Originally, I thought this would be useful in preventing Members and Attenders from Ottawa Meeting from constantly bombarding only one member of M&C (who is a registered therapist) for advice and services. This way most of the requests will come to all of us, rather than just her. Now, however, I think it will serve a much more vital role. I’m going to use the calendar function to schedule all of our monthly meetings, as well as to handle the Greeter schedule on Sundays (we need an online Greeter and an in-person Greeter every time), and also all of our worship sharing sessions, Claremont Dialogues, and whatever else comes up. I’ve also created a bunch of folders in our Google Drive for agendas, meeting minutes, and reference documents. I don’t know how much the other members of M&C will use it (all of them are in their seventies and eighties), but at the very least it will allow me to track and share things more easily.

I’ve also sent out a bunch of emails from the new account to try to wrangle all the cats that have gotten loose in the past week or so. Here’s hoping I can get all my ducks in a row on this front. I want M&C to start being more active and present in the Meeting, because I get the feeling that we’ve been at a bit of a remove for years (long before any of the current members were there, for that matter) and many younger attenders at Meeting have no idea who we are or what we do. I’m going to reach out to the clerk of Adult Education and Outreach (I hope it’s the person I think it is—I will have to double check) to talk to them about the possibility of hosting a series of Ministry & Counsel 101 sessions: basically very short sessions, probably online, when people can come online, listen to a 5-10 minute presentation on a specific topic that M&C deals with, and then ask us questions if they have any.

I still need to write queries for our Claremont Dialogue about using technology/hosting hybrid meetings. I have a bit of writer’s block because I know that I’m super biased on the pro-tech/hybrid meeting side of things, and I want to write queries that will allow everyone to express their opinions but also encourage them to be nuanced and discerning when they do express said opinions. Being a spiritual leader is hard, yo!

In completely unrelated news, I’ve continued listening to Persepolis Rising and am happy to report that my favourite character is not dead and is just much older and even crankier than before. I am overjoyed. ;)

2-State of the smallholding

The kitchen sink appears to be stopped up again, which I only noticed just as I needed to leave for work. I can only hope that KK doesn’t somehow make it worse the way she did last time. I’m not sure where my plunger is, but I will try to locate it and maybe go to Canadian Tire to get a proper plumbing snake on my way home. I’m working an hour of OT this morning anyway for a coworker who has a medical appointment, and then I need to stop for gas, and there’s a Canadian Tire right next to the Costco where I’ll be getting gas for the car anyway.

I need to get over my weird psychological aversion to finishing up the tidying/cleaning/organizing of the main space in the house. Like, yes, sure, it’s all overwhelming and A Lot, but if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done, and I am the only one it bothers, so obviously if I want it fixed, I need to fix it myself. Part of it is that I am resentful at having to do it by myself when I am not responsible for a significant portion of the disaster. I do realize that this is kindergartener reasoning: “It’s not my mess! So-and-so made the mess, it’s not fair that I need to clean it!” No, Phnee, you live in a communal household, so communal chores are communal. Even though I don’t have an official autism diagnosis, I suspect that this falls under the rigid thinking/strong sense of “justice” criteria as well. Having a strong sense of justice often gets mistaken for a person being more moral or ethical or just than other people, but that’s a misconception: it’s an internal sense of justice, based entirely on values that you pick up from your family, community, and immediate surroundings. Much the same way a toddler will stomp their feet and complain it’s not “fair” that they have to go to bed when older people “get” to stay up late. So, yes, I think that’s probably a chunk of what’s happening, here. The other part is that I just hate cleaning because it’s hot and painful and time-consuming and mind-numbingly boring, regardless of whether I listen to music or a podcast or an audiobook, or whatever else to distract me.

I’m not really going to have much time to do any of said cleaning until next Monday, after all that. Today I have my follow-up appointment with the bariatric clinic, tomorrow I will need to carve out some time for grocery shopping, Saturday there is the “threshing session” that I mentioned the other day, and on Sunday we still don’t have an online Greeter for Meeting, and then we have the worship sharing session for the State of Society Report, followed by the Continuing Meeting of Ministry & Counsel for all the M&C folks across Canada. All of this means that I am going to be absolutely *fried*, and that attempting to do anything other than very light cleaning is going to end in tears, either metaphorical or real.

Next week, however, I have several days off, and even though I have a couple of commitments I mostly have a fair bit of time to schedule as I please.

3-State of the news

Well, François Legault has resigned, sort of unexpectedly and sort of not. The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) has had a horrible year full of scandals, resignations, and horrifying budgets. They’re currently in a neck-and-neck race for last place in the polls. He has no clear successor, and they’re staring down the barrel of an election in the fall. It looks like the Parti Québécois may be poised to form the next government unless something huge happens between now and the elections.

In international news, all eyes are still focused on Iran and Greenland. There are ICE agents moving into multiple cities and states in the US, terrorizing the citizens and violating the constitution right, left and center. The silver lining is all the videos that have been posted online of ICE agents who don’t understand winter slipping and falling on their asses on the ice-slick streets. ICE defeated by ice. The irony is delicious.

Canada is looking at a 2.3% increase in dairy prices starting on February 1st. Ugh. It’s not a huge increase, of course, from an individual standpoint, but having dairy go up while all other prices are skyrocketing feels like an extra kick in the teeth.

In happier space news, a Canadian astronaut is heading to the moon this April, as part of NASA’s first crewed mission to the moon in over 50 years! This is very exciting. His name is Col. Jeremy Hansen, and he’s part of the Artemis II mission. Slightly disappointingly they will be orbiting the moon only and not landing, but still, it’s pretty freaking exciting. I hope they livestream the launch so people can watch. Yay, moon!

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: thoughtful

1- State of the Phnee

a. Work has been incredibly busy the last couple of days. I’m not entirely sure why, but I assume it’s something to do with everyone returning to work after the holiday, although it can’t be only that. It feels like everything I touch today requires me to send complicated updates and/or make a bunch of phone calls, all of which is very time consuming.

b. Work was so busy yesterday, in fact, that I didn’t have time to go get the available treadmill and do any walking, but I have rectified that today. I am in fact walking as I type this post (shh, I am totally working). The FitBod app for which I have a two-week trial gave me exercises that require heavier dumbbells than the ones I own (it seems to be ignoring the fact that I have resistance bands, so I shall have to play around with it to see If I can fix that), and I decided to get a set of modular ones that were on sale at the local Canadian Tire today. I am hoping to get in a workout when I get home from work tonight, even if it will be Fuck My Life O’Clock when I get there.

Bodies are ridiculous things, aren’t they? I was chatting with friends about this earlier today (okay, I was complaining).

Me: “I would like to improve my fitness.”

Body: “Sure thing! It will be incredibly painful, hot, and sweaty, and on the best days you will actively feel like you’re dying!”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Body: “The pain is good! Except for the pain that’s not.”

Me: “Which pain is good and which pain is bad?”

Body: “TRY IT AND FIND OUT, SUCKER!”

Alternately, it could just be that bodies like to freak out about whatever you’re doing. *frantically producing lactic acid* “I JUST FIXED THOSE MUSCLES YESTERDAY, ASSHOLE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?!?”

But overall I am pretty pleased with the humble beginnings of my strength and endurance training. It turns out that doing exercise really does help with mood and energy levels, curse it, although I haven’t had miraculous results by any means. I have noticed that I feel better after the shifts when I use the treadmill, and feel less tired behind the wheel when driving home, which is a very good thing.

The trick will be maintaining the practice long-term. I am not exactly known for my follow-through on these things. I’m posting in a group chat, so I’m hoping that will keep me accountable.

c. I have changed my mind about getting a new computer. The main problem right now is that my disc memory is low, so I am thinking of getting an external hard drive instead of a whole new computer and put off the computer part until maybe next November for Black Friday sales. I have a lot of files that I need to keep but am not actively using these days, so just putting that onto external storage should hopefully extend the life of the computer by a few months, and it’s considerably less expensive than a new computer, by a few orders of magnitude. Fingers crossed that I can get away with it!

2- State of the smallholding

a. There’s not much to report for this today. We’ve had quite a bit of snow, as I mentioned in a previous entry, so I need to do some shoveling to clear the front deck. KK bought us a little electric snow shovel which was super helpful, but the last time she used it she tripped our newly installed GFCI outlet and we haven’t been able to reset it. I am still actively trying not to be annoyed at how much stuff around the house she breaks and then just… leaves for me to deal with. A few months ago it was the kitchen sink, which she clogged and then tried to unclog with a plastic snake that she then got stuck in there and left for me to find. When I pointed it out she then broke the plastic snake off in the drain, and I had to call a plumber (and pay for it myself because she’s consistently broke). I had the GFCI outlet installed a few months ago and also paid for it entirely, and it’s all extremely irksome because it seems like she’s being awfully casual about my time, energy, and money. I don’t think it’s malicious, but goddamn.

3- State of the news

a. International news reports Maduro in court facing charges, to which he’s pled not guilty. Interestingly, China has opted NOT to respond with a show of military force, but with legal recourse, and honestly, I think it’s a move that may serve them well (even though I’m not a political science expert by a long shot). China has provided economic loans to dozens of countries that are contingent on that country’s government being able to fulfill its contractual obligations during its tenure, and also future governments’ ability to adhere to said contract. The USA swooping in and removing the government and then not stepping aside to allow the new democratically elected leader to take over makes all of that pretty moot for Venezuela, so it makes sense that China would withdraw its funding and send 10,000 lawyers to recoup their losses. I am going to be watching with interest to see how this plays out, because I have no doubt that China will be willing to throw military force behind their legal threats if push comes to shove, but if they don’t have to, why would they?

b. The big news in Ontario is that a court has ruled that Doug Ford needs to turn over his private cell phone records for review. Normally a Premier is entitled to privacy, you see, but Doug Ford decided to abuse that by not using his government-issued cell phone to conduct government business at all. His government is well-known for being corrupt as all get-out, and I guess he thought he could hide behind privacy laws in what seems to me like the most inept way possible. *snort* “I’ll use my personal phone instead of my government-issue one! They’ll never catch me this way!” Oh, Douglas. Anyway, part of me hopes that this blows all the corruption scandals wide open, and another part of me rather cynically thinks that this will slide off him like Teflon, as usual. I continue to be baffled by how rampant the corruption in that government is with seemingly no consequences. It’s like a more sanitized version of what’s been happening in the US: we’re all watching it happen, and yet we can’t figure out how to make it stop.

Okay, that’s all I have for today. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

Holy shitsnacks, it has been a day! First off, I turned 47, which is no mean feat. Somehow, 47 feels a lot closer to 50 than 46 did. I don’t know why, it just does. Brains are weird.

1- State of the Phnee

a. I spent the morning of my birthday trying out a “foot mask” for the first time in my life. I’m not usually a beauty products kind of gal beyond using moisturizer and lip balm, but the soles of my feet got really dry this year and it’s actually not nice from a sensory standpoint when I sleep and the sheets catch on the dry skin. It’s not the worst problem to have, but I figured it was one I might be able to solve without too much difficulty. Apparently, it takes about 4-5 days to really start doing its thing after application, so we shall see.

b. The rest of the morning falls under the heading ISN’T HAVING PETS GREAT. The cats left a present for me in the form of a dead mole in the basement. The reason I discovered this is that I had to bring down emergency laundry after Peggy barfed prodigiously all over her crate and therefore her bedding (she has a cozy blankie to lie on). So, this morning was a glorious symphony of vomit and mole carcasses. Delightful.

c. Since it’s my birthday I brought doughnuts and Timbits to work for everyone. I’m working evenings again this week, so the crowd is a little smaller than the day shift, but whatever, it’s fine. The night shift will get some too, and tomorrow’s day shift might even get the leftovers. It’s usually the day shift who get first pick of that sort of thing, so it’s okay that other shifts get to have the slightly fresher stuff for once.

d. I chatted very briefly with my parents who sent me very nice birthday emails and tried to reply to everyone who sent me nice messages on various messaging platforms. I get overwhelmed by emails and messages a lot more easily lately, which is not something I enjoy. I’ve always struggled a little to respond on time, but now it’s gotten a lot worse, and I don’t like it.

e. In Quaker news, one of the Meeting Members has asked to bring a concern to our next M&C meeting, and I will confess to being apprehensive about it. She hasn’t said what her concern is, and this lady and I don’t see eye to eye on a few very important matters. Notably she is anti-vax, which I learned about her long before the pandemic. She’s also very anti-tech in the Meeting, which means she wants to do away with our hybrid system (partially online and partially in-person) because she finds the tech disruptive. I disagree with this pretty fundamentally, because the people who attend online are the most vulnerable Members and Attenders: people who are disabled, immunocompromised, frail, elderly, or who live far and don’t have access to good transportation. And all these people would be more likely to come to Meeting in person if people already there were to mask consistently, but of course they don’t, and while she and I have never discussed it, I get the feeling this Member and I probably don’t see eye to eye on masking, either. Hopefully things will go smoothly at the Meeting. I can manage my feelings of anxiety and apprehension, and maybe it’s not a concern related to anything I think it could be. I will find out on Friday, I guess!

2- State of the smallholding

a. No more quail casualties, at least for now. I added more pine shavings and straw to all the enclosures. I’m sort of doing a half-assed version of the deep litter method of bedding for the winter, because it allows the old bedding to compost and generate a bit of heat. I don’t know how well it’s working, however, because the quail enclosures are considerably smaller than your average chicken coop, so I think the “compost” might be freezing or at least cold rather than generating heat. The straw does serve as insulation, however, and they seem to like the pine shavings, so I’m going to stick with that for now.

b. I should be thinking about starting seeds, probably in late February, and that means digging out my seeds from whatever box I packed them in before we moved (oops). I also don’t remember what I did with my asparagus crowns, which is super annoying because those were expensive as fuck. Hopefully I can find them and also hopefully they haven’t died. They’re hardy little fuckers, though, so fingers crossed that they survived. If not, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get more. *sigh*

3- State of the news

a. Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry: I got a notice by email of a special meeting for zoning amendments in the area on January 26^th. If it’s like the last meeting I went to then it will start half an hour before the usual town council meeting and consist of “Welp, so-and-so would like to convert this from Agricultural to Agricultural Special Exemption and here are the fifteen reasons why this is a good idea.” And then it will pass unanimously and we’ll all move on with our lives. It’s administrative and rather dry, but I find it interesting to get a glimpse into the workings of the area. I may find myself in the position of requiring either permits and/ore exemptions in the coming years, especially if I decide to replace the septic system down the line. I don’t currently have the $40,000+ required to redo my septic system, alas, so we’re coping with what has turned out to be a rather limited holding tank, but eventually I’d like to get it whipped into more manageable shape.

b. We’ve been having a colder and snowier winter than usual this past month in the Ottawa region, which honestly isn’t a bad thing. More snow means hopefully less drought next year, although I am a little concerned about the melt in the spring causing some flooding, especially in my backyard. Cow Shit Creek, as we have affectionately nicknamed the little rivulet that runs through the property (it has a real name but I’ve forgotten it) overflowed its banks thoroughly last spring and filled the back acre right up to the big retaining wall that I assume was built exactly for that purpose. By the end of the summer it was bone dry, not even so much as a patch of mud, so there are some pretty interesting extremes happening there.

c. OC Transpo has increased its rates, which a lot of people are disgruntled about, given that the quality of the services has declined pretty steadily over the years. I myself am hoping that the extension of the LRT eastward will be finished soon (it was meant to be this spring, but it appears to be delayed). I’d love to be able to drive to a Park ‘n’ Ride and take the train in the rest of the way to work. Transport Canada is right on top of a LRT station, and if I get the new job I applied for, it’s also within walking distance of a LRT station (albeit one with significantly less parking, which could be an issue).

d. Ontario politics have been quiet of late. The big headline is Doug Ford threatening to pull Crown Royal from LCBO shelves in response to the company shuttering its bottling plant in Amherst, ON and moving those jobs to the US. Ol’ Douglas is using the move to capitalize on the anti-American sentiment that’s swelled since the trade/tariff war began. Kind of cheap, but given his general antics I am not surprised.

e. I am pleased to not be alone in being displeased with Canada’s weak response to the kidnapping of Maduro and the blatant attempt at colonizing Venezuela. One commentator remarked of Carney that it looked like he was trying to carry a Fabergé egg across the ice, referring to the delicately phrased statement that was clearly designed to not upset Donald Trump. Meh. I still think it’s pretty spineless as a response and we should be doing better. Pierre Poilievre of course lurched forward to lick Trump’s boots with his response, but at least Don Davies (interim leader of the NDP) came out with an unequivocal statement about it.

f. In a move that I will confess I don’t understand, Chrystia Freeland will be stepping down as MP and taking an uncompensated (?) role as an economic advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I am kind of baffled as to why he would pick her when there are approximately a gajillion more qualified Europeans, but I guess politics move in mysterious ways.

g. In the Continuing Adventures of the Dumpster Fire to the South: Stephen Miller has essentially come right out and said that the US is more than willing to take Greenland by force. Here’s a snippet of an interview between him and Jake Tapper of CNN:

“TAPPER: Can you rule out the US is going to take Greenland by force?

MILLER: Greenland should be part of the US. By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland? The US is the power of NATO

T: So force is on the table?

M: Nobody is gonna fight the US militarily over future of Greenland.”

*beats head on table* I’m sure this is fine. FML.

Now, I don’t think that Canada is in immediate military peril the way some other people appear to. However, it is pretty anxiety-inducing to have a fascist regime next door with a leader rapidly succumbing to some form of dementia or other cognitive degeneration who has repeatedly talked about making our country the 51^st state. I’m more concerned that the US will use its considerable economic leverage to try to control us rather than risk incurring the wrath of NATO and fighting a war on multiple fronts. Either way, it won’t be pretty.

Oof. Okay. Time to get back to work.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: chipper

Okay, I am going to attempt a State of the Everything kind of post for today, following (more or less) the template I created for myself so I can stay a bit more on top of not just what’s going on in my life (and in my head), but also what’s going on around me politically and just generally. Bear with me, this may get long.

1- State of the Phnee

a. Work has been uneventful of late, although the holiday season is always a busy one for travel, especially air travel. We get a much higher volume of “unruly passenger” reports at this time of year, and that means proportionally a higher volume of unruly passenger with escalation reports. The holidays combine a ton of stress with a lot more access to alcohol, especially in airports and on planes, and the results are pretty predictable. My own belief is that airports and airlines need to stop serving and selling alcohol, and that would reduce the number of incidents by about 90% (that number is an educated guess on my part, not based on actual statistics, but I don’t think I’m too far off the mark).

I applied to a similar job in a different government department, one that’s not part of the Core Public Service. I was sent a two-hour online evaluation without any indication of the format or what would be in it, which was more stressful than the test itself. I was reminded of Pete Anderson in The War with Mr. Wizzle by Gordon Korman: “Sir, what’s a Keat?” I should really find those books and re-read them. They were pretty great at the time and I only hope they’ve held up after all these years. Anyway, I think I did pretty well, but I submitted the evaluation right before the holiday season, so I’m not expecting a response before next week at the earliest. They could also easily just never answer me again, because of the neat little disclaimer that “only successful candidates will be contacted” at the bottom of the application page. Gotta love those. How hard is it to send a one-line email to unsuccessful candidates? You can program that shit, too. I know whereof I speak, because I have been the person in the hiring seat, and I think it’s shitty to leave people in limbo, especially in the government where hiring processes are slow as fuck.

If I get this new job (fingers crossed!) it would be a step up in terms of compensation from where I am now, and it looks like it would be an indeterminate position (which is as close to a “permanent” job as you can get in the government these days), so I really hope it works out. It’s the kind of job I know I’m good at, so it’s really just a question of slogging through the application process, which is very hit-or-miss these days. The physical location is also a tad closer to home, so I might save an itty bit of money on gas and wear-and-tear on the car.

b. I had my parents and my friends Dylan and Sarah over for Un-Christmas this year, since I was working on Christmas Day proper. It’s been a couple of years since I had to declare Un-Christmas, but it went very well. I did not at all follow through on my previous meal plan which was far too ambitious for the amount of time and energy I had. I ended up roasting the goose I had ordered and making lemon pepper buttery green beans (made with not-real butter because of various dietary restrictions), and Sarah brought roasted root vegetables. In the end, we had more than enough food even as it was, so I don’t have many regrets on that front. I always end up making way too much food, so this way there was considerably less waste.

I also managed to muster enough spoons to actually chuck the goose carcass into a Dutch oven and made broth, which I will try to turn into something useful this weekend. I have a bit of leftover goose meat, so it will likely be a soup of some kind.

c. We had a bit of a scare with KK a couple of weeks ago. She woke me up about twenty minutes after I’d gone to sleep (I’d decided to call it an early night because I was super tired) and I found her covered in blood because she’d passed out repeatedly and smashed her face on her bathroom floor. I ended up calling an ambulance for her because she couldn’t even sit up, let alone get to her feet and walk to the car. We spent the night in the ER and she spent the rest of the day there as well after I went home to get a few hours of sleep and take care of the dogs, including medicating the epileptic chihuahua. She got stitches in her nose and a tentative diagnosis of mild dehydration combined with too high of a dosage for her blood pressure meds now that she’s lost weight post-surgery. We’ve had no incidents since then, but she also fell badly and further injured one knee and hip, so she’s been having a lot of trouble getting around even just from her bedroom to the living room. It hasn’t meaningfully changed anything for me in terms of workload, though, since I’d already been doing most of the housekeeping stuff since long before we moved, let alone after her surgery and other stuff happened. I had hoped that she’d be able to help out more once she lost some weight and was able to move around better, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to be the case.

d. Speaking of surgery, I have almost fully recovered from mine in October apart from some lingering fatigue. I’ve lost about 45 lbs since the end of September, and although my weight fluctuates a lot from day to day, the trend is definitely downward. My main struggle is remembering to take my medications and supplements on time. Before I could just take all my meds first thing in the morning and forget about it, but now there’s a schedule, and some things have to be taken with food and other things have to be taken at least 30 minutes before food, and it all wreaks havoc with my poor ADHD brain.

I finally started incorporating a tiny bit of exercise into my day. Work has a pilot project with under-the-desk treadmills, so I’ve been using those for 1-2 hours almost every shift at a slow pace (1 mph, because for some reason the treadmills measure everything in Imperial), and my legs are mad at me for reminding them that I have muscles for stuff other than sitting on my ass. I’m making an effort to use the treadmills as 1) it’s good for me and 2) I want to encourage my employer to continue making good decisions about employee welfare (and yes, I’m aware of the irony, but we do what we can). I’m considering getting one for home, as well, as there are some available for under $200 that look decent enough. I had originally planned to get a gym membership, but I’m veeeeery cautiously optimistic that I can do some walking and use resistance bands at first to get my strength and endurance up, because I know myself, and getting to the gym when it’s a minimum 30-minute drive from my home is going to be a struggle, psychologically speaking. There’s a chance that the home equipment will gather dust, but there’s a much stronger chance that a gym membership would just drain my bank account without ever getting used, so lesser of two evils, here.

e. I had to take Pixie to the emergency vet on Tuesday after KK told me she had been throwing up. I had flashbacks to November when I had to take Peggy in for the same reason and came out with a bill close to $1,000, a diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis, pain meds and several cans of special food (she’s fine now, albeit on prophylactic antibiotics for her anal glands). Luckily Pixie was not nearly as sick, and I ended up paying a $50 triage fee and then took her home for observation, and she’s now back to her usual frolicky self. She is on a strict diet of rice and probiotics until tomorrow, however, until I’m completely satisfied that whatever ick this is, is out of her system.

The cats are still going strong so far. I’m worried about Libby, who still refuses to come out of the basement even at night. I don’t think KK has been feeding her her special kidney food, and because I don’t go to the basement much it’s hard to keep an eye on her weight. I’m considering catnapping her and taking her to the vet to be weighed and evaluated, but I should probably check with KK about that. Octavia is fully back to her old self after her dental surgery, but Juno doesn’t appear to be gaining weight back the same way, which has me a little worried as well. Libby is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 or even 16 years old now, and Juno is around 13, while Octavia will be turning 12 this May (give or take), so none of them are spring chickens, but I’m still concerned there might be more going on with Juno since the dental surgery hasn’t had the same effect as on Octavia.

2- State of the smallholding

I’m not using the word “homestead” anymore, because of its roots in colonization. I haven’t found a good word to describe what I’m attempting, and the closest I’ve come so far is “smallholding,” so I’m going to go with that until something better comes along.

a. Welp, the house hasn’t improved much since I last updated here. I’ve mostly lacked the motivation and energy to do anything about it, especially after surgery in October. I did do a bit of a crisis clean for Un-Christmas, and I’m hoping to build on that in the coming weeks. I need to get over the mostly psychological barriers around cleaning and tidying that I have built in my own head and just do it. Once the main floor of the house is clear I am going to find a local cleaner/cleaning service to help me keep on top of stuff. If someone can come in once every two weeks, even, that would allow me to concentrate on more decluttering and making progress with other areas of the house. My friend Jan has also offered to come over and lend her organizing expertise to help pull the kitchen and basement into a shape that will make them more usable, and I am probably going to take her up on that.

b. On the “farming” front, the remaining quail are doing pretty well this winter. I have 14 survivors in total, four males and eight females. I purchased some heaters for their waterers because their water kept freezing within hours. Dylan had told me he managed by changing the chickens’ water twice a day because he could just dump out the ice and replace it with water, but the quail waterers are so much smaller that it just wasn’t practical for me. The heaters, even though they appear super flimsy and cheap, have actually been working super well to keep the water liquid, and the quail appear to appreciate it.

I did have a bit of a scare about a month ago when I got home on a Saturday morning after a night shift and found an alarming splotch of blood in one of the enclosures. It took me a bit to identify where it had come from, and it turned out that one of the females had a pretty gnarly prolapsed vent. I tried calling around to various vets, but even though I now live in the country, I couldn’t find anyone who dealt with poultry—it was only pets or large livestock (cows and horses, mostly), so I was left with the internet and whatever I had on hand. I took the quail inside, bathed her in saline solution (where I discovered she’d been sort-of egg-bound with an improperly formed egg), applied a bit of sugar to shrink the prolapse, and then used a lubricated q-tip to gently nudge everything back inside her. I kept her in a “hospital” box in the dark with food and water for a couple of days, and then she started spontaneously laying eggs without a new prolapse, so I returned her to her enclosure, where she’s been happily laying eggs for me ever since. I am quite proud that I managed to successfully treat her and not have to cull her.

I was sorely tempted to start beekeeping this summer, but upon reflection I have decided to wait another year before embarking on that journey at least. There is a lot of equipment required for bees, and I have a lot more reading and learning to do before I dive into it. There’s a good chance that my first hives will die (because beginner beekeepers are a fucking menace, apparently), so I want to improve the odds that I don’t kill my bees because of a stupid mistake. I

This year I will be adding livestock that’s a little more straightforward, i.e. rabbits and maybe more poultry like chicken and ducks and maybe geese. The rabbits in particular will be good for meat, and I am curious if I can find something to do with their pelts: maybe tan them myself or just sell them to anyone who wants them. I tested out dehydrated rabbit ears on the dogs and they lost their tiny doggy minds about them, so at least I know I’ll have a steady source of dog treats if I play my cards right.

c. I have a lot of ambitious goals this year in terms of acquiring new skills around the smallholding. I wanted to practice woodworking this winter, but unfortunately the electricity went out in my shed for reasons I can’t quite figure out, so I think it will have to wait for spring when I can figure out why there’s no power out there.

I’ve also talked to Jan and Dylan and Sarah, and there is a tentative plan in place to cooperate with all three of our little farms to get larger projects built more quickly. We’d alternate weekends where we all gather at one farm and do a building or gardening project, followed by a celebratory barbecue in the evening once the work is done. We’ve also tentatively agreed that we should have dinner together more often, after a really fun Hallowe’en dinner in October. I want to make sure I keep fostering my local bonds and friendships, because it’s all too easy for me to crawl under a rock and just live there, especially because of the shift work.

3- Local and national news

I promised myself I’d keep my finger on the pulse of the news this year, so in spite of working an evening shift this week and next week, I’m making an effort to learn about what’s going on.

a. Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry: there isn’t a ton happening in my immediate area right now, but I went to my local town council meeting in late November (or was it early December?) in order to stay abreast of local happenings. The next meeting is in two weeks, before my next night shift, and I plan on attending again at that time. It’s important to me to understand what decisions are being made locally, just in case I decide that something is important enough for me to voice an opinion or whatever.

b. There hasn’t been much going on in Ottawa from a city news perspective over the holidays, but I’m keeping an eye out.

c. Ontario politics are a bit of a shambles ever since Doug Ford’s government won a THIRD fucking majority. I am still angry about that. The provincial Liberals and NDP seem to be in shambles, and the NDP in particular appear to be struggling with who they want to be. I hope they get their shit together soon.

d. Federal politics have been on hiatus for the holidays as well, although I saw that Prime Minister Carney met with President Zelenskyy earlier and will be at the peace talks in Paris next week. What he’s bringing to the table is a mystery to me, but better Carney than Trump, I suppose.

We’re still embroiled in a horrible trade ~thing~ with the USA. It’s not a war, but it’s not NOT a war. Tariffs and jokes in poor taste and all of that. Anecdotally a lot of Canadians are still not purchasing American products when there are alternatives, and tourism to the USA has plummeted (partly due to the animosity engendered by Trump, partly because there’s a reasonable likelihood that Canadian citizens could be apprehended by ICE and disappeared for anywhere from a week to forever). I miss my US friends, but until things stop being fascist down there, I don’t plan on visiting any time soon.

e. Speaking of the USA, it continues to be a horrifying dumpster fire. The ICE raids continue, they are building data centres faster than anyone ever imagined, the economy is tanking, and the President is very obviously suffering from some sort of advanced dementia. Charlie Kirk was murdered, which triggered a right-wing backlash from which some parts of the US are still reeling. The Department of Education has been gutted, among others, and we still don’t have a good idea of how many people have died as a result of the dismantling of USAID. I don’t have any real good thoughts or analysis about this right now, but luckily there are plenty of people out there smarter than me who have written or spoken about this topic.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Thanks for bearing with me this far! I promise future updates won’t be nearly as lengthy, since I won’t be trying to catch up on basically six months’ worth of updates.

Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: determined

I am officially three days (and change) post-op.

It went super well. Better than I even hoped for, honestly. The surgery itself took an hour and a half, and I was in the recovery room for just under 4 hours. Normally they only keep you in recovery for an hour or two, but because I have Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea it was protocol to keep me there longer until they were sure I was taking in enough oxygen on my own before transferring me to a surgical bed.

I expected a lot of pain based on my reading and from KK's experience, but there was next to none. On the 1 to 10 scale I spent most of the time at a 1, sometimes inching up to 2. I once overdid it drinking water (two sips was fine, three was too many!) and the pain went up to not-quite-3 for maybe 10 minutes. At first I assumed it was that I was still under the effects of the anesthesia and then under the effects of the Dilaudid pill they gave me, but after well over 15 hours it became obvious that, no, I just wasn't in all that much pain or discomfort. So, yay, I guess!

My entire nursing team consisted of people whose names began with S: Sarah, Sophie (who was a 3rd year nursing student), Samara, and Saima. Only when the day nurse came in the morning I was to be discharged did the pattern break, because his name was Dat. They were all super sweet and kind and very patient with me, since I kept asking a million questions about what they were doing, and what was that piece of equipment for, and ooh, what were they checking for with THAT gizmo? etc. Sophie in particular was super nervous because she was obviously brand new and learning, so I assured her that we would learn together, and we had loads of fun examining the equipment, asking questions, and whenever I learned something while she was away I would tell her when she got back and she'd whip out a tiny notebook and write it all down. It was super sweet, and we had a good giggle about it before her shift was over.

The least fun part of the whole thing was trying to figure out all the unspoken hospital rules (should I use the washroom when the toilet has one of those cups meant to measure urine output, or was that meant for a specific patient? Except I have to pee and there's no other washroom! I'm supposed to take walks, but where can I walk where I won't be in the way? Etc.), and I was quite glad to leave on Thursday.

KK drove me to and from the hospital, and was somehow more wiped out than I was after all of it. She apparently overdid it by walking with me to the day surgery room and then sitting in the admittedly very uncomfortable chairs until such time as I was transferred to my bed for the night. She has spent most of the past few days napping as a result.

I wasn't up to much for the rest of Thursday, but we did stop at the pharmacy to get my prescriptions: I have about 10 doses of Dilaudid to take as needed for pain, and an antacid that I need to take every day for the next six months. KK has impressed upon me that it is VERY IMPORTANT to take said antacid unless I want to invite a world of trouble upon myself, so I've been very diligent about it. I took one dose of Dilaudid on Thursday but didn't need one last night, which was nice. I haven't even really needed Tylenol, for the most part. I am working my way up to taking all three of my vitamin supplements, because they are freaking horse pills and rather difficult to digest, but I should be able to work them into my routine (I need to take them three times a day, God help me) with some practice and a lot of alarms set up on my phone.

Yesterday the dogs were assholes and knocked over their glass jar of treats, which shattered all over the tile floor of the kitchen. KK very kindly drove me to town after her work day was over, and we stopped by the pharmacy so I could pick up some milk of magnesia (a nurse from the hospital called and recommended I pick some up "just in case"), and then I popped into Canadian Tire for some bags for our kitchen compost bin since we were almost out. KK went to PetValu to pick up new dog treats (they're the dogs' reward for going into their crates at night like good girls) and I went to the Dollarama next door to pick up a new (plastic) jar for the treats along with a couple of new pairs of reading glasses since the dogs ate one of mine and another broke very randomly the night before my surgery. It was the weirdest thing: I picked them up as normal and the arm just *fell off* like it was an injured starfish. No idea what happened there. *shrug*

Unsurprisingly, the house was in the same or even slightly worse shape than when I left on Wednesday morning. Thursday I contented myself with unloading and then re-loading the dishwasher, and yesterday I didn't do all that much except clean up the broken jar the dogs so generously provided. I did a few more dishes and put away the vacuum sealer I'd forgotten to put away before surgery (oops), and that was about it, as I was still feeling pretty tired after the surgery.

Today I was a lot more productive, but I'm still moving in slow motion. I took a shower, which felt amazing after not being "allowed" to shower for a couple of days to give my incision sites the chance to heal.

I got more dishes done, broke down a bunch of boxes for the recycling on Monday (it's a fibre pick-up day!), collected the garbage, and managed to clear a portion of the front deck so it looks a little less like hillbilly hoarders live here. I also cleaned my bathroom, which I should have done before my surgery but I kind of ran out of time (oops). At least it's clean and sparkly now! I checked on the quail and changed out their food and water and gave them all a generous helping of mealworms as a treat and as a small apology for not doing it yesterday (I did check on them and their food and water levels were fine, have no fear, I just feel guilty about them anyway). I also washed the incubator and put it away along with the heat plates for next year when I'd like to start incubating more chicks again. I won't be incubating any during the winter, it just seems like a bad idea to do it when it's super cold outside.

KK also left me a surprise in the form of a clogged kitchen sink which she'd clearly tried to fix using a plastic plumbing snake, which then got suck in the drain, and she just... left it there for me to find without telling me about it. I couldn't dislodge it (she'd rammed it in all the way, and theoretically I am not supposed to lift, push or pull more than 10lbs for the next month), and when I asked her about it she said she was hoping the sink would drain before she tried again. I had drained the sink in my attempts to dislodge the thing, so she tried again--and broke it off inside the drain. So now I have to call a plumber on Monday to get it taken out by a professional. I am not super impressed. *heavy sigh* If I didn't know better, I'd swear she was a man, given the amount of weaponized incompetence she seems able to wield at a moment's notice. The only difference is that, in this case, I didn't ask her to unclog the sink, so I guess she did try? I don't know.

I've sent out the announcements for Quaker Meeting tomorrow, and I did take a dose of Dilaudid tonight because I may have overdone it a tad today, and I was quite sore to say the least. My main goal is to not be in pain so I can get some sleep, and hopefully tomorrow I will be recovered. I still want to try to finish cleaning up the kitchen. KK said she'd help me with that today but ended up taking a four and a half hour nap instead, and there's only so much I can do at one time while I'm still recovering from surgery. Yes, in theory I should be resting/taking it easy, but if I don't get this shit done no one will, and the house will continue to deteriorate, so I'm tackling things in smallish increments and hoping for the best. Tomorrow I am planning on moving the last batch of quail that I incubated to the hutches in the garage, which will allow me to clean up and break down the brooder and put that away for the season as well. I will probably have to buy a second brooder for next year, because I discovered that while it can comfortably hold six quail, eight almost-grown quail are very cramped inside it and so they are all having very gentle squabbles with each other about food and water and mealworms. But yes, not having the brooder on my kitchen counter will save me so much space! I can't wait.

I must say, I can totally understand why people get addicted to Dilaudid. Pain? Never heard of her! I think that I'm still pretty safe since I've only had four 1mg doses in the past four days (I got a dose right before leaving the hospital on Thursday when they heard I had a one-hour car ride ahead of me).

Anyway, that's what's happened with me in the last few days. I hope you're all doing well, and I will catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: chipper

I hate scheduling anything during my night shifts. As far as I'm concerned, night shifts should be sacred and nothing should happen except working, eating, and sleeping. Night shifts are hard on the body (especially as I get older), and so prioritizing sleep is super important. This week, however, my rule went out the window and I ended up having something happen every. single. day. that I had to stay up for for some reason. It suuuuucked.

However, the sacrifice was not for nothing. I now have eavestroughs all around my house, which I didn't before. We've been in serious danger of water infiltrating the house all summer whenever it rained, so getting gutters installed was one of my priorities this year. We had some bad luck with the weather that meant we had to postpone the installation a few times, but the contractor was finally able to get it done yesterday and he did a fantastic job. I am very excited to no longer have to worry every time it rains. I still have to get some downspout extenders, but that's a minor detail and not strictly necessary. It's just that the grading around the house needs to be redone, so right now any water flows toward the house instead of away from it, which is why having downspout extenders would be helpful.

I also had an electrician in. Well, two of them came, but I think one of them was an apprentice or assistant. Anyway, they came to replace one of the outdoor electrical outlets which didn't have a GFI, making it a little more unsafe to use (although not completely unsafe) as well as to replace my bathroom fan which wasn't working and which my home inspector had told me I'd need to get fixed. Turns out the fan was totally fine, it was just unplugged. *rolls eyes* I wonder if the previous owners unplugged it because it is ungodly loud, but either way it's now plugged back in and working great.

We also worked out why my workshop/shed wasn't getting any electricity. Apparently the electricity was being supplied by a daisy chain of extension cords, which is, uh, not exactly up to code, and it seems the previous owners just took one of the extension cords with them when they left. Oops? Anyway, I got quoted about $4,000 to get the shed wired up properly because it would require a backhoe to go through my "driveway" (which is not a driveway, but it is hard-packed ground, so I guess it sort of counts as a driveway?) and dig a trench in which to bury the wire needed for the electrical supply. So the plan for now is to buy a new extension cord and use that until next year at least. It's not ideal, but as price tags go it's a bit steep for our first year in the house when we still have so many necessary projects (the grading around the house, some extra plumbing in the basement, reinforcing both decks to fix some stability issues, and of course all the gardening stuff and building up infrastructure for more livestock). I will do a bit of investigating to see if there are extra safety measures I can implement to reduce the risk of short circuits or electrical fires in the meantime. The previous owners obviously made it work, so I'm trying not to worry about it too much. I do need to source some firewood as the workshop has a wood stove and I would like to practice my woodworking skills over the winter without freezing my butt or my fingers off.

Ideally I'd like to get my skills to the point of being able to build a lot of the animal-related infrastructure that I want to install on the property. Right now I have bought two hutches for the quail, but they have some design flaws that make it difficult to put food and water in and also make changing the bedding a little harder than it has to be, even though the bottom has a pull-out drawer. Right now I'm still in the process of building up my basic tool collection. I just picked up a jigsaw and a miter saw on sale (very exciting!), and Karen already bought a circular saw last year. I have a few hand tools already as well as a drill, so I'm hoping to be able to have a full set of basic tools (as well as a small sawdust management system) by the end of the winter.

This morning was the monthly meeting of Ministry and Counsel, and the Clerk has asked that someone else take up the mantle for next year, so it looks like that person is going to be me. One member is leaving at the end of this year (it's the end of her term), another is bogged down with other commitments and doesn't have the bandwidth for it), one only just joined and wants to get more experience before taking on Clerking duties, and the other person wasn't at the meeting today (and I personally think he lacks the organizational skills for it anyway, as uncharitable as that sounds). I am a little nervous, as being the Clerk of M&C feels like a Really Big Deal(TM), but the current Clerk has promised to mentor me, as they are not leaving at the end of the year, so that's something at least.

In unrelated but potentially excellent news, I spoke to my father today since the results from his heart monitor came back, and there is a good chance he may not even need an ablation for his atrial flutter. He's being referred to a specialist for a consultation in a couple of weeks, and we will find out more at that time. Fingers crossed that it all turns out well!

On that note, it's time to get back to work. It got wildly busy last night, so I'm hedging my bets tonight. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: chipper

Night shifts this week are feeling a bit rough because I haven't been able to get much sleep before. Monday consisted entirely of trying to clean the house and running errands, and this morning I had to stay up for my pre-surgical appointment. A guy was also supposed to come to install my gutters but the skies opened in a terrific deluge just as he and his guys were meant to come over, so we've rescheduled for Thursday when the weather is meant to be nicer. I feel a little cursed, but there's no doubt the region desperately needs the rain, so I'm trying to be grateful for the extra precipitation--it's been a very dry summer for the farmers. I also got a call from the electrician right in the middle of my pre-surgical call, and they wanted to come right then and there, but of course I couldn't accommodate that, so they're going to try to come tomorrow, which means I will either have to wake up to let them in or just stay up the whole time.

KK stayed home from work today because she somehow injured her shoulder emptying the washing machine yesterday and she says it feels like it's coming out of its socket. I have suggested she get it checked by a medical professional, because I'd really like to know if she's going to be extra disabled just as I'm about to have abdominal surgery. If she can't drive, I will have to work out alternate transportation to and from the hospital. Going to the hospital won't be all that difficult--I can get a taxi to Alexandria, then take the train and then public transit. I'd have to leave the day before and stay in a hotel near the hospital, most likely, or maybe I can just find a semi-comfortable chair in a waiting room near the hospital and just hang out there until it's time to check in. The real problem will be leaving the hospital, because they won't let me leave without being accompanied by someone who will be "responsible" for me. If it weren't 10am on a weekday I might be able to ask a local friend to drive me to the train station, but people are generally working at that time. Maybe I could ask one of my Quaker Friends, since a lot of them are retired. I just need someone to get me out of the hospital, and I can get the rest of the way home on my own. A round-trip train ticket looks to be about $75, public transit would be $12 or $14 (I think prices may have gone up recently), and if I spring for a hotel the closest one is $200 for the night, so I'm looking at about $300 total, so long as I can get someone to vouch for me when I check out of the hospital.

Well, hopefully it won't come to that. If KK has injured her arm, though, it definitely means I'll have to figure out how to get things done around the house sooner rather than later. I don't think I can get away with anything for the first few days, because that is definitely a recipe for ripping out stitches or getting an incisional hernia or something, but at a certain point things still have to get done, so I'll have to figure out a system. I figure that I can deal with taking out the trash and recycling if I do it in very small batches and lots of trips, and I can probably manage the housework if I do, like, 5-10 minutes at a time followed by a 5-10 minute break. I'm supposed to be moving around as much as possible after surgery anyway, so maybe this will incentivize me to do it. Maybe. It may turn out that I find the recovery a lot harder, in which case I will just have to accept the fact that the house will go to hell until I'm back on my feet.

In news that's not about me, the creeping fascism in the US is no longer so much creeping as full-on galloping. Whatever time I'm not spending being anxious about my own life, I'm spending being anxious about my American friends, and being anxious about my local friends and family too, because the fascism is creeping around up here in Canada, too. Right now the entire US government is shut down because the Democrats (quite rightly in my opinion) refuse to sign off on a budget that will slash Medicare and Medicaid. This isn't something we have in Canada, because our government just isn't structured like that. Even when Parliament is prorogued, public servants still go to work and get paid. It's actually a little baffling to me that a government can just... stop like that, frankly, but that's more an indication of my own privilege than anything else, I guess. I suppose any government could theoretically stop under the right (terrible) circumstances. As Sharon Astyk is fond of saying, collapse is driving the bus, and I think this is just one more card in the increasingly precarious house of cards that is modern society.

I feel like being anxious about the state of the world is something that merits its own post. I might do that when I come back for my third night shift, depending on how busy things get.

Okay, I'm going to leave it there for now. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: sleepy

I got a fair bit of stuff done today.

I got up at a very reasonable 6:30am, showered, and took my car to Canadian Tire for (another) alignment. The whole process took less than an hour, so I just waited at a nearby Tim Horton's and had breakfast with a lemon poppy seed muffin which startled me by having some sort of cream cheese filling that I was not expecting. It tasted just fine, but it was weirdly jarring nonetheless. This just tells me that my capacity for dealing with unexpected change is now in the negative numbers.

Once the car was organized, I drove to Cornwall (the nearest large town, although it might technically count as a city? Hang on, I will go look that up. *two minutes later* It's a city. Okay. Moving on.) to go to Home Depot and finally bite the bullet on getting a riding lawn mower. I did a bit of research into the various options, and even though they cost a bit more money, I settled on a John Deere. All the reviews of the more inexpensive models boiled down to the same thing: "It's not worth it, just get a John Deere and have done." Mostly all the other models seem to have poor warranties, lack servicing options, have parts that are hard or impossible to get, or just continuously break down. So I got a John Deere, and it will be delivered on Thursday.

I had a rather circular conversation with the nice young lady serving me at Home Depot. She was a tiny, wispy thing, probably of Indian origin based on her accent and the bracelets adorning her wrists (although I couldn't swear to it), and the poor thing spoke barely above a whisper and had the maddening habit of looking anywhere but at me when she spoke. This may have been cultural or just a personality quirk, but either way, it was not ideal. Long-time readers will remember that I am rather hard of hearing, and so people who speak quietly and/or face away from me when they speak are my kryptonite.

Conversely, she seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding me as well. I asked about financing options, to see if I could avoid having to shell out another $5k right on the spot (everything is so expensive, goddamn), and she agreed and brought me over to customer service.

Her: "You want to finance or use credit card?"

Me: "I'd like to see if I qualify for financing so I don't have to put it on my credit card, please."

Her: "So you use your own credit card?"

Me: "No, I'd like to get financing."

Her: "You want a credit card?"

Me: "Well, Home Depot gives you one with financing, right?"

Her: "Yes."

Me: "Great. Let's do that!"

Her: "Okay, so you go over to the cash and you pay with your credit card now."

Me: "So... you can't do the financing?"

Her: *blank look*

We were saved by another employee named Ariel (I don't know the name of the first woman because she didn't have a name tag), who was able to walk us through the process, thank goodness. It took a while, but now I can pay off the mower over the next 12 months instead of all in one go, with no interest unless I exceed those 12 months.

I had to pop back to Canadian Tire after that because they had neglected to give me the readout for the alignment, and luckily they still had it in their system (apparently the machine doesn't keep it beyond the one reading, but they hadn't had another client in for an alignment yet, or at least that's how I understood it). I sent the readout to Steve the Wonder Mechanic, and he is of the opinion that the dealership simply never did an alignment on my car back in the day. What they did with my car when they kept it for a full 36 hours and charged me $150 for the privilege is beyond me at this point. I am going to have to rally some spoons from somewhere in order to fight them on this and get reimbursed for the work and for the brand new winter tires that they wrecked due to their negligence.

Anyway, I finally made it home five-ish hours after I'd left, put in a load of laundry (everyone clap, please!) and set about continuing to unpack my bedroom. As of right now I am STILL not done (goddamn), but I am down to "only" my books and office supplies (I think, there might still be a surprise lurking in one of those boxes), so I am optimistic I can get that done in the next few days. Ideally I'd like to finish that tomorrow evening when I get home, because I have to go to Ottawa back to my old house.

This is because, in Oh-My-God-There-Is-Still-Moving-Drama news, my old landlords have informed me that, even though I still technically live in the old place, they are going to start showing it to prospective tenants right away. Since it's currently a goddamned disaster in there, I am going to head out tomorrow as early as possible to try to at least tidy up all the garbage and crap that got left behind after the move, and fill up the car with some of the stuff I still want to bring to the new house. That was part of the plan for these coming two weeks anyway, but I had kind of assumed that I'd have more time to get the house pulled together before my landlords swooped in to get prospective new tenants who will likely be paying a LOT more rent than me. I don't like having to work on their timeline, but here we are, I guess. Here's hoping that I can get the house pulled together enough that they aren't going to try to gouge extra money out of me just because they can.

*lies on the floor*

My drama is so very low stakes compared to what's going on in the world, but it's very stressful on a personal level, I promise you. :P

Speaking of stressful, the poor quail had what one might call a Heckin' Escapade yesterday. KK took the dogs out before I got home from my night shift for their usual morning romp. What we didn't know is that Freeloader, the rooster whose life continues to be spared while we get settled in, had taken advantage of the door to his hutch not being latched properly (that one's on me) and gone walkabout (flapabout?). Apparently he hadn't gone far and was just bopping happily around in the grass, foraging away. At least he was, until the Brittanies got hold of him.

Fun fact about Brittanies, they are hunting dogs, specifically a versatile breed, meaning they both point AND retrieve, and because they are retrievers, they have what's called a "soft mouth," meaning that they will hold game birds in their mouths without biting down on them (because hunters don't want to have their birds chewed up by their dogs). Pixie grabbed Freeloader first and took off with him. KK forced her to drop him, only to have Peggy snatch him up immediately afterward. Poor Freeloader got exchanged from dog to dog a couple of times until KK was finally able to confiscate him and put him back in his hutch, where he hunkered down, the picture of wet, slobbery misery, but completely uninjured because the dogs were very gentle with him, comparatively speaking.

Honestly I fully expected him to die of shock, but he has hung in there until tonight, although he is a deeply unhappy and traumatized camper. I haven't heard him crow once since I got home, and he's usually extremely vocal. He has been eating and drinking, though, so I think there's no permanent harm done. And, well, he is going to get the metaphorical axe at some point, once I get my shit together.

Oh, and in the midst of all of this, the weight management clinic called today, and I am scheduled for the Pre-Surgery 2 class next Tuesday, and an in-person appointment with the surgeon on the following Thursday. That means that they are very likely ready to schedule me for surgery ASAP, which of course is something of a problem given that KK is having surgery in just over two weeks' time. OOPS. I'm sure that if I explain the situation they will be sure to schedule me further out, but my goodness, what ridiculous timing. I also have to go get more bloodwork done (so. much. bloodwork.) at the hospital, which means getting up at the asscrack of dawn so that I don't have to spend the entire day waiting in the hospital, because if you get there after 6:30am you have a guaranteed wait of at least two hours, if not three or four, and I for one do not want to spend half the day just waiting in a hospital for a blood draw. Blech. I have a lot of stuff to get done, after all.

I am torn between going tomorrow morning super early since I have to go to the house afterward anyway, or going on Friday. I think I might go tomorrow because that way it will light a fire under my ass and force me to do things. The only "problem" with that is that tomorrow is KK's in-office day, which means the dogs will be home alone for most of the day. But if I go stupidly early and get a lot of cleaning done before, say, noon, I might be able to get home by 2pm, which would get me here in time to dose Rika with her epilepsy meds AND be on time for my therapy appointment at 2:30 (did I mention I have a lot going on lately?). But in order to go tomorrow morning I will need to leave here at 5:30am to get to the hospital at 6:30, and, just, ugh. But it's for the greater good, I guess. Blargh.

And now, it's time for bed, especially if I need to be up in time to leave at 5:30. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

I know if's not malicious, but dear God I am so tired of KK breaking my stuff. So far the tally is three (3!) of my antique dining room chairs, a hole in the wall of the old house, and today she shattered the glass of one of my framed art pieces. The chairs are the most expensive part of it, since I'm going to have to find someone who can repair them with the proper technique and materials. I have eight chairs in total, and most of them are in kind of rough shape anyway (the legs are loose on most of them), but we're running out of places for guests to sit when they visit, goddamn.

Like I said, it's not malicious, but I can't help but notice she never breaks any of her own stuff, it's always something of mine, and it's getting under my skin a little bit these days. Again, it's one of those things that probably wouldn't bother me under normal circumstances, but my emotional resilience is at an all-time low and so it's hard not to take everything personally. I can't even be truly angry about the art frame, because it was propped up against a wall in my bedroom, and she knocked it over while helping to build the desk portion of my Murphy bed, so I can't get mad about it because she was under no obligation to help me in the first place.

*lies on the floor*

The good news is that the Murphy bed and desk are about 90% done. There are two sets of doors left to attach (one to the bottom of the desk, one to one of the shelves), and then I will be all set! The desk is finicky to put back in because that part of the unit isn't secured to the wall the way the bed is, and I have to give it a bit of a hard yank in order to engage the mechanism properly to push it into the unit, but that pulls the whole thing away from the wall. KK is thinking we may need to improvise and anchor it either into the wall (we have a few anchoring pins) or to the bed portion, which is itself already anchored to the wall. Otherwise, apart from having to figure out how to access the electrical outlet (it's a tiny bit of a narrow space), I am almost ready to unpack all my computer stuff and work out the best configuration for it all. I am low-key pretty excited to get my room fully unpacked and functional so that I'm not surrounded by a sea of boxes all the time.

The bed itself is surprisingly comfortable, and although adding the fake doors to it has made it a lot heavier, it's still pretty easy to put up and pull down. The only hassle is that I have to strip the pillows and bedclothes off each time I want to put it up, because it won't fit otherwise, and then I need to remake the bed afterward. It's annoying, but I remember doing this for a year or so when I first started working in Ottawa when I was renting a room that was almost the same size. Long-time readers may remember the fun fact that the Murphy bed in that room actually blocked the access to the door in the room, effectively locking me in every time I wanted to sleep. It was twelve-ish years ago, but I remember that, while it was a bit annoying to have to strip the bed every day, it also wasn't the end of the world.

My goal now is to get the house fully functional by July 23rd, which is when KK is scheduled to have her surgery and her aunt will be coming to stay with us. I don't want to have an older woman (and a guest!) being forced to navigate around boxes and other chaos the whole time. It will just make everything much easier if I have everything unpacked and in its place by then.

So that's it for the lengthy and very boring update about the bed/house.

Outside of my tiny sphere of influence, the world has been getting progressively more... I can't think of a good adjective for it. But yeah, everything continues to be on fire, both literally and metaphorically. The US appears to have gone to war with Iran, except maybe not, except probably yes? Either way, World War III hasn't quite erupted yet. Climate change continues to wreak havoc on everything from wildfires to wild swings in temperature locally. Ukraine is still embattled and the US appears to be withdrawing the support it had promised in exchange for mineral rights. The current Liberal government in Canada has decided to focus more on defense spending rather than, say, I don't know, investing in ANY of the current crises we're facing (housing, cost of living, collapsing health care, collapsing education, neglected indigenous communities, etc.), which is super fucking dandy. That's what we get for voting for a Conservative in Liberal clothing, I guess. Better than Poilievre, but my God, we had some better progressive alternatives and we STILL couldn't bring ourselves to vote outside of the binary. For fuck's sake.

*sigh*

I may try to write a longer post about external events. I know that everyone is dying to hear the next installment of the Murphy Bed Saga, but I also use this space as a way to document things for myself, so I think it's important for me to write down at least some impressions of what's happening in the wider world so that when I read back in a few years, I'll have some idea of what the fuck was happening during this time.

Current Mood: working

Happy post-Canada Day! I had to go to work in the midst of the craziness that is downtown Ottawa just as the fireworks were ending. Absolute madness, but I was able to get through thanks to a letter from my manager explaining that I'm an essential worker and a (mostly) understanding police officer. Now I just have to get through this night shift without falling asleep at my desk.

The building of the Murphy bed is an ongoing saga. It is a huge undertaking for people who aren't accustomed to doing such things on the regular. My friends Dylan and Sarah came over on Saturday to help me build it, and by the end of the day only the upright cupboard part of the bed was built and anchored to the wall, so I had to sleep on the cot one more night. Sarah came back on Sunday and we got the bed part built enough that I was able to sleep in it that night, but we still weren't done. She came back today, and we were able to add the "doors" that make the Murphy bed look like a wardrobe when it's folded up (they are not functional doors, for the record), and also put together the shelving portion of the built-in desk part of it. We are still not done.

I'm on nights this week, so I got about two hours of sleep before Sarah came over, and then KK let me take a nap in her room later, so I'm chugging along on about four-ish hours of sleep in total. I haven't been much help in building my own bed, mostly because Sarah kept kicking all of us out of the room, preferring to work on her own for most of the time, but also because I've been trying to get a million things done at once, which is working about as well as you'd expect.

I'm cautiously optimistic that once the Murphy bed is completely built I'll start getting more on top of things, because I'll be able to fully unpack my bedroom and hopefully get it set up for maximum efficiency, and from there I'll be able to keep going in the rest of the house. The kitchen and living room are a bit more unpacked now, but we're nowhere near done.

I also need to take several days to go back to the old house to clear out the remaining stuff from there, clean the place from top to bottom, and then hopefully find someone relatively inexpensive to repair the basement walls. Longtime readers will remember that my cats did not react well to the stress of moving many years ago and had peed extensively in the basement, damaging the walls to the point where the bottom of the drywall had to be cut away in many places. I may try repairing it myself, since it's just a question of getting drywall cut to the correct dimensions, screwing it in place, and then screwing some shiplap over it (I think it's called shiplap, it's basically cheap white wooden slats). It doesn't have to be done well, it just needs to be done.

All right, time to get back to work. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: busy

Welp, I fell off the face of the planet, at least posting-wise. It has been A Time, friends. I still don't have a fully functional bed, all my computer gear and office stuff is still in boxes, and the old house still needs me to go back and do a whole lot of tidying and cleaning. I am not excited about that at all.

The new house is great, but we are still awash in a sea of boxes, and it's been very slow going to unpack it all. It would probably have gone faster if I were better rested, but until last night I was sleeping on a very uncomfortable camping cot. KK keeps insisting the cot is comfortable, because she slept on it for one night last year, but that has honestly not been my experience.

KK is scheduled for her bariatric surgery on July 23rd. Her aunt is coming to stay with us for two or three weeks to help out, since I can't get enough time off work to help her post-surgery. Since we don't have a guest room, her aunt will have to stay in my room, and I'll be relegated back to the godawful cot again for the duration, and in the living room to boot, meaning I won't have access to any of my stuff and will likely have to live out of a suitcase or a box of some kind. I can't say I'm looking forward to that, since three weeks of terrible sleep and constant body pain is really going to put a crimp in my ability to function, especially since I'll still have to go to work during that time.

I really, really hope that the surgery is successful and that KK starts being more functional soonish. She's been doing progressively less and less around the house while producing more and more work for me, and I don't think I can go on like this indefinitely. I can manage myself pretty well, but I can't manage the both of us on my own.

On the plus side, our property is filled with fireflies, and the frogs in our small pond sing to us all night. The dogs are thrilled to bits to have so much room to romp around, too. It's pretty sweet. :)

Current Mood: working

The house buying nightmares continue.

I have my financial ducks almost in a row. Almost. And now, the ducks are scattering again.

I spoke to my mortgage/credit union guy (Wafik) on Thursday. He was very understanding while I panicked at him, and he promised that if I could get all the money transferred to my new checking account by Monday, he would personally oversee getting the transfer expedited/waiving the usual hold on funds, and ensure I get the bank draft I need to give the lawyer on Monday.

So I moved heaven and earth to get everything done, and I did. I got the last of the money transferred on Friday evening, and received the usual warnings about the time it could take to get it all done. In light of this, I decided to send Wafik an email today (originally I was going to wait until tomorrow but then I worried I'd forget or send it too late or something) as a follow-up about our conversation and to confirm that all was well. And that's how I discovered he has an out of office message saying he'll be back on Wednesday.

Notice how Wednesday is not Monday? Yeah, me too.

So I have been quietly having a panic attack at my desk all morning. I am not prone to panic attacks, but I am pretty sure the chest pain and palpitations are exactly that, because there's no other good reason for it (and it started the minute I got the out of office message, so it's not a coincidence). I am accustomed to a constant low-level buzz of anxiety, but it doesn't usually manifest in this kind of physical symptoms. I cannot say I am enjoying the experience.

There is absolutely fuck-all I can do about this situation today, because it is Sunday, and nothing is open. My deadline is tomorrow, and if Wafik is not in the office to do the thing he promised he'd do, then I am fucked six ways to next Sunday. So the only thing I can do for the next 19 hours or so is panic quietly. Tomorrow I plan to call him first thing in the morning, and if he doesn't pick up his phone, my backup plan is to call my original mortgage advisor (I don't think that's her actual title, but I don't know it so this will suffice) Peggy and very politely weep at her until she finds someone local to help me. See, Peggy, unlike Wafik, is NOT local, but lives somewhere around Barrie, ON, so it means that even if she wanted to help me, she cannot physically place a bank draft in my hands.

*rips out hair*

*internal screaming*

I honestly thought that the financial part of the nightmare was over and that I just had to deal with the sellers' shenanigans, for which my lawyer has a plan. But now the person who committed to helping me has just swanned off without even the courtesy of letting me know, so fuck me, I guess. I have already spent so much money on this move on packing supplies and on the packing help, the house is halfway packed up, and I have abandoned my plot in the community garden so that if we don't move, I can't grow vegetables this summer and all the plants I ordered are going to die. Not to mention the crushing disappointment of losing out on a dream property literally five days before we're meant to move in.

FUCK.

Current Mood: stressed

Well, the good-ish news is that I think I've got a good chance of getting all my financial ducks in a row by Monday. A whole bunch of people have pulled together at various financial institutions to help me make this happen, and so while it's not guaranteed/a done deal, I have done everything within my power to make it a reality. I am reasonably confident it will work out.

So, yay for that!

Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends. I went to see my real estate lawyer to sign all the paperwork for the closing on Monday, and got some more bad news.

It turns out that the sellers are leveraged up to their eyeballs. They have two mortgages on the property, neither of which have been paid at all, and they conveniently did not disclose that the central A/C unit they supposedly own is not actually paid for, and the property has a lien on it as a result. None of this is a problem per se, because the sale agreement stipulates that I am not responsible for any liens on the property. However, they and/or their lawyer have not provided all the proper legal documentation that stipulates that they are taking responsibility for the lien and all of the debt. Without those documents, I can't sign the closing on the house because I'd run the chance of taking on the liability, which I do not want at all, no thank you.

The sellers have until Monday (the official closing date) to produce said documentation. If they don't, we're in a bit of trouble. My lawyer has said we can close on Tuesday at the latest. Otherwise, she will petition for occupancy if they don't cough up the paperwork, meaning KK and I can move in on Friday as planned, but we will not own the house until such time as all the paperwork is in order. If we don't get occupancy, in theory the sellers would be on the hook for any expenses we incur while we don't move (like needing to live in a hotel, putting our stuff in storage, etc.), but my lawyer rightfully pointed out that, given the sellers' financial status, "you can't get water from a stone."

Blargh.

It feels like the universe is trying to shave several decades out of my life from sheer anxiety. Weirdly, I am less stressed out about this than I was about the financial bullshit that happened yesterday. Finances are a big red panic button issue for me, but legal documentation doesn't appear to fall into the same category. I won't know until Monday if the sellers have produced all the necessary documentation, so I guess I get to worry about it all weekend. Hurray.

Okay. Time to go feed and water the quail, and then head to bed, since I'm working all weekend. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: anxious

I am very grumpy about having to get up early to go to the credit union to sign all my mortgage paperwork. The experience wasn't terrible, but it didn't have much going for it. First I got caught in long weekend rush hour traffic on my way there, and arrived exactly on the nose, only to get very turned around because not a single solitary door had a number or a label on it. It turned out the office wasn't even accessible from the main building lobby, it had a separate entrance at the back of the building. I had to call the representative for directions, and he came to get me.

The representative was very nice, but he had not anticipated having the kind of client who carefully reads all documentation before signing it, so it took a lot longer to get through the appointment than the time he'd budgeted. I regret nothing. ;) However, there was a glitch in the computer system when it came time to sign up for the insurance portion of the mortgage, and there was no way to fix it, since the automated system had gone into "weekend mode" (his term) and there was no one from IT available outside of office hours. So in order not to delay the payout of the mortgage I had to waive the insurance portion, which makes me very uncomfy, but the representative assured me that we can fix that next week.

All in all, I did not enjoy the process.

I've been mostly talking about my own problems here lately, but the world continues to be on fire. Carney, our new Prime Minister, went on an official visit to the White House last week, and to all appearances held his own with a fair bit of aplomb. There was an entertaining amount of Canadian passive-aggressiveness, some very amusing side-eyes at the camera, and lots of backhanded compliments that Trump took completely at face value.

I still have a lot of doubts about Carney. His focus has been mostly on the economy and fixing the housing crisis, and he's pledged to massively increase defense spending and car manufacturing, and needless to say, I don't share those priorities, especially not car manufacturing. Given the current climate change crisis, we should be moving well away from cars and investing in robust public transit and 15-minute accessible cities. But noooo, cars uber alles, I guess. Ugh. He's also eliminated the cabinet positions devoted to people with disabilities and women and gender equality issues, which is a huge step back for the country, especially given the meagre progress we've made on that front to begin with. I am really unimpressed with that.

At least India and Pakistan appear to have backed off plunging the entire world into nuclear winter. The USA continues its horrendous slide into fascism, with the firing of the Librarian of Congress (the first black woman to ever occupy the post, appointed by Obama, back when the world still seemed sane), ICE grabbing people off the streets and leaving their minor children stranded there, and DOGE continuing to wreak havoc across all government departments.

Watching the USA go down like this feels a little like watching a friend who was always a little unstable succumb to a drug addiction. You always worried about them in the past, and now you're worried that not only are they going to self-destruct, they're going to take you down with them and burn your house down too for good measure.

*sigh*

I am really looking forward to my bed. I have about four and a half hours before my shift is over, and I do want to stop at the local U-Haul store (luckily a five-minute drive from my house) and pick up more boxes, because Monday is a statutory holiday and I won't be able to get them then. And then I plan to do all the sleeping.

I think that's it for now. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: tired

You know, if all that was required of me to be successful in life was making plans, I would be acing this whole "being a successful human" thing. I love making plans, the more detailed, the better. The problem, of course, is that to actually succeed at things, you have to enact said plans, and that is where everything kind of falls apart for me.

KK kind of falls into the same category as me, and we are pretty terrible about enabling each other at making plans and then following through on maybe 10% of them. To be fair, it's a lot of fun to make plans, and I don't mind too much if all the low-stakes, castles-in-Spain plans don't come to fruition. It's actually really fun to talk about these things and throw ideas back and forth and build it up in our imaginations. I don't know if she is quite as aware as I am that our reach might exceed our grasp in a lot of cases, but I suspect she is.

I am also well aware of my propensity to make grand plans to completely turn my life around while I'm working night shifts (I talked about in in a previous post a few weeks ago, during another round of night shifts), and I have just come to accept it as one of my brain's quirky little ways of generating dopamine, so I just let it happen now and try not to convince myself that this time will totally be different, no, really! As long as I can accept that this is just an exercise in making my brain go *brrrt*, and that I have no expectations of actually doing anything about it, then it's a harmless little pastime during slower night shifts.

Right now I am trying to make sensible plans for packing up the house next week. Working 12-hour shifts this weekend means I won't get anything done, and there is no sense in deluding myself into thinking that I will somehow manage to do anything other than sleep and go to work. My current ambitious plan is to try to get a lot of packing done on Monday, when normally I'd spend a chunk of the day sleeping after my night shift. Don't get me wrong, I will still sleep when I get home, but it will be more of a two-hour power nap and then I'll aim to go to bed very early as a way of shifting over my sleep schedule as quickly as possible.

Tuesday through Thursday I've hired the professional organizer I had hired back in... March? I think? *checks calendar* Nope, first week of April. ANYWAY. I have hired her to come for six hours a day to help me pack up the garage and, if there's enough time, the basement. I am reasonably confident that I can pack up the upstairs on my own (minus KK's room and bathroom), and if I have friends able and willing to help pack the kitchen and dining room, that will also be really helpful. I might be able to do it on my own, but only time will tell.

So far most of the coworkers I have asked for a shift switch have said no, which is sad but not unexpected. I have two coworkers left who might be able to help me out. One is coming in for a shift today, and the other won't be in until Monday, so if the first one says no I'll just have to log into my email account from home to see if the second is willing to take one for the team. He very well might, since I agreed to swap weekends with him back in November so he could take his wife to go see Taylor Swift in Toronto, but it will of course be dependent on whether he has other commitments lined up already. Getting the weekend off to pack would be ideal, but if I can't get it, I will cope.

I have set one boundary with regards to the packing with KK, and that's that I expect her to pack up her own shit. I am by far the more able-bodied of the two of us, so I don't mind that I'm probably going to end up packing up most of the house on my own. I need her to still be physically functional by the time moving day arrives, so I'm perfectly willing to take that on. What I am not willing to take on, however, is packing up her office or her bedroom or her bathroom. Those three rooms are all on her, and I told her that many weeks ago. Like me, she hasn't started packing yet, but I don't plan on bailing her out at the last minute. Whatever she hasn't packed is just going to get left behind, and she can figure out how to get it delivered to the house. The chances of her not being ready in time are not super high, but they're also not zero, either. But I can't be responsible for myself, the whole house, the pets, AND her stuff. So she gets to be responsible for that.

Somewhere in the next ten days I am going to lose at least half a day to attend the closing for the house. I haven't heard from the lawyer, come to think of it, so I'll shoot them an email to make sure everything is still good on that front, or if they need more information from me or something. Great. Another thing to be paranoid about. Well, at least it should be a relatively easy fix, and it's 10 days before my official closing date (and more than one business week), so hopefully there's nothing to worry about. Anyway, I assume the closing will be done at the lawyer's office in Cornwall, so I'll have to drive out there and back, and even if it takes an hour or less to sign all the paperwork, it means at least a three hour trip, possibly longer.

I think it's still doable, God help me. I may just be deluding myself, but I am an incurable optimist when it comes to these things. I guess we'll find out!

All right, time to close out this night shift. I have a little over two hours left before I can go home and get some sleep. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: optimistic

I have spent all of this shift halfway convinced that it's my third night shift instead of my second. I think it's the fact that I've already been working for nine days straight that makes it feel like it's later in the week than it actually is. I still have five more nights to go, including the 12-hour weekend shifts. I am not really looking forward to any of it, but it is what it is.

I managed to get about six hours of sleep and probably would have slept longer had I not had to get up early for my therapy appointment. I have made the grievous error of agreeing to multiple meetings and appointments this week. I keep trying to not schedule stuff during my evening and night shifts, and I keep failing abysmally. It's just never a good idea, but sometimes there just isn't another choice. Alas.

So later today I have a meeting with tow members of Ministry & Counsel about a small worship group one of them wants to start centered around chronic illness, and on Friday I am going to my new credit union to sign my life away in order to qualify for a reduced interest rate on my new mortgage. Okay, I exaggerate slightly for effect, but essentially I have to switch over to a checking account with the credit union and have my pay direct deposited there in order to qualify.

I've sent out feelers to my coworkers to see if anyone will trade my weekend day shifts in 10 days with me. Getting the weekend off to be able to focus on packing would be a godsend, but I'm not going to hold my breath. People are pretty accommodating at my workplace, but we're getting into summer vacation time and people are a busier with kids and commitments and stuff. Fingers crossed, anyway.

Okay. Time to wrap this up. Catch you on the flip side, friends!

Current Mood: awake

I didn't get a nap in before I had to go to work, and now I am extremely tired and my head hurts. My back also hurts, but that's because I changed out the quail enclosures and then wrangled cats and dogs to the vet, not because I didn't nap. I wish napping fixed back pain, honestly, it would make my life so much easier. I am very sad that I didn't get to nap. I feel like a nap would have made everything a lot more tolerable.

I didn't get any packing done, either. I know: surprise, surprise. I am my own worst enemy these days. Even if I get some packing done this week while I'm on night shifts, I'm definitely going to have to rely on adrenaline-fueled panic in the two weeks before we move. I think I can get it done, but it's going to be a stressful time, for sure.

I am still torn about whether or not to bring some of my furniture with me. I think there simply isn't enough room for most of my bedroom furniture, even with a Murphy bed installed. Part of me wants to bring it anyway and store it in the garage, because eventually I want to tear down the garage (the home inspector said it will need to come down in a few years no matter what) and build what would essentially be an extension to the house. More to the point, I want to build out some extra independent living space just in case one or both of my parents ends up needing to come live with us. So I was thinking an extra bedroom or two, a bathroom, and either a kitchenette or a kitchen, depending on space and how much it would all cost. I obviously don't have the money now (especially not now that my cats need dental surgery), but I am being given a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) to accompany the house, and I might be able to use it for the construction costs. I definitely can't afford to build an entire new house, but something simple might well be doable. I'll have to look into what permits I'd need and what is and isn't allowed on the property, of course, but I like this plan. Of course, we all know what happens to the best-laid plans of mice and men...

Speaking of the cats' dental surgery, I have a sneaking suspicion that we're going to have to switch all the cats over to wet food, at least in part. The vet said he wouldn't make recommendations for food until after the surgery, since we don't know how many teeth are going to need to come out, but even so, adding wet food is probably a good idea. Of course, that is going to be wildly expensive, so I am thinking of starting some rabbit breeding ahead of schedule (I was going to start next year) and use the meat and organs as a base to make my own raw/wet food for the cats. I'll have to consult with my vet to see how complicated the nutrition aspect is for cats (I have heard horror stories about people feeding their pets inadequate "raw food" diets) so that I don't accidentally deprive them of essential nutrients.

I feel like I had more I wanted to post about, but my brain is kind of mush right now, so I guess I'll call it here and hope I remember whatever it was later on today.

Catch you on the flip side, folks!

Current Mood: tired

Profile

mousme

Navigation

March 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Night Sea for Tranquility III by branchandroot

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Apr. 10th, 2026 08:17 pm

Corner of Bourbon & Division

Her Words of Wisdom Scratched Into The Door

Entries tagged with house stuff

March 8th, 2026

March 5th, 2026

January 25th, 2026

January 15th, 2026

Updating on the treadmill

Happy Birthday to Me!

State of the Everything

I made it!

At least I didn't sacrifice my sleep for nothing

It's only the second night

Even my productive days feel unproductive

Breaking not-news

Ah, sleep. Still ever-elusive.

I'm not really back, but I'm trying

On today's agenda: only screaming

Meet the new stress, a little different from the old stress

The most annoying appointment

I am so much better at planning than executing

It feels later in the week than it is...

I am filled with mild regret

Profile

Navigation

March 2026

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags