Thursday, March 14
Mar. 15th, 2024 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
I didn't do too badly for sleeping, though I still woke up exhausted so it couldn't have been the right kind of sleep.
I was downstairs again with the animals, which has been a good choice, I think.
Last night I had to move everything away from the windows upstairs and make it all as accessible as possible since the handy man was going to work on those frames today.
Which he did, and he's now finished doing the window frames. As I mentioned before, I will be painting/staining them myself.
My husband seems to be open to at least discussing some things we could get this person to work on for us, depending on how much he is going to charge going forward.
He quoted us an hourly rate for this job, but I think he's feeling like maybe he's undercharging. So, we'll have to discuss that, because if he's going to charge more, that makes it less attractive to do work that we are capable of doing ourselves (though time is always an issue).
We did pay him for this amount of work today, so we're square for what's been done.
This guy is chatty, and talks about money issues, which is a bit surprising. Not many people would be open about that, but I think he's trying to let me know how much he needs the work. At the same time, he talks about how he worked in the oil industry and traveled all over, and other jobs he's had, and the farm he and his wife had, until they divorced. Somehow, at this stage in his life, he is now living on very little money, so at some point he must have lost everything, or maybe never was good at managing his money, or something.
It's surprising that if he has reasonable skills, that he's in this position now.
Anyhow, he's almost a bit pushy about us having him do more work, which I guess I understand, but it's also not our responsibility to make sure he has an ongoing income, either.
I didn't do much else with the day, I was not refreshed by my night's sleep, and felt kind of out of it all day.
When my Sweetie got home, we did first empty the big tub for goat/pony water and clean it and refill it.
Then we went to the park down the road to walk, since we finally have enough daylight to do that after he gets home from work. In mid winter it is completely dark at about 5, and you can't go for a walk or anything.
It was very nice to walk at the park, we haven't hardly done that at all this winter (we would normally go there about once a week to snow shoe).
He pretty much went straight to bed when we got home, it was only about 8:30.
I messed around with adding konnyaku starch to water, letting it become a gel, and soaking Japanese paper in it. If I did it right, it should make the paper stronger, into something like fabric. It needs to dry.
The name "Montenegro" literally means "Black Mountain", based on the appearance of Mount Lovcen.
Another Balkan country, with coastline to the Adriatic Sea.
In the 14th/15th century, this region was part of the Principality of Zeta. Then it was ruled by the Venetian Republic.
It was semi-autonomous under the rule of the Ottoman empire, became independent in 1878 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and became the Kingdom of Montengegro for a short while (This was not really a "real" kindgom: "In April 1941, Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and other Axis allies attacked and occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Italian forces occupied Montenegro and established a puppet Kingdom of Montenegro.) THEN became part of Yugoslavia. After THAT, Serbia and Montenegro were a federation for a short while, and Montenegro became independent in only 2006.
Montenegro became a member of NATO in spite of Russia's attempts to dissuade them, and the promises of retaliation.
It is not exactly Democratic yet, more like a hybrid government, a thinly masked authoritarian regime. There is an elected president, but he has been in power since 1991, and only in 2023 did they finally get a different leader.
It is mainly mountainous, with coastline to the Adriatic Sea, so we have a very humid climate, with apparently a huge, diverse population of algae living there.
The economy is largely service based, with a lot of it's income coming from tourism, as apparently the coastline here is amazing.
It was the location for all the gambling/hotel scenes in "Casino Royale".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro
https://youtu.be/-lUptmf1UvE?si=MEm7q4etfezU44U5
Noted place of interest is the Ostrag Monastery, where the remains of St. Basil are encrypted.
I didn't do too badly for sleeping, though I still woke up exhausted so it couldn't have been the right kind of sleep.
I was downstairs again with the animals, which has been a good choice, I think.
Last night I had to move everything away from the windows upstairs and make it all as accessible as possible since the handy man was going to work on those frames today.
Which he did, and he's now finished doing the window frames. As I mentioned before, I will be painting/staining them myself.
My husband seems to be open to at least discussing some things we could get this person to work on for us, depending on how much he is going to charge going forward.
He quoted us an hourly rate for this job, but I think he's feeling like maybe he's undercharging. So, we'll have to discuss that, because if he's going to charge more, that makes it less attractive to do work that we are capable of doing ourselves (though time is always an issue).
We did pay him for this amount of work today, so we're square for what's been done.
This guy is chatty, and talks about money issues, which is a bit surprising. Not many people would be open about that, but I think he's trying to let me know how much he needs the work. At the same time, he talks about how he worked in the oil industry and traveled all over, and other jobs he's had, and the farm he and his wife had, until they divorced. Somehow, at this stage in his life, he is now living on very little money, so at some point he must have lost everything, or maybe never was good at managing his money, or something.
It's surprising that if he has reasonable skills, that he's in this position now.
Anyhow, he's almost a bit pushy about us having him do more work, which I guess I understand, but it's also not our responsibility to make sure he has an ongoing income, either.
I didn't do much else with the day, I was not refreshed by my night's sleep, and felt kind of out of it all day.
When my Sweetie got home, we did first empty the big tub for goat/pony water and clean it and refill it.
Then we went to the park down the road to walk, since we finally have enough daylight to do that after he gets home from work. In mid winter it is completely dark at about 5, and you can't go for a walk or anything.
It was very nice to walk at the park, we haven't hardly done that at all this winter (we would normally go there about once a week to snow shoe).
He pretty much went straight to bed when we got home, it was only about 8:30.
I messed around with adding konnyaku starch to water, letting it become a gel, and soaking Japanese paper in it. If I did it right, it should make the paper stronger, into something like fabric. It needs to dry.
The name "Montenegro" literally means "Black Mountain", based on the appearance of Mount Lovcen.
Another Balkan country, with coastline to the Adriatic Sea.
In the 14th/15th century, this region was part of the Principality of Zeta. Then it was ruled by the Venetian Republic.
It was semi-autonomous under the rule of the Ottoman empire, became independent in 1878 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and became the Kingdom of Montengegro for a short while (This was not really a "real" kindgom: "In April 1941, Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and other Axis allies attacked and occupied the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Italian forces occupied Montenegro and established a puppet Kingdom of Montenegro.) THEN became part of Yugoslavia. After THAT, Serbia and Montenegro were a federation for a short while, and Montenegro became independent in only 2006.
Montenegro became a member of NATO in spite of Russia's attempts to dissuade them, and the promises of retaliation.
It is not exactly Democratic yet, more like a hybrid government, a thinly masked authoritarian regime. There is an elected president, but he has been in power since 1991, and only in 2023 did they finally get a different leader.
It is mainly mountainous, with coastline to the Adriatic Sea, so we have a very humid climate, with apparently a huge, diverse population of algae living there.
The economy is largely service based, with a lot of it's income coming from tourism, as apparently the coastline here is amazing.
It was the location for all the gambling/hotel scenes in "Casino Royale".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro
https://youtu.be/-lUptmf1UvE?si=MEm7q4etfezU44U5
Noted place of interest is the Ostrag Monastery, where the remains of St. Basil are encrypted.
