I look forward to the day when I have time.
I figure I need about another 10 hours in every day just so I can do all the things I want to do, let alone the things I have to do.
For instance… this is our carpet near the front door.
Our front door is a door we rarely use as its on the back side of the house from the front gate. It opens directly into the hideously salmon carpeted living room. I made the mistake of letting the dogs in through that door a couple of weeks ago when it rained for about 2 weeks straight.
I had steam cleaned the carpet a couple of months ago (to impress visitors) and if I had a steam cleaner I might do it more often. I was actually tempted to buy one… but who am I kidding? I hate vacuuming and avoid it like the plague, how often would I steam clean a carpet I hate?
I yearn for the time I’ll have off over Christmas: three whole weeks! I have an intimidating list of WANT TO DOs including ripping up the carpet in the living room, and I can’t wait! Other things on the list include doing something with the floor after removing the carpet, putting in a new/refurbished wood heater, finish painting the exterior of the house, painting the mud room, organising coat hangers and other necessities in the mud room and enclosed porch space, making stuff for another market, working in the garden and trying to fix up the casita.*
Basically I think I need another year of time just to keep up.
Of course, like everything else, a ‘simple job’ like removing carpet will turn into 3 solid weeks of work, effectively bumping everything else on the list to ‘another lifetime’.
I mean, it sounds simple, right? Rip up carpet. Paint floor (cause we can’t afford to put in new flooring right now and only 1/4 of the room has floorboards, the rest is chipboard, and I promised Wayne this won’t cost a lot).
But the job isn’t simple. You have to break it down into steps to understand the enormity of it:
– remove all furniture from the living room (or more likely, push it from one side to the other and listen to Wayne complain)
– remove carpet
– remove underlay
– move furniture
– crawl around on hands and knees (and butt) pulling up tacks and staples
– move furniture
– encourage Wayne to wear shoes the entire time to avoid hearing him swear when he punches holes in his feet)
– clean floor
– move furniture
– sand floor
– move furniture
– find someone to fix problems under the floor which cause the floor to be uneven
– move furniture
– wait for things to be done
– find more things that need to be fixed, replaced, removed
– move furniture
– find hidden treasure (I wish)
– pick floor colour and paint the floor, 2 or 3 coats
– move furniture
– seal the floor, 2 or 3 coats
– move furniture
EASY.
Meanwhile I’ll use my spare time to paint the exterior of the house cause I’ll already have finished painting the hallway, entry way and mud room in all the spare time I have between now and then.
Not to mention getting back in the saddle! I need to commit to working with Dancer soon as the ground dries out enough, otherwise why do we keep horses?
…
As I said, I dream of a world where I have time.
Its not all bad. I’ve had lots of good times lately, where nothing has been done but I’ve socialized and relaxed. Wayne and I have had breakfast out a few times over the last couple of months, we’ve had visitors, and we’ve spent a lot of rainy days inside complaining that the rain stopped us from working outside (but secretly kind of glad to be inside and not working outside).
One thing I look forward to is visits from Zephyr and his mom. They come over every 2nd weekend for a play and groom. I adore little Zeph and having him around is my puppy fix. My kids like him too and love getting out for a romp.
Here are some pics of them running around last time he was here. It was a gorgeous day (though pretty cold) and our top paddock is the driest spot to play.
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| Lining up for treats. |
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| Romeo can fly. |
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| Zephyr trying to keep up with the big guys. |
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| You gotta love the awkward poses dogs sleep in. |
*The casita… sigh… We have another possum living in the ceiling in there. Only he’s not living in the attic of the original part where Mr Ponsonby lived, he’s living over the laundry. He’s created 2 large holes in the ceiling from where he occasionally peers down at me, his little pink nose twitching. The plasterboard is mouldy in places and stained. Its disgusting.
In fact, the entire addition part of the casita (the flat roofed part) is disgusting. The floor is a concrete slab sitting on the ground, probably without proper lining to stop the damp. The walls in the laundry and toilet have mould growing on the plasterboard. YEECH.
The ceiling fell down in the dog wash room.
The grooming room floor flooded with water coming in through the wall/floor join when we had all that rain a couple of weeks ago. I removed all the vinyl to let it dry out and don’t plan on replacing it. The ceiling is sagging too and there are holes made by the millions of birds nesting in it.
I want to remove all the ceilings, but I’m afraid that if I remove it from the grooming room I’ll never be able to work in there in summer – it’ll get way too hot.
I will definitely be removing the ceiling from the laundry and toilet though, to encourage Mr Possum to move on.
We have birds dancing around in our house ceiling too. There must be a village above our bedroom and another above the living room. The only way to fix that problem is to hire someone to come put gutter guards on all our guttering, then go around and plug all holes around the house using wire – NOT in the same way as my failed fix of last year.
… Anyone feeling bored and want to do something useful? I sure could use a hand or three.
z
junk4joy 