Sunday, March 17
Mar. 18th, 2024 02:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
A lovely, slow start to the day, lying in bed with the kitties with the sunlight streaming in.
The handy man came when he said he would meet up with us here at our place, to talk with my husband about other things we could have him work on.
I let them work that out between the two of them, and as long as there's nothing like a change in his fees or something, we'll go ahead.
Mainly it sounds like my husband wants him to work on window and door frames in the addition.
The handy man did bring another bird house for us, as a thank you gift for giving him some wood.
I had a roll of nice upholstery material to give him, since he is a person who does actually upholster furniture, and I am not.
My husband also gave him a nice coffee press. I had bought it at a thrift store thinking my husband might use it, but he has a different one he prefers, so now it will make someone else happy.
After he left, I helped my husband clean up the bedding in the goat pen in the garage and take it out to the garden. We're likely past needing the goat pen (we use it if it's below about -25 C) for now.
He will take it apart and store it now until next fall. He needs to make room in the garage for the work that the handy man will be doing; he'll need to use our table saw for some of it.
Then I went to see River, and once again he was super sleepy and not very energetic. We did our Liberty work, which he did in a sloth-like manner, and a bit of ridden work.
The Sunday rider was there, and I did my very best not to say anything even vaguely "racy" since she seems hyper-sensitive to anything like that. It was nice to chat with her, and to pet her gigantic, floppy dog.
I came home and my husband had done a bit more sanding in the porch on the walls, and we are very close to being ready to prime it. It has to at least be all done being sanded and smooth before we can have the handy man do the door frames.
It would mean a lot to me to have that small porch be a finished space, as now it is two doors stuck into holes in the wall, and another hole in the wall that should be a space to store shoes.
We watched "Goats", a sort of autobiographical movie that I thought was okay, but not fantastic.
"Romania[a] is a country at the crossroads of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.[14][15][16] It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a predominantly continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi) with a population of 19 million people (2023). Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest".
The Danube River flows through Romania, though it doesn't originate or end there. There is another large river named the Olt River, that is quite large too. The Olt River has 44 reservoirs on it, with 46 hydroelectric generating plants. It is important for drinking water and irrigation.
I'm going to skip the majority of the "conquests and empires bit" for now, as I'm very burned out on it, and not remembering a lot.
One note of interest, is that Romania contains what used to be Transylvania, and was home to Vlad The Impaler (absolutely horrific person), and likely where the whole "vampire" thing came from.
It was indeed part of the Ottoman Empire, and then ruled by the Habsburgs, part of it became Wallachia.
Romania remained neutral for the first two years of WWI, and sort of flip-flopped around about whether it was at war with the Allied Powers or not, but was effectively unable to do anything once it was surrounded by the Central Powers. Romania's own goal in all of this was to take back the region of Transylvania from Hungary, and kind of went along with whichever side was going to help them do that.
https://youtu.be/hyCRRDFkyiU?si=celhDCDM7pnHSpYV
In the years building up to WW2, territory was being clawed away from Romania again, and in a fit of desperation, Romania chose to fight with Germany against Russia in WW2, which led them to be a part of the horrors of the killing of the Jewish people.
https://youtu.be/8eQgd7us8EE?si=dRYrwpUC6dReshPE
Part way through the war, Romania and Russia joined forces (Russia considered Romania to merely be a German-occupied territory, rather than Romania willingly joining Germany) and Romania got back all of the Transylvanian territory that Hungary took during the war.
This did mean that after the war, Romania was occupied by Russia until 1958, and NONE of that was fun at all, as it was a really awful military rule, and Russia just drained all of the natural resources of Romania without giving anything back.
Yet, anti-communist groups and actions continued throughout this occupation, and after the 1964, the country more or less separated from Russia to become a "People's Republic".
I'm really not sure what is going on since then. Just endless struggle against corruption and communism and so forth, trying to pay down enormous international debt, civil unrest, and so on.
It seems to be doing okay for now as far as the economy, at least. They mainly have a lot of fossil fuels to sell, as well as hydroelectricity, and lots of tourism (good skiing here).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania
You gotta admit though, it's beautiful. Some amazing castles and churches.
https://youtu.be/a8dHAGQ0hLY?si=WOR458R7PEqSsSXv
https://youtu.be/-9TsuLYAGQo?si=kDiUUApY93fBnZTS
A lovely, slow start to the day, lying in bed with the kitties with the sunlight streaming in.
The handy man came when he said he would meet up with us here at our place, to talk with my husband about other things we could have him work on.
I let them work that out between the two of them, and as long as there's nothing like a change in his fees or something, we'll go ahead.
Mainly it sounds like my husband wants him to work on window and door frames in the addition.
The handy man did bring another bird house for us, as a thank you gift for giving him some wood.
I had a roll of nice upholstery material to give him, since he is a person who does actually upholster furniture, and I am not.
My husband also gave him a nice coffee press. I had bought it at a thrift store thinking my husband might use it, but he has a different one he prefers, so now it will make someone else happy.
After he left, I helped my husband clean up the bedding in the goat pen in the garage and take it out to the garden. We're likely past needing the goat pen (we use it if it's below about -25 C) for now.
He will take it apart and store it now until next fall. He needs to make room in the garage for the work that the handy man will be doing; he'll need to use our table saw for some of it.
Then I went to see River, and once again he was super sleepy and not very energetic. We did our Liberty work, which he did in a sloth-like manner, and a bit of ridden work.
The Sunday rider was there, and I did my very best not to say anything even vaguely "racy" since she seems hyper-sensitive to anything like that. It was nice to chat with her, and to pet her gigantic, floppy dog.
I came home and my husband had done a bit more sanding in the porch on the walls, and we are very close to being ready to prime it. It has to at least be all done being sanded and smooth before we can have the handy man do the door frames.
It would mean a lot to me to have that small porch be a finished space, as now it is two doors stuck into holes in the wall, and another hole in the wall that should be a space to store shoes.
We watched "Goats", a sort of autobiographical movie that I thought was okay, but not fantastic.
"Romania[a] is a country at the crossroads of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.[14][15][16] It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a predominantly continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi) with a population of 19 million people (2023). Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest".
The Danube River flows through Romania, though it doesn't originate or end there. There is another large river named the Olt River, that is quite large too. The Olt River has 44 reservoirs on it, with 46 hydroelectric generating plants. It is important for drinking water and irrigation.
I'm going to skip the majority of the "conquests and empires bit" for now, as I'm very burned out on it, and not remembering a lot.
One note of interest, is that Romania contains what used to be Transylvania, and was home to Vlad The Impaler (absolutely horrific person), and likely where the whole "vampire" thing came from.
It was indeed part of the Ottoman Empire, and then ruled by the Habsburgs, part of it became Wallachia.
Romania remained neutral for the first two years of WWI, and sort of flip-flopped around about whether it was at war with the Allied Powers or not, but was effectively unable to do anything once it was surrounded by the Central Powers. Romania's own goal in all of this was to take back the region of Transylvania from Hungary, and kind of went along with whichever side was going to help them do that.
https://youtu.be/hyCRRDFkyiU?si=celhDCDM7pnHSpYV
In the years building up to WW2, territory was being clawed away from Romania again, and in a fit of desperation, Romania chose to fight with Germany against Russia in WW2, which led them to be a part of the horrors of the killing of the Jewish people.
https://youtu.be/8eQgd7us8EE?si=dRYrwpUC6dReshPE
Part way through the war, Romania and Russia joined forces (Russia considered Romania to merely be a German-occupied territory, rather than Romania willingly joining Germany) and Romania got back all of the Transylvanian territory that Hungary took during the war.
This did mean that after the war, Romania was occupied by Russia until 1958, and NONE of that was fun at all, as it was a really awful military rule, and Russia just drained all of the natural resources of Romania without giving anything back.
Yet, anti-communist groups and actions continued throughout this occupation, and after the 1964, the country more or less separated from Russia to become a "People's Republic".
I'm really not sure what is going on since then. Just endless struggle against corruption and communism and so forth, trying to pay down enormous international debt, civil unrest, and so on.
It seems to be doing okay for now as far as the economy, at least. They mainly have a lot of fossil fuels to sell, as well as hydroelectricity, and lots of tourism (good skiing here).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania
You gotta admit though, it's beautiful. Some amazing castles and churches.
https://youtu.be/a8dHAGQ0hLY?si=WOR458R7PEqSsSXv
https://youtu.be/-9TsuLYAGQo?si=kDiUUApY93fBnZTS
no subject
Date: 2024-03-19 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-19 05:19 am (UTC)I don't think they make a point of advertising, since it is often cash deals only, so you'd have to ask around.
I think you could maybe find one if you talk to your friends and neighbors, or ask around antique sellers.
The fellow I gave the material to doesn't do fancy upholstery that I am aware of, but simple things like new covers for the seats of kitchen chairs. I could do those myself fairly easily too, but I'm not keeping a roll of material just in case.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-19 05:24 am (UTC)I used to know a couple of upholsterers, but that was a long time ago. It's too bad I didn't learn how to be one - they seem to be in demand.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-19 06:50 am (UTC)Sure, we have some professional companies for some things, but the general carpenter and general repair people are becoming fewer.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 04:16 am (UTC)It's hard to find reasonable roofers as well. The same neighbour was looking at getting a new roof, but unless it a project over $10,000, several people were not interested.
I feel like I should get a gold medal for sanding the Mungo-bitten door mouldings and changing a ceiling lightbulb.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 05:54 am (UTC)They would rather hire on with a developing company that is building a subdivision, and know that they have 12 hours a day for at least a year, doing the easiest kind of work there is for a builder (cookie cutter new houses are way easier than working on an old house where no two windows are the same size and you never have to problem solve to deal with an unusual shape or wall or whatever, or other people's renovations).
Also, once a carpenter works for a company, they won't have time to do small jobs, they will always be doing big projects with a team.
My husband is VERY capable of doing the work on our house, but time is an issue. I've also noticed a more laid back lack of motivation about things now that he's older. That said, we did work on the house in Rock Springs for seven solid years, and there were still things we could have moved on to if we'd stayed.
We've only been working on this house for four-ish years, and it was a much harder project because of needing to have a new basement, and moving the house onto that.
You can still get regular plumbers to come look at your drain, but they will charge a pretty hefty hourly rate.
Like I said, the hardest thing to find is someone who will do something like fix a single window pane for you, or come fix a small area of lifted shingles on the roof, or put a new door on the garden shed.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 06:45 am (UTC)As loathe as I am to order paint that costs over $100, I know it is the only way to get the sulking room trim done. The room won't paint itself, but I've made a good start. I'd better bite the bullet and get it.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 07:51 am (UTC)I feel that without my insistence (again) this winter, very little forward movement would have taken place.
I genuinely feel that my husband would have been JUST FINE with leaving it all for some distant and hazy future. As it is, he was very upset with my prodding.
Sure, he's busy with work, but he will be likely busy with work until he RETIRES, which is still far into the future.
So, really, would he have just puttered along, doing maybe one or two things a year? Yes, I absolutely feel that without me, time would become this vague and meaningless thing to him, and it would have been okay by him if we didn't have the addition ready to live in, maybe at all.
It worries me, to be honest. NO ONE should be this laid back about a house, to the point where they have no real motivation to ever finish it.
When I confront him about this, he just shrugs and says "it wouldn't bother me to just keep working on it forever". Well, I AM NOT OKAY WITH THAT.
In hiring a handy man, it forces my husband to do the "pre" work, like actually getting the materials, and clearing out the spaces where he needs to work, making space in the garage, finding the tools, and so on, and then he seems more aware of things he can do too.
It's like hiring someone makes time more real to him again.
Once again, it makes me wonder what would become of him if we weren't married. How would he actually live? In a shack somewhere with a yard full of hoarded up crap and six old vehicles that don't run?
Most days, I wouldn't even consider myself to be "house proud" or driven.
Yet, he works very hard at his job, and prides himself on being conscientious.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 08:17 pm (UTC)I've met a few men who were raised in less than optimal circumstances, and they don't have much idea of what is a reasonable or normal way to live, even if they see it outside the home. Home was magical!
I've also met one or two who have no real desire to "appear successful", and appearing successful would mean a nice home, with comfortable living for everyone in that nuclear family and beyond.
I've met some who believe that comfortable living is sinful on some level, or that having few "needs" makes them better Christians.
And, I've met a bloke here and there who defied growing up - adult responsibility is boring!
I don't know if your fellow falls into any of these categories, but it's hard to keep nudging someone who has no or little interest in partnering your desire for comfort - not luxury, comfort - but otherwise they're good, hardworking nice guys.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-20 09:08 pm (UTC)His Dad did do a lot of work himself, but seemed to hold the "hanging onto materials" to a reasonable level.
There were no piles of lumber or old materials in the yard, no old vehicles, nothing like that.
My husband, left to his own, might hang onto a lot more stuff, and I don't know how he would progress on maintaining a house.
He's not overly messy otherwise, in that he does do dishes and laundry (occasionally), but participates in pretty much no other housework.
Yet, at wherever he is living for work, I think he keeps things immaculate. Partly because he takes very little stuff with him, so it's a very minimalist way to live. He talks about doing dishes and cleaning almost every night, and the other room mates are supposed to help out too, but often do not.
He likes the minimalist lifestyle, but at home I can't get him to part with a single old jacket or when I pulled out a box of ABSOLUTE CRAP that has now sat in a closet for three years without him so much as even wondering where it went, he wouldn't let me get rid of any of it. Not even the Far Side joke a day calendar.
Overall, I would say that the amount of stuff in our house is not his fault, but the clutter in the garage and the piles of crap that accumulate in the yard are definitely his doing.
I also don't feel that he's lazy, but with home stuff I think there is this sense of time just stretching on forever, so there's no need to hurry.
He also LOVES to help other people, which makes me angry at times because he'll dedicate a weekend, and actually make a point of getting up early and making it a whole day thing where it's like a work bee, to helping a friend build his garage.
I mentioned our friends who are clearing out their hoarder Mom's house, and he's talking about helping them a few days to clear it, and he's saying that maybe I could help out by painting the interior for them.
These people have helped us, so don't get me wrong, it's work trade well invested. It's just...we could really use that kind of enthusiasm here at home.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-22 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-22 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-23 07:57 am (UTC)Living with a crappy, gross bathroom because you're still at least two years away from having the proper one built on the main floor, cracked walls everywhere, and trying to do some yoga in the one small open space in the living room because the area you'd like to use as a workout area in the basement is being used to store wood.
His hobbit dream is selfish and unrealistic.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 05:18 am (UTC)I knew a hobbit who cannot see huge mechanic's style stains on his carpet, so there's no stress for him as far as home life is concerned. He is content to live in the most ascetic conditions you can imagine. The stress is in listening to his spouse noticing things he would not.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-25 07:25 am (UTC)My husband could have very happily lived in a tent his whole life and just rode his bike.
Yet, he always wanted a house to work on too. He was working on my apartment within weeks of when we met. I helped him, but it wasn't my passion. I just wanted a nicer apartment. I quickly started to see though, that he wasn't ever going to stop working on the apartment. He would have refinished everything. It would have taken years, or forever, but he wouldn't have ever stopped trying to work on it.
Yet, on another level, he just wants no complications; to work, ride his bike, go to bed. Which one is he?
He hates mudding or sanding drywall, hates all forms of painting, so he likes stuff that means cutting a piece of wood and screwing it to another piece of wood, which isn't the same as building a house.
If he had been single and lived close to his parents, likely he and his father would have spent all of their spare time just working on the house together, and that's where his enjoyment came from. He LOVES the "work parties" where we get our friends to come and all work together, and when he goes and works with them on their houses.
I think he thought that it would be like that with me, except I have grown tired and bitter about working on the house after over 20 years of never being done working on any house, just moving or tearing down and starting on another one. We never get to live in a finished house and enjoy it. Even our first house, I never really wanted to do a full renovation, except it's all we could afford. Really, it's like that with this house too. We did talk about moving a modular home here, but couldn't afford it.
He enjoys the process of working on the house (or, he says he does, but then why does he not work on the house for months at a time?) and I only want to live in it FINISHED.
I do end up taking some pride in the work we've done, but there is never an end to it. We had one house finished and moved. Then worked on the trailer a lot, and had to tear it down. Now we're doing it again. I think I could enjoy working on a house more if it were not a house I was also trying to live in. If we had TWO houses, one finished and one we were working on, that might be fun to some extent. It's not fun to live in it during all the work.
In reality, without a joyous "house partner" I think he's the guy who loves riding his bike or rock climbing, but he won't just be that guy and keep hiring other people to finish the house.
It's fortunate that we seem to enjoy each other in many other ways, at least.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-26 06:24 am (UTC)There are some who are "cosy" when surrounded by a yardful of rusted auto parts and basements packed with boiler gauges. They compare that to a library of books. You cannot reason with those people.
You may reason with your spouse, however, who shares a lifetime home with you. Perhaps he will, after the notion penetrates his idealistic noggin, work to the point of finishing two rooms for you, with you? Who knows if it gets the ball rolling.
Hopefully the old handyman gets him motivated.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-26 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-26 08:27 pm (UTC)