Weekend Plans Got Changed

Uncle Scott got energetic on me last night. Portable AC unit is now in my bedroom, and I need to tweak my bedroom furniture placement to fit it best. And the attic is now mostly sealed, but it turned out what I was saving as the attic door (and I think both me and Mom agreed was the attic door) was the wrong dimensions to be the attic door. What the hell was it a door to? It is made of a thick piece of plywood, so the old kitchen cabinets are out of contention.

Regardless, now I have to go to Lowe's armed with measurements for a new door and get wood cut to fit into the hole. And since Uncle Scott made room in my parents' garage room for the hulk of a shelving unit that has been on my porch ever since Mom closed her shop (how many years has that been now?), I can move that off my porch! I've been inspired to finish my porch furniture and embrace the space, just in time for the hottest part of the year.

I never claimed to have great timing.

My porch furniture: three rocking chairs built by Hephaistos knows and painted green, the extended tabletop from my computer desk that needs legs, a twig/stick table built by Hephaistos knows, a log from the cedar tree that was cut down at some point in 2009 (here's reason 1 and reason 2 for why it had to come down) that I just had a brilliant idea to turn it into a side table, and that's all I can remember here at work. The plan so far is to clean the green paint off the rockers and polyurethane the natural wood look. The table top will get legs and come off my sawhorses. And turn the log into a side table. So I'll be spending a lot of time and money at Lowe's this weekend.

Rizzo needs an oil change, grocery shopping, and paying bills rounds out the rest of the weekend goals. I also need to take pictures of the progress.

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The BookWorm

One More Day in May

The everyday posting my writing progress takes the wind out of my sails for updating anything else. I need to work on that.

Back on May 10th, I finally got my hair cut. Thirteen inches off to Locks of Love, and I need to take a picture of it so I recreate the hairstyle in the future.

When we last met, I was going to my friends the new parents to host an amateur episode of Clean House and see the Avengers. That didn't happen on the Avenger's opening weekend. The long and hopefully funny version is on my LJ account. I got Mom a portable scanner for Mother's Day and my sisters will be getting collection letters this week for their unpaid portions. The weekend after that, Eric and Suzanne had more family visiting to see JIM. So the Memorial Day holiday was spent cleaning their house and FINALLY getting to see the Avengers.

I'm still processing the movie. Dad may not have a choice not to go see it for Father's Day, so I can see it again. *Grin* Though I think my favorite joke is when Steve Rogers pulls a ten dollar bill out of his wallet and hands it to Nick Fury without saying a word. Yeah, I like that even more than when Loki meets the Hulk for the first time.

But while I was paying or earning karma (or at least a big hair flower a la Nicey Nash) over this past weekend, I came home to an electrical dead computer and a dead bedroom AC unit. The electronics failure is thanks to my battery backup dying and not an inside the wall wiring problem. And the AC was something I ended up with when Chad and I broke up, and it was used when he got it. So I'm actually surprised how long it lasted, even though I'm annoyed that I have to rearrange the AC units. One would think that the living room's would blow enough cold air into my bedroom. It doesn't. :p Luckily, I have a unit to move around without having to go buy another one.

At the paying job, T'Lania came to work for us. It's half-days because we don't want to tax her too much, but all she is depending on is a cane to walk with and controlling hand tremors. This is a HUGE deal because four years ago, we didn't know if she would live or die much less walk again. She has come such a long way.

Plans: The weekend will be here before I know it. I have to pay bills, send out the collections letters, buy a new battery backup, and relocate the AC units. Beyond that, I'd love to have a front porch again (i.e. clean off the junk Mom left there while she's in Texas and tell her via phone she can't bitch about it), but heat is also a factor in that project.

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The BookWorm

Why Do I Leave So Many Tabs Open?

Lincoln High School in Walla Walla Tries a New Approach to School Discipline - Suspensions Drop by 85%: I sincerely agree that this approach needs to be moved into all schools.

Jezebel: Rock the Slut Vote If you're as tired of old, white men telling you what to do with your body as I am, you should be voting.

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake! No matter how you feel about Stephen King's writing, he grew up poor and was a poor adult with a family to support when Carrie sold. He understands (a hell of a lot more than Mitt Romney EVER will) why people need government safety nets.

LASERs I'm providing this link so you can educate yourself what new bonehead moves the state Legislature is trying to pull. I need to find a spot of Zen and write up my coherent "I'm a taxpayer, a state worker, voter, and a reader, asshole. Don't you dare try to pull this shit!" letter to my state representatives. Zen, so I don't cuss them out. But this stance of we want government services but don't want to pay anyone to do them is bullshit. And then to tax us for the joy of working for the state government? Colbert, take over please.

Thanks.

More for me than anyone else.

The Earth is warming up. The rate of warming has increased in the past century or so. This corresponds to the time of the Industrial Revolution, when we started dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases warm the planet (hence the name) — if they didn’t we’d have an average temperature below the freezing point of water. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas which is dumped into the atmosphere by humans to the tune of 30 billion tons per year, 100 times the amount from volcanoes. And finally, approximately 97% of climatologists who actually study climate agree that global warming is real, and caused by humans. -- Bad Astronomy: More Debunking of the ex-NASA 49 climate change deniers

Matthew Vines: The Gay Debate: Homosexuality and the Bible He has deconstructed the argument with the Bible and it is AWESOME.

Another moment of AWESOME Caine's Arcade. This will be a charity I'll donate to when I can because this amount of ingenuity must be encouraged for the sake of us all.

Lifehacker reviewed KanbanFlow and I decided to give it a try for a few reasons. Namely, I keep looking for a GTD list tool that doesn't let me oops forgot anything and actually encourages me to finish projects but also keeps the repetitive tasks that should be habits by now but aren't at the forefront. Two: KanbanFlow has limits built into it (can only have three tasks In Progress at one time), so I must chose what I'm doing and I'm aware of the choice. Three: felt like it.

It took three days to put in all my lists, but it was time well spent. First discovery: holy crap, I list a hell of a lot on my weekly to do list and rarely accomplish a third of it. Not a new revelation, but it was time to clean off the Big Rocks list and keeping my choices narrowed down to three in progress.

Second discovery: I meant to go through my writing projects and close a lot of them out. The list says I'm still writing most, when all I have left to do is publish it at the Library. Oops.

Third discovery: I wish they had included a copy 'n paste feature, but now that all the repetitive stuff is in, I don't need it as much.

Fourth discovery: I scheduled my timed stuff by 15 minute intervals, so using the Pomodoro timer doesn't mesh well, but it has a nice loud ding that's audible over the podcast I was listening to.

Writing Projects: Now I need to set aside some time to clean off the list, but it doesn't look like it will be this week. I haven't had as much free time at the paying job to concentrate on Stellar Gift of Death and been crashing hard when I get home, 7:30 pm bedtime. Why I haven't a clue. I did find a free map making program so I can make a legible map of the city for Forget the Sun, when I have the time and brain power to learn it.

This weekend is tentatively scheduled to be spent with friends and Marvel-trademarked spandex. Plans are still unformed as of today, but I do need a break from the housework and computer work I've been doing for so long. :p

Read Free!
The BookWorm