Saturday, July 1
Jul. 2nd, 2023 03:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Happy Canada day! For all our imperfections, we still live in a pretty great country.
A much cooler day, mostly cloudy. We did get some rain in the early evening.
A leisurely start to the day, but we ended up getting some things done.
It seems like these days, things start to happen when I stand up and say "well, we need to get something done today" and just start doing it. I don't know if this is my husband's way of making ME work harder, or if he is just done initiating anything to do with working on the house/yard.
He gets up HOURS before I do, and when I get up he's generally just sitting in front of the computer. I try not to be upset about this, I guess it would seem hypocritical, but there are lots of things he could just go work on outside that wouldn't wake me up. He doesn't need ME to tell him to work on the grout, or go do some mowing or anything.
Anyhow, we got the remaining mulch from a while ago off of the trailer, because I am thinking one of the people we buy hay from might have some available soon. This hay guy will just text me with little warning, saying the hay is ready if I can come pick it up out of the field. There are enough people that want his very good hay that if I am not ready right away to come get it, it's all sold.
So, I am trying to make sure that I am ready for that text if it comes.
There were some pallets used under the mulch when they put it on our trailer (the mulch came in a big cube) that we broke down and took out the nails and stacked so we could use the lumber for something else (maybe the frame I hope to build around the compost pile). I kind of insisted that we do all of the steps leading to the lumber being stacked neatly away, instead of..ahem...just leaving it in a pile in front of the house for "someone" to deal with later.
Then I kind of held my husband's hand to make him help me clean out one of our older vehicles. He didn't really think it was an important job, or that it needed doing (subtext: why do "I" have to be part of this process? Isn't this YOUR job?). This is often something I do on my own, but dammit, the reason why it was such a mess was mainly from his actions.
This is a sentimental vehicle that we've had since we first got together, and it does still work, but it's pretty old now. It's not that good on fuel, it doesn't get used much. At least it doesn't cost much to register/insure.
To be honest, it just sits in our yard a lot. Which leads to the mess I found.
It's sort of become a bit of a..surprise..dumping ground for things waiting for decisions. It is full of mice. The other day I opened it up and it STUNK to high heaven.
I insisted today that we clean it out, make some decisions about some of the stuff in it, and my husband NEEDED TO HELP so he could take responsibility for his share of the mess.
It had three...THREE old mouse nests among some of the stuff we moved. There was evidence of mice everywhere, and even in the glove compartment. As soon as he realized how bad things had become, my husband quit whining about me forcing him to deal with the mess because he saw that it did need to be done.
A few things got put away where they belonged, a stack of cardboard moving boxes that were once going to be donated for re-use I deemed unfit as there were mice, so they will be used under mulch now, and we got a full bag of garbage out of it.
Then I vacuumed it out (super gross).
It still stinks, and if we don't use it it will still have mice living in it, but I cleaned it out. One of the biggest issues, is that my husband likes to leave bags of sunflower seeds in every vehicle we own (except mine, because I always forbid them), and if you do that...voila, mice. He never seems to figure this out, even though I keep telling him.
I did manage to do this without voicing any blame for the situation.
Then he went down stairs and did the grouting! It looks great. I am hoping that the next step after sealing the grout will be actually installing the shower doors. I mean, we've only been working on the last five percent of finishing the bathroom for eight months or so.
We got cleaned up and went to town with the intention of seeing the fireworks, and almost accomplished that.
We got there early enough that I thought we could fit in a walk around the little lake. It is a very short walk from that park to the area where the fire works always are. As we were walking back towards that area, the city started the fireworks a lot earlier than they usually do (it wasn't even dark yet); at least we could see them not too badly from where we were, but it didn't feel the same.
We tried walking towards them to be closer, but the display was literally over in ten minutes, which was not right either. There must have been ZERO budget for them this year, as usually the show goes on for a lot longer than that.
I was pretty upset, because I love the fireworks show, and it's pretty much the only time we ever get to see them.
We came home and watched "Black Adam", and you know, it was really blah. Great effects, no plot. You didn't end up caring at all.
I learned that Venus Fly Trap plants have very long stems on their flowers so that their pollinators don't get eaten by accident.
https://twistedsifter.com/2021/08/venus-fly-trap-far-away-flower/?amp=1
Happy Canada day! For all our imperfections, we still live in a pretty great country.
A much cooler day, mostly cloudy. We did get some rain in the early evening.
A leisurely start to the day, but we ended up getting some things done.
It seems like these days, things start to happen when I stand up and say "well, we need to get something done today" and just start doing it. I don't know if this is my husband's way of making ME work harder, or if he is just done initiating anything to do with working on the house/yard.
He gets up HOURS before I do, and when I get up he's generally just sitting in front of the computer. I try not to be upset about this, I guess it would seem hypocritical, but there are lots of things he could just go work on outside that wouldn't wake me up. He doesn't need ME to tell him to work on the grout, or go do some mowing or anything.
Anyhow, we got the remaining mulch from a while ago off of the trailer, because I am thinking one of the people we buy hay from might have some available soon. This hay guy will just text me with little warning, saying the hay is ready if I can come pick it up out of the field. There are enough people that want his very good hay that if I am not ready right away to come get it, it's all sold.
So, I am trying to make sure that I am ready for that text if it comes.
There were some pallets used under the mulch when they put it on our trailer (the mulch came in a big cube) that we broke down and took out the nails and stacked so we could use the lumber for something else (maybe the frame I hope to build around the compost pile). I kind of insisted that we do all of the steps leading to the lumber being stacked neatly away, instead of..ahem...just leaving it in a pile in front of the house for "someone" to deal with later.
Then I kind of held my husband's hand to make him help me clean out one of our older vehicles. He didn't really think it was an important job, or that it needed doing (subtext: why do "I" have to be part of this process? Isn't this YOUR job?). This is often something I do on my own, but dammit, the reason why it was such a mess was mainly from his actions.
This is a sentimental vehicle that we've had since we first got together, and it does still work, but it's pretty old now. It's not that good on fuel, it doesn't get used much. At least it doesn't cost much to register/insure.
To be honest, it just sits in our yard a lot. Which leads to the mess I found.
It's sort of become a bit of a..surprise..dumping ground for things waiting for decisions. It is full of mice. The other day I opened it up and it STUNK to high heaven.
I insisted today that we clean it out, make some decisions about some of the stuff in it, and my husband NEEDED TO HELP so he could take responsibility for his share of the mess.
It had three...THREE old mouse nests among some of the stuff we moved. There was evidence of mice everywhere, and even in the glove compartment. As soon as he realized how bad things had become, my husband quit whining about me forcing him to deal with the mess because he saw that it did need to be done.
A few things got put away where they belonged, a stack of cardboard moving boxes that were once going to be donated for re-use I deemed unfit as there were mice, so they will be used under mulch now, and we got a full bag of garbage out of it.
Then I vacuumed it out (super gross).
It still stinks, and if we don't use it it will still have mice living in it, but I cleaned it out. One of the biggest issues, is that my husband likes to leave bags of sunflower seeds in every vehicle we own (except mine, because I always forbid them), and if you do that...voila, mice. He never seems to figure this out, even though I keep telling him.
I did manage to do this without voicing any blame for the situation.
Then he went down stairs and did the grouting! It looks great. I am hoping that the next step after sealing the grout will be actually installing the shower doors. I mean, we've only been working on the last five percent of finishing the bathroom for eight months or so.
We got cleaned up and went to town with the intention of seeing the fireworks, and almost accomplished that.
We got there early enough that I thought we could fit in a walk around the little lake. It is a very short walk from that park to the area where the fire works always are. As we were walking back towards that area, the city started the fireworks a lot earlier than they usually do (it wasn't even dark yet); at least we could see them not too badly from where we were, but it didn't feel the same.
We tried walking towards them to be closer, but the display was literally over in ten minutes, which was not right either. There must have been ZERO budget for them this year, as usually the show goes on for a lot longer than that.
I was pretty upset, because I love the fireworks show, and it's pretty much the only time we ever get to see them.
We came home and watched "Black Adam", and you know, it was really blah. Great effects, no plot. You didn't end up caring at all.
I learned that Venus Fly Trap plants have very long stems on their flowers so that their pollinators don't get eaten by accident.
https://twistedsifter.com/2021/08/venus-fly-trap-far-away-flower/?amp=1
no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 05:56 am (UTC)Sorry about the mice... I found a big garbage bag of rags ("No, these are lightly torn jeans that I was thinking of using") that were dotted with mouse calling cards. The smell! I dumped the lot.
That was a couple of years ago. I am much more pro-active about schtuff like that.
There are pet small removers that might work - we used ours as puppy accident cleaner, and before that as old dog accident cleaner.
I think we're housebroken now!
no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 06:30 am (UTC)It's bad enough that probably nothing is going to get rid of that smell. Maybe if I took it to get everything steam cleaned, but I don't know if it's worth it.
I too, have sentimental feelings about that vehicle, but I really hope that we are able to buy a newer truck soon that replaces some of our relics.
We do need to have another vehicle around as a spare, being able to drive something while a car is in the shop is essential out here, but it will need to be replaced at some point.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 07:24 am (UTC)Keeping food in the car, or lots of food wrappers etc. is just asking for it.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-03 10:09 pm (UTC)