How are you feeling? (Lickety Split)

[BlueUser]

No Double Posts... LOL

[Blue]

Irritated and tired...

I am in the middle of kitchen renovations - new cabinets and new granite counter top. The New cabinet people removed the old cabinets and removed the full-wall backsplash behind the cooktop (went up to house original vent hood). They happily chiseled off the full wall of 4" tiles glued to the wall as a backsplash utterly destroying the drywall underneath in the process. This was expected, and I figured I would need to replace the drywall when they were done. What I didn't figure was that they would install the beautiful new cabinets immediately - before I could fix the drywall. Now I'm replacing damaged drywall around beautiful new cabinets Nothing like being super extra careful cutting pieces to fit (instead of easily putting up giant panels for the entire wall that would be covered mostly by cabinets), hunching between top and bottom cabinets to detail install the drywall (cutting around outlet boxes), mudding/taping the drywall (<-- At this point so far), sanding, priming texturing and painting. Grrr. The bottom cabinets are covered with cardboard to minimize the drywall dust that falls inside (and chunks of mud), the top cabinets are bagged so I don't get mud, texture or paint on them. What a PAIN. This would have been so much easier if the new cabinets were not there... Sigh. I will be done with the drywall tonight or tomorrow.

Yes... I had the cabinet people quote doing the drywall work. Their "guy" came by to take a look, and he gave me a ridiculously high quote. I'll have it done for about $40 in materials. $10 for drywall, $6 for Joint Compound, $1.75 for Joint Tape, $2.35 for an 8' furring strip, $3.50 for sandpaper, and $17 for a can of spray texture... Yes, my time is worth something, but I also have the double satisfaction of doing it myself and knowing it was done "right" to my high standards...

[Pickles]

Blue, that sounds like a mess. I hope you have been able to get the renovations done to your standards!

Relieved, frustrated, and exhausted.

Relieved because our old house officially closed yesterday, and all the paperwork finished processing today. I cannot express how glad I am that we no longer have to interact with our buyers on ANY level, as they have been turds from the start.

Frustrated because we're having all kinds of issues with the house we're attempting to build. As in, not getting the same story any time we ask it about timing. And timing is extremely crucial at this point. Not to mention, getting information feels like pulling teeth. Ugh. Our last house was so much easier to build. And oddly enough, the builder we're using is supposed to be super good.

Exhausted just...because life. Yeah. Something like that.

[Blue]

Fri Dec 18, 2015 11:47 pm: Kitchen is pretty much done and looks fantastic! The cooktop has some weird box underneath for the touch controls. It interferes with the drawers underneath... As such, one drawer needs to be modified (i.e. cut shorter) and I'll do that this weekend.

My primary job is not so good. By all accounts, I am doing a very good job. The plant has far exceeded the record number of days without accidents, delivery is the best ever seen, quality is improving. Yet, somebody "up high" has it in for me. I have no idea why, but it's there. My review was totally unfair and biased against me. As a result, I do not have much hope for my future at this company. It is totally surreal, yet I've seen it happen to others. l really do not know who has it in for me, or who I offended, but I must have done so. Time to find another job

ETA: I am stressed... I'm still there and things may be getting better(?) I am not as concerned about being unemployed, but work life is not getting much better. It is getting worse. Not necessarily where I am metrics-wise, but my boss and his boss are making life miserable. Sadly, I think they are not doing it on purpose. They're just scattered and do not understand how things work, and it is causing bad stress. We have our quarterly status meeting tomorrow and I need to travel out of the country this time for the update. New boss' boss changed the "tried and true" format of the meeting and nobody really knows the format and that is BAD. We may all look like fools in front of the VP and President. Not good.

[Pickles]

Blue, I hope your meeting went better than you expected.

I am frustrated. After not being sick for the majority of the winter (as in, the last time any of us were really super sick was when I was last summer), our whole family partook in one of those nasty 2-week+ long colds (which involved a long standing runny nose). I was soooooo sick of tissues by the end of it (for myself, and the kids). We finally were all well a week and a half ago. I was really looking forward to getting out of the house this morning for a monthly meeting for a moms group...only to find that both of my kids woke up with coughs, snotty noses, and fevers. Needless to say, I'm still home, and once again dealing with tissues. BAH.

...seriously, though, here's hoping I don't get it. I can't take anything for it if I do...and that made the last time around pretty miserable.

ETA: Sigh. Even more frustrated. One of the kids is still sick, so we had to cancel and reschedule our hospital tour this evening. I guess we could've looked for someone to take care of them instead, but I was really hoping that they'd at least get to see where Mr. P and I were going to go when it was time for their baby brother to come. Here's hoping for next week...

[Blue]

I hope everyone is well, P!

Me? I am dead tired. Screen is blurry, and it isn't the screen. I think I worked ~68 hours this week since Monday. Does not include the 1.75 hours/day commuting, nor does it include working Sunday at the bar.

However, I am very happy that (1) I got everything done that I needed to get done, and (2) everything seems to have gone quite well.

[Siniri]

Wow, Blue, take it easy. I'm also working crazy hours this weekend (5 hours in the middle of the night both nights, plus 6 hours babysitting before that tonight) -- plus I'm moving and need to be out of the old place by midnight Sunday/Monday... Eek! Too much to do in too little time...

So I'm feeling really tired (1.5 hours of sleep last night), a bit overwhelmed, a bit disappointed (the evening job last night was not what I was expecting), and a bit hopeful (that somehow miraculously the evening job will be what I was expecting tonight).

[Blue]

Thanks Siniri I hope you get good rest soon!

I actually got 8-1/2 hours of sleep last night

Even better, today is a 'do nothing' day. I am slowly taking care of things around the house, cleaning up some overdue items like sorting through mail, cleaning up the kitchen, changing the water filter/air filter in the fridge, putting away stuff, etc. Lots of little things neglected the last couple of weeks, and doing them slowly but surely. I also had great/lucky timing earlier this morning when I was taking the "grey new filter water" you get when flushing a new water filter outside to dump on some plants. I saw a lady trying to find the owner of a little dog without a collar running loose few streets away. It was my neighbor's dog , but the neighbors were not home. I took the dog from the lady, and it followed me around while I did things until my neighbors got home. The daughter and grandson had taken it for a walk (on a leash, of course), but the dog slipped out of its collar and took off. Scary thing is, we have random coyotes around here that love little "snack dogs" like that one (a.k.a. coyote candy). Good day today, especially for the dog!

[Pickles]

Thanks, Blue. I'm a bit sniffly, but the kids seem to be mostly over it, thank goodness. I'm just hoping that the sniffles I have aren't allergies and go away soon - I've been wondering if I would end up having seasonal allergies again now that we're in a more moist environment again. Last year when we visited, I had to take allergy meds while we were here, so who knows. Would've thought it would've started a month ago, though, if I was.

Sleep. Ah, that would be nice...sigh. Someday, maybe. I'm glad you at least got some, Blue!

Good luck with the move, Siniri! I hope you're getting into a better situation than some of your previous crazy roommates!

I'm currently a bit miffed. (Rant ahead.)

For as much of a crazy environment we're living in right now, most people are usually surprisingly not rude (well, except for driving, and that's another issue entirely). We went to our little city center this morning to let the kids play for a bit, and had several unexpected rude encounters. One of them was someone that was doing crazy things driving (and stopped in the middle of the street, and started honking at us when we didn't pass them even though they were waving us to...because you know, passing someone when there's oncoming traffic in a 2-lane area is a brilliant idea to do...clearly they weren't looking at the other side of the road at all), but the other two were not car-related.
Our kids were the only ones playing, and I was the only one watching them at the time (Mr. P had gone back to the car for something), and some random strangers started taking pictures of my kids without asking me. Maybe that's not "rude" per say, but seriously? It was obvious I was the parent, and it kinda irks me when people take pictures of my kids when I'm standing right there and yeah. It just creeps me out a bit, I guess. I mean, it's one thing if there's tons of kids and adults around, but when there's just two kids and one adult? You'd think they might ask first.
Then, when we were getting the kids ready to leave (it had been sprinkling rain for the last twenty-thirty minutes or so, but had started to become more of a downpour, so we decided that it was time to go - a little rain never hurt anyone, but the pavement was starting to get slick), one of said kids was fighting with us because she didn't want to go, so we were having to hold onto her and walk her away from the play area, when some crazy lady on a bike (with no helmet, and a dog in the front basket, no less) comes screeching by us from behind (and I do mean screeching, as she slammed on her breaks to swerve around us, apparently), then turns around and yells "Look out idiots!" at us. I'm like, WHAT?! First off, there's bike bells. Anyone who is watching where they are going could see that there was no way that we could see a bike behind us, especially when we're struggling with a small kid and umbrellas. Secondly. Bike bells. They've been invented for a reason. (They're also pretty much common practice in our little city, as a LOT of people bike and walk and jog around - we know, because we go out walking and people use them to warn us when they're coming up behind us). Thirdly - calling people names in front of toddlers?! Ugh. Fourthly. Who's the idiot, the ones trying to get their kids out of the rain, or the one who is on a bike with a dog and no helmet or bike bell, riding on a crowded sidewalk in the pouring rain. Honestly, a bike was the LAST thing I was expecting around there. Ugh.

/endrant

Anyways, I'm hoping that this week will be a little less stressful. We've only got one appointment to make it to - the rescheduled hospital tour - so I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to have a more "fun" week than one running around from appointment to appointment. Week after this...meh. 3 days of appointments already, two of which are potentially very stressful.

[Siniri]

My evening babysitting got cancelled, and I just awoke from a long sleep (about 4-4.5 hours). I'm sure I'll take a nap at some point tomorrow, but I'll probably be able to make it a shortish one so I can sleep somewhat normally tomorrow night (and finish moving tomorrow). I've got 3 hours before I have to leave, so I should get at least a good 2 hours of packing in (plus dinner and getting ready for tonight's job). Yes, my new place should be a lot less crazy.

Glad you got some rest and some sorta-off day today, Blue. Pickles, glad everyone's mostly better. Hope you're able to take some allergy medicine (or at least it doesn't get too bad). You certainly had to deal with some rudeness today. I was curious, and I found out that only in my state would that photographer have been acting illegally (though the article was a bit out of date, and it said other states were contemplating similar measures). I guess the best course of action would be to get between them and the kids and give them a raised eyebrow.

Some drivers are so clueless. I've been behind people who do that with other cars (or once, I was even the car they were trying to let turn left), but oncoming traffic was still moving. I always just wave them on until they give up (or honk at them if I'm behind them and they continue for more than a few seconds). I'll be glad to move away from my current area; there are a lot of new drivers here (and a high amount uninsured) from all over the world, and they don't know the unspoken rules of the road (or even the legal ones), so it's a bit frustrating. I always just insist on following the law, because if they do decide to go after letting me go and we collide, legally, I'm the one at fault.

(There's a regular 2-way stop near my old place near a railroad crossing, and there are stop lines for the people with no stop sign, so it confuses people. I get it for the ones approaching the railroad, because it sort of says "don't block the intersection," but a sign would be less confusing -- and it makes absolutely NO sense for there to be a stop line for the people coming over the railroad tracks, because when they accidentally stop, the people behind them get stuck on the tracks... It's the worst intersection signage/markings combination I've ever seen. They did at least remove the "2-way" signs under the stop signs, which many people didn't read and assumed it was the regular "all-way" sign, but they added the stop lines for the people with the right-of-way after taking down those signs...)

Wow, guess I'm still a bit tired. Sorry for writing a novel here!

[Jacob]

Met with family and friends yesterday in hometown to drop things off, and came home to nap in my parking lot for 2 hours. Then I was an adult and worked myself to the late hours while I caught up with communications and played games at the same time. Yes, I was able to do that, for some reason. Today looks like some of the same? Awesome.

[Siniri]

I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Ugh. I hope tomorrow's DD is easy. And I hope I can just crawl into an introvert cave for most of the day and not talk to anyone. Definitely a day for screening phone calls.

[Blue]

I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. Ugh. I hope tomorrow's DD is easy. And I hope I can just crawl into an introvert cave for most of the day and not talk to anyone. Definitely a day for screening phone calls.

You and me both. I felt drugged today and had a hard time staying awake. I think I dozed off on the drive in to work - just for a moment, but it wasn't good. After lunch, I could NOT keep my eyes open (I think from not enough protein in my lunch). Fortunately, I keep peanut butter in my office for just such a need. Helped immensely. Unfortunately, I was at work until almost 8pm. *Sigh* At least I am home now and ate a good dinner, so I can get back to working... Too much to wrap up by tomorrow. I need to send it to my boss "by noon." I also have the pleasure of going to Mexico on Wednesday for an all-day meeting. Up early. Drive for hours. Sit all day. Drive back for hours.

[Jacob]

Slept from 5 PM yesterday to the late morning today. Helped a friend move a lot of items, and coupled with the weekend with no sleep, I think the rest was very welcome. don't help that most everything tastes like sand to me right now, because food is a pleasing thing for me when I'm feeling down. As it goes. Still, working upon The Things, and I can't fault myself for doing right this day. Missing out on improvisation cram session though. Sacrifices... ...

[Blue]

Tired and sore. I had to replace the starter in a 2002 Toyota Tundra. Replace starter? No big deal? Wrong. Toyota buried the starter in the valley... on top of the block, between the valve covers... under the intake manifold. Relatively straightforward but time consuming, especially considering I had never done one before. Ended up taking about 9 hours from start to finish including tool/garage cleanup. I used muscles I had not used for a while and banged up my arms a bit in the process. But, it was indeed a bad starter and truck is happy now. So am I after saving about $1k instead of paying someone else to do it.

For the curious, somebody wrote a how-to a few years ago here. It went mostly like that, except there's a much better way to deal with the input fuel lines. Just disconnect it at the other end the hose from where that guy did his. Safer, too.