All the time in the world

Last weekend we went to a wedding in Sacramento. So, while we were there we took care of some business and got to see some friends too. Gavin got an emergency root canal- ouch! I think he feels much better now, so it was worth the chasing around to get it done. We haven't been capable of doing any chasing around, here. I don't know if it's a lack of motivation or sense of urgency, or just the fact that the bed is so much warmer than the outside world...

Even with no job and almost no obligations, I still have an ever-increasing to-do list. And somehow even though most of these tasks have no immediate due date, all the ones that do, are late. Like, I still haven't gotten health insurance for us. We are covered by Cobra of course, but I'd like to think I can do better than $650 a month for us...!

My studio is still not assembled. Thanks to my friends and our recent Sacramento trip I now have a chest of drawers in there, which helps a lot. But the floor is still a foot high in debris and miscellany.
My house is a sea of boxes and moving wreckage. The very first thing we swore that we'd do is clean the carpet in the living room. And no, it's still not cleaned. The horrifying shag carpet in the bedroom is still in place, and the second bathroom does not show any signs of a remodel in progress. The main bathroom still has leaky fixtures, and the kitchen sink is still woefully inadequate.

Of course, the list has gotten longer as we've been here. We have also discovered that the electric stove is in shambles, and the little bitty freezer in our side-by-side is just not going to cut it.

What have I gotten done, you ask? I took the plunge and opened The Evil Box, to see if there's anything to be salvaged. The Evil Box was a gift (of sorts) from my ex-boyfriend. I never opened it, but I gathered that it contained a duplicate of every single photo that he and I took during our 4-year relationship. He even captioned them. The box weighed about ten pounds, so you can guess how many photos were in there. Geeez. All this had arrived at our house more than three months after Gavin and I were married, and caused no small amount of annoyance. So the Evil Box went to the back of the closet and stayed there for five years. By now, I am not annoyed anymore and I'm ready to sort the photos. A lot of them recall foolish wardrobe choices and not so good times, and they have gone straight into the shredder. But a few are worth keeping, some of the captions actually made me laugh, and some of the photos of my ex are downright hysterical, in a woodland-troll sort of way. Moral dilemna: Would it be wrong to post those online?

I painted the cabinet in the bathroom.

Compared to my to-do list, these accomplishments are pretty puny. Hopefully I will be picking up speed and creating a virtual whirlwind of functionality around me very soon. Or not. Perhaps I shall just stay in bed, it is very warm here, and I wouldn't mind a few more hours of sleep.

For the sake of reference, here's the list:
Clean living room carpet
Tear out bedroom carpet (and replace, if we can agree on something)
Set up my studio
Set up the utility room
Set up my workshop in the basement
Install fog lights in Gavin's truck
Create a retaining wall around the walkout basement
Replace whatever rotted wood in the decks
Add some crucial flashing to the roof & walls
Fill the washout holes in the foundation
Clean the gutters & downspouts
Install downspout rollouts so the foundation doesn't wash out again.
Kill all the puncturevine and burn it and its seeds
Set up watering for the back yard.
Build raised planting beds for next year's square foot method garden
Build a deer proof enclosure around the planting bed.
Examine the hot tub hanging out in the manger to see if it can be salvaged. If not, give it to someone who can use it as a water trough.
Walk the property, assess and fix up the fence enough to keep in our future goats
Pick up the garbage on our property. This is everything from beer cans to cars (not kidding)
Remodel half bath to full bath, which will allow us to tear out and replace the full bath.
Replace kitchen countertops, flooring, plumbing, stove, and hood. Hey, at least the cabinets seem fine.
Refinish kitchen cabinets (D'oh!)
Get a new computer desk with enough space to pay bills
Get a dining room set and actually establish a dining room.
Demo the kitchen suspended ceiling and install new lighting
And so much more.

Outta time for listing, gotta go get things done!

Future posts brewing on:
I'm a know-it-all architect and oughta just go with the flow
Flora and fauna
"Git offa my Prop'rty!" (Fuzzy Lumpkins)