Wow. Woot!

.
.
I knew I had the tele-tech coming in this morning between 8:00 and 9:00 but I couldn't get to sleep until a half past midnight.  I did set my alarm for 6:00, in the dim hope that I might be able to clean up a bit around the area he would be working.  The dust on the components was thick enough to use as a blanket and the floor of that area, where I have mostly been "living" for the last six months or more, was littered with... well... the debris of living!  Gnarly, rough, not good, and some other things. 

I woke at 4:00, not sure I really wanted to get up but...  And I kicked around, drank a bit of coffee, and goofed until 5:30.  I fed the girls, let Sam out, then goofed until 6:00.  I wasn't sure anything was going to get done.  It was then that I decided I should at least take a shower.  A shower I thought?  But... the dishes are in there.  Well, that one trailing load.  So... I did those dishes.  I washed, rinsed, dried, and put them up.  And of course I cleaned out and dried off the bin I am using as a dishpan.  THEN I took a shower.  Okay.

But I wasn't done.  I got into the living room, started tearing into the area.  Where to start though?  Hmm, the folding diner tablettes.  They had lots of stuff on them, and needed cleared and cleaned.  So I did that.  I set them aside.  Then I grabbed the tv cleaner disposable cloths and cleaned off the television screen, the rest of the tv, then on to dusting the stand, blue-ray player, PS 3, and the general area.  Finally I tore everything that was just lying around out.  Most of it was simply trash or trash worthy at this point.  Into the (rectangular albeit) circular file that all went.  Moving my chair, I decided to sweep the carpet before trying to vacuum.  I did that, then vacuumed.  But... like they say with Pringles or whatever, one chip won't do, so I pretty much vacuumed all of the living room I could get too.  Remember, I was on a timer so I had to try to stay focused. The area almost looks livable again!

Then I had to sit.  I goofed until he arrived.  While he was here, to avoid being a hoverer for the whole time, I went and finished off the dishes in the sink (they are rinsing, I added a little bit of vinegar to the rinse, for surety).  Oh, and before I took my shower and after the dishes were done, I cleaned the toilet bowl and gave the rest of it a first hit.  Lime-Away is fantastic, for me, here.  After he was here and gone, with much done, I decided a more proper meal was in order, so I made tuna mac and cheese from as much scratch as is possible this far from the sea.

That on top of other works that have been happening.  Yeah, I might get some things going by the time my mother is here.  The other night, when I thought I would just be going to bed, I ended up hungry.  And with meats thawed, but the stove and my cast iron pan in deplorable conditions, I got to work.  I cleaned the stove quite well, and twice, perhaps thrice, right down to the sparkle.  I cleaned the iron too, making it food ready again.

Bit by bit, sometimes in leaps and bounds, sometimes one solitary lonely job at a time.  Progress is going forward.   Life is good!

Good day.

Not much, not far, not fast.

.
.
It is definitely movement, and work goes on.  One load of pots and pans and a roaster down, one more soaking, and dishes were given a fresh soak.  Why do I hate dishes so much?  Well, it isn't necessarily the dishes, it is the clutter around the dishes... well and the clutter of the dirty dishes too.  When I finish with the pots and pans I may just start doing regular dishes in there.  I just feel a lot less claustrophobic doing dishes in the dishpan in the bathtub.  Sinks are so small!

I have done a few odd other assorted things as well.  Nothing fancy, nothing big, just... somethings.  It does add up.  And, as I said, when these dishes are washed and away I will be going to disposable only... as much as I can tolerate that.  I love solid silverware and good plates.  I just can't keep on top of them.  I will keep to my glass drinkware, but the rest is... history.

Tired.  Good and tired.  I didn't let the headache slow me down, if that didn't help me much either.  Still, I'll do what I can, whatever the case.  I know there will be days where nothing will get done, as usual.  I don't even begrudge that too much anymore... just the facts of life.  Well, okay, I begrudge the hell out of it, I just don't beat myself up over it.

It's bedtime, and at a right proper time... 20:47 or some such.  I won't be setting the alarm, just waking when I wake.  Then a few hours of goofing, then back into a rotation of wash, wash, rinse, repeat as necessary... tending to the girl's, and my own, hunger as needed.  I will sleep well, I hope you do likewise.  Good night.

Oh, really? Why, yes. Yes indeed.

.
.
I have been slowly returning to life.  Oh, nothing fancy, and it started with a few dishes one day, cat litter the next, along with the help from the neighbor.  I think he and his son's help... broke something open.  Or at least helped quite a bit.  It can be so difficult to see chores, tasks, jobs, wants, and such and be able to do nothing but sit.  So it is always a wonderful thing to be able to begin tearing in even at what is still, and probably will remain, a snail's pace.  But at a snail's pace at least some things will be done.

Yesterday I called Emergency Essentials.  I believed they had shorted me two cans of seed I had ordered.  They promised to resend those.  The woman on the line questioned my thoughts, so I promised I would recheck the supplies.  She put the order in and suggested that if I find them, just call and cancel.  I did recheck, too.  I try to be a man of my word.  No seed, so I needed do nothing more.  Then I asked about the year supply of grain and legumes...  That was backordered it seems.  It had just arrived and would be being sent out yesterday or today.  No problem there, I assured her, just so long as the order had indeed been placed (at that very nice price), and that it was all in the pipeline.  I was quite good with waiting a few days, weeks, or month.  So, my grains are on their way!

After that I placed an order for cable television.  Tomorrow, it seems.  And I was able to tag the third tier for the price of the second tier, without a contract.  I just want to make sure my mother has enough to watch, the local channels would not have made her very happy.  Only a few major cable channels would also have been a bit dry.  While I really would like to have the Catholic channel, I just don't like television.  Well, there is the cooking channel too.  But, like, I have been doing any of that.  Hmm...  Anyway, that will probably be quit at the end of her stay.  Probably.  There was another call yesterday, but I can't remember what that was. 

Today, I woke up hard.  I felt like someone had done a blackjack number on my skull.  One dose of aspirin, and another to come, and I seem to be doing a bit better.  I fed the girls and degaussed their litter pan first thing.  Then goofed a goodly bit.  But getting the coffee pot clean, and coffee grinder refreshed, has been on my mind.  So, I broke the grinder down and soaked it in vinegar.  I then set the coffee pot to run through several doses of vinegar, now I need to begin running through several pots of fresh-each-time water.  The coffee grinder together and should be fresh.

Next, more goofing.  A goodly lot.  Goofing equals console games (Skyrim).  After that, I re-soaked the dishes, putting the vinegar-water from the coffee pot in with that load.  It just smells bad even after a wash or two and several fresh soaks.  That might just be the drain?  Anyway...  I was lamenting the big pans I have to wash in the little sink.  Then I remembered something!  I bought that big tub in order to wash the big stuff, without completely gunking-up the bathtub.  So, I emptied the bin out, put some soap in the bottom, and took it into the tub and began filling it and loading it with the bigger things.  The roaster, the 20 quart pot, several 3-5 quart pans... you get the picture... the things that standard sinks just don't fit correctly.  So, washing the dishes should be completed in a day or two.

Yes, things are moving forward.  Life is coming back to my bones, muscle, skin, brain...  It isn't fear.  It is more... excitement?  Looking forward to having some company?  Having a goal?  I dunno.  It's not just one thing.  This sort of thing works once in a while, and allows me to do much more for a short time (potentially), but it doesn't last and in real terms it is lackluster.  You can only say it is wonderful if you know me well enough to see it.

I need to thaw some meat.  With dishes going forward, I should have a pot to cook in and a bowl to put leftovers.  Nothing fancy, perhaps mac and tuna cheese, but the actual kind, not that insta-crap.  Or... something else.  Meat!  I need meat too!  I suspect I should thaw several bits of meat.  Anyway... it is moving along, slowly albeit.

Good day.

Trying to shove it into gear.

.
.
I didn't finish the dishes, yet.  Washed twice though, they just need one more time for me to feel right about them.  If I hadn't mentioned, the hydrant has been filled around.  I was quite pleased about that.  The lawn got torn up a bit, but that is a far lesser problem, and one I CAN solve next spring.  A little seed, a rake, and a week or two of tinkering will be a project I might enjoy.  I am, however, going forward with a few other arrangements.

I will be calling today to make sure my mother has television from day one.  She is as plugged into tv as I am to the net, or gaming.  Yeah, we are an owned people, true enough.  The people who bring me food offered to continue doing so.  My mother, however, would have none of it.  She was grateful for the offer, but cooking is not an issue for her, it's something she truly enjoys.  As well, she had me look up the distance to a cousin's home.  He lives in the redoubt, deeply.  Fishes and hunts, too, go figure.  My mother would like our 'vacation' time to be a visit with them.  I suspect that can be arranged, even with gas prices and the distance.  But the travel and stay will take four days.  Not a problem.  We may need time off by then, perhaps putting the visit right in the middle of my mother's stay.  If my cousin and his wife are amenable to the proposal anyway.

I have been keeping the girls fed, but keeping up on the litter box fell a bit behind.  I was only doing that a few times a week, three at least.  But the crystal litter has held up quite well.  When I went back to get the same stuff though, the store either no longer carries it or they were out.  Several stores actually, simply didn't have it.  I found a similar type, just different brand.  I hate changing brands right away on a new product trial, but...  Both brands do quite well.  And that first type lasts about three to four weeks.  Even then it wasn't as skunky smelling as regular stuff after only a week, even after I started cleaning it out.  Urine smells simply vanish in this stuff.  Just so you know.  And, pound for pound of useful litter, it is far cheaper, and lighter, than the other stuff.  Yeah, I am plugging for it.

Hmm, to make a call and get the dishes into a fresh soak for a final wash this afternoon.  Then maybe to some laundry.  I dunno.  I want the dishes done and the kitchen spiffy for my mom.  If I have time, after that, I want to make the bathroom particularly nice and perhaps create a space for her stuff, a medicine cabinet just for her in there, I think.  I might have one around.  Anyway...

Good day.

Teh boy is alive, alive I tell ya!

.
.
Okay, I'm not doing wind sprints, benching weights, swimming, or... much.  But I did hit the first load of dishes.  Well, I didn't FINISH them, but that wasn't possible.  After sitting in a soak for a very long time they had to be washed off first before being washed.  And that has gone forward and they are sitting back in a fresh soak, to be completed tonight/this morning.  It killed my legs and lower back, but that is the way of it when the 'machine' has been out of commission for a while.  Cranky, rusted, and such, but I will deal with that.

I have other things I am beginning to plan.  Grocery shopping tops the list.  While I have been doing okay, food-wise, it has not been optimal.  No one died, unlike other less than optimal outcomes, but...  I have been barely keeping in bits of food.  If it weren't for incoming food I would have been in serious trouble though.  Milk, tobacco, caffeine, all being kept at marginal levels.  I am working on keeping more food available that I can simply supplement the real meals on wheels.  I am probably going back to those breakfast bars.  After being off all of that for over a month my diabetes is staying solid at 130-140.  While high, it is better than 200-400, or even well over 600-700.  Plus, those bars are really easy, were helping me lose weight, and just work.  I think my diabetes will do what it does regardless of what I do.

We got our first snow tonight.  It has been raining the last two days, I believe.  It just turned to snow sometime tonight.  It won't stay, most likely.  Being a winter man, I do like seeing that first snow.  I can deal with the cold, it is that heat that gets to me.  I am keeping my home just a bit warmer this year though.  Not really for comfort, more so that if the window of opportunity to get to things or get out arise, I can leap on it.  I would love to get out, after the first snow, and just look at the local world, go up a pass, enjoy the crisp air.  I do love it here.  This is where I like to love and will probably die, someday. 

Yes, back on track perhaps.  We will see.  Good day/night/morning... something.  Whatever it happens to be for you because those things mean nothing to me.

Politics? Bah! Bleh! Meh?

.
.
No, I don't like the choices.  A moderate versus a slightly less moderate.  No, I do like Romney.  He's out of my circles, but... not really.  Just where he has gotten in life, not in who he is.  He is a common man, just a hard worker, who had goals, health, and parlayed his life well.  As a man, fine.  I would give him the shirt off my back in need.  But as a pol?  Nice guys finish last.  Then again, from what I believe I saw between the lines in this election cycle, he isn't... truly nice.  No, not a bogeyman either, just... rather... insistent, persistent, intent, and willing to do what it takes... within true reason from what I can tell.  Still, politically, I am... simply not convinced.  The Bush's burned me on politics quite a bit.

Of course, Zero HAS to go.  And, Romney is the ONLY one that can make him go.  R. Paul, Johnson?  They have zero chances.  And, regardless of what Vox suggests about a vote for Paul being a vote for Zero, the truth is half of that is true.  It IS one less vote for Romney.  Then again, and in truth, I think Romney has it in the bag.  I don't think more Republicans are going to turn out, I think more everybodys are going to turn out, save maybe Dems (though many indies will vote for him, shielded by the ambiguity of being an indy).  I believe Romney will win huge, and the numbers voting will be larger than we have seen... probably ever, and possibly even by ratio for the last several decades (meaning, at one time nearly everyone who could vote, did... that has changed, it is down to... what... 60% of voters?  summit like that).

Something almost kicked over today.

.
.
I wasn't able to capture it, but for about an hour this morning I almost felt alive!  It doesn't seem like much.  Contrasted with not being able to sit or lie comfortably, while in a gray fog, for the last hundred and eleventy days it... was a kindness.  Perhaps I am trying to pick up a bit before my mother arrives.  An old dog, trying to wag his tail for his old master?  Dunno.

Then, the fellow that brings me meals saw that... the house was a bit ragged.  So... he and son scoop in, vacuum trash and recyclables into a dozenty bags, hauls it all out to the bins, and takes the bins to the street!  That gives me room to breath.  So, I set the dishes to a soak and hope to get to them soon.  I'll keep the soak fresh until I get to the dishes.  A shower wouldn't hurt either.  And some laundry.  Something needs to break.  Mom is coming!

I've been tinkering with the heat.  I keep it 72 all of the time, kicking it up to 76 when my bones hurt from cold, turning it back down when the heat makes me break out in hives, and with my bedroom being an ice cube factory for sleep, it works pretty well.  Not much else has happened, but maybe a few things might get kicked over soon.  Oh, and I am staying right at around 260 pounds.  I quit much of my snacking because it was fueling my diabetes, which I haven't checked in a while.  If it is back under control I need to find a new set of snack foods to add nutrition, which fuels weight loss.  I'll keep tinkering with that until I have a load of quick easy foods that don't bugger my diabetes.  In any case, I think the 'fever' might be breaking.  I might be able to get my feet on the ground and get some things done before my mother arrives.  I do hope, someday, to have a clean home to invite her to visit.  It's possible today, it just wouldn't be MY home.  :p

Good day... evening... fine, it's night... uhrm, morning already?  Never you mind.  But I'm not a gonna go to bed!  Though I hope you sleep/slept well.