A Busy Day

Slept in. Skipped work. Went to the Presidential Museum. Had lunch at I-Hop (terrible service, don't ask). Afternoon at the Gardens. Then home to relax, have birthday party, eat ice cream and cupcakes, followed by flashlight tag. Finally, bed.

Dad and Mom and Jude and Caleb and Rebekah are leaving in the morning. Safe travel to all!

We're all fine, Thank You

Mum and Dad and Jude and Caleb and Rebekah are here. They are all doing well. If only I had the time off work to spend time with them. It's been bloody awful at work lately, lots of hours - 70 last week! - and it hasn't gotten any better. Now my eyes are bloodshot and my brain is fuzzy and the only thing that sends a spark of delight to my brain is the thought of going ... to ... bed.

Good-night!

Spring has Arrived

Spring arrives with a special tingling sensation in the nose, followed by a burning in the sinuses and the throat, and is announced with the first True Sneeze. This is no ordinary dust-in-the-air kind of sneeze with its mere momentary lapse into uncontrollable expulsion of contaminants, nor is it the feverish, miserable slogging kind of sneeze which screams for the sweet oblivion of TheraFlu or NyQuil. It is instead the harbinger of an entire season of wretched drowsiness, interspersed with frantic bouts of brain-crushing, lung-etching internal muscular spasms which make the sufferer long for a quick and painless death.

The first True Sneeze of the Season occurred today, and its arrival was surprising given that my current rate of medication is adequate to quash most of the negative effects of cat ownership. But there was something different about the sneeze today. It reached far back into my throat and coursed like rough sandpaper up through my sinuses into my living brain tissue, and exploded out from my skull as though a million pores had suddenly opened at once. And it repeated itself over and over again until not a single intelligible thought was left inside.

Such is the course of natural events when the air outside warms to temperate levels, and all the elements in God's green Earth awaken to begin their cycle of rebirth. All the spores and seeds soar into the sky in a dramatic flurry of happy activity, and their little in-built radar directs them towards my nose - "Ah! A safe and happy home!" - where they congregate for the first party of the season; and amid all the gaiety and merriment, my over-active immune system decides to play Bad Cop / Bad Cop and throw the bums out.

So I reach into my Happy Pill drawer and down a few, hoping it will be enough to bribe those immunological zealots into docility so that it is possible to compose a clear thought; and I toss in a few ounces of carbonated caramelized caffeination to keep from falling asleep at my post; and I go downstairs where the air is cool and clear (of cat hair) and tap on the keyboard and wait patiently for the breathing to become smooth once again.

The End of Another Week

All of the plans for getting things done this week were thrown right out the window, and I'm not in the mood right now to go into the "why" of it all. Suffice it to say it's been a frustrating week. I had hoped to get some time to work on the downstairs, but that assumed an empty house and a free work schedule, neither of which materialized.

The floor panels were completed, though, so there was a little bit of progress; but my energy level has been shot all week thanks to the side-effects of various inoculations (and thanks to the habit of some to come to work even when ill). The walls still need to go up; I've got four 4x8 pieces framed up, but they need trimming a bit due to overhead duct work. Maybe that'll get worked on tomorrow.

Meanwhile the weather was gorgeous today. Cheryl and I went on a walk in the afternoon, and it was warm enough to make us believe it was really spring.

Of course, the weather guys have been threatening snow for the weekend. That's Michigan for you.

Home at Last

Cheryl and the kids are back home now, safe and sound. So the family gets a few days of rest during Spring Break, right?

Well, James has this school project to work on ...

Day of Rest?

Today I'm tired, so I haven't done much in the way of hard work. Made a trip down to the hardware store to get some floor panels and 2x3s (for walls), then worked on organizing all the photos I've been taking over the past three months but never putting up.

So if you go look at the Flickr site, you'll find the following new entries:

Winter Fun Weekend

The Cousins Come to Visit

Air Zoo

Spring Break

Slow Progress

Just like everything else around here, it isn't the difficulty of the tasks which cause delays, it's the prerequisites.

In order to get the walls built downstairs, it's necessary to finish laying down the subflooring panels. But I'll need to cut the subflooring panels to size (like jigsaw puzzles) and cut slots in them, so the table saw (with the dado blade) needs to be set up, plus the Skilsaw, plus the jigsaw. But then I need a new outlet near the worktable in the garage. So first I have to clear out the area around the worktable, and that takes awhile. Plus I have to get the car out of the garage so the table saw can be rolled out to the middle of the garage floor. But before I can get the car out of the garage, the window needs to be fixed (it popped out of the track again). In order to fix the window, I have to pull out the mechanism and clean it up, then re-grease it, then re-install the mechanism, then put the window back in. But by the time the window is nearly in, it's time for my haircut and I have to go (with no driver-side window).

It's afternoon when I return. The window still needs to be put back in so I can go to the hardware store later on. Getting it back in takes a while. Finally, the car is out in the driveway and the table saw is in position, so it's time for measuring and cutting subfloor panels.

That takes a lot longer than I'd planned, since each endpiece has to be specially cut to fit. Plus there are special shapes that have to be cut out - like the pipes and drains for the bathroom.

After hours and hours, I've run out of subfloor panels and have to stop. Still not done, walls not up - but it's nine o'clock, and I'm beat.

Guess we'll see how far we get tomorrow.

Alone Again, Naturally

The house is completely quiet, except for the hum of the laptop fan and the tick-tock of the clock on the window sill near the kitchen sink. The cats, after their usual morning breakfast, are sleeping upstairs on my bed, shedding their fur all over the comforter so that I can breathe it in tonight and wake up tomorrow morning with a stuffed-up head.

In a few moments, there will be noise aplenty; I'm going to be turning on the table saw and cutting some floor panels to finish up the basement rooms downstairs. The "mechanical room" (that's what they call the room where the furnace and water heater reside) was walled in nearly four years ago, but we decided we didn't like the layout and want to change it - which is why the walls were only temporary; and it also didn't include the wood subflooring panels which were installed throughout the rest of the basement last year, so those have to be put in place.

Then I'm going to put up the walls, including the walls for the basement bathroom. After that's done, it's time to finish up James' bedroom.

I'm not sure if it's possible to get it all done in the next few days, but it would be nice for Cheryl to find a few improvements when she gets back from visiting her sister in Iowa.

The kids handled the long trip very well, she said last night on the phone. They completed (or nearly completed) three books-on-CD, and the trip seemed to take no time at all.

I was just happy they made it there OK. It was raining when they left, and the idea of driving through (or around) Chicago in the rain, with the annual construction (because they don't know how to build ice- and truck-resistant roads in the upper Midwest) did not thrill me at all.

But they are there, and safe, and enjoying the visit. And doing lots of work, packing up boxes full of stuff for moving or garage sale or whatever they end up doing. I miss them all immmensely, but have enough work around here to keep me busy as well.

Speaking of which, I'd better get to it. It's getting late.