what i did on my march break by siobhan

I just walked past a window and did a double-take - there is snow all over everything. I had the doors and windows thrown open earlier today because it wasn't overly cold and I was busy raising clouds of dust all day. I imagine it will be gone by morning, but it took me by surprise.

I scheduled a couple of days off work so I could get caught up on All The Things and so far it's been pretty productive. It took me most of a day, but I scooped all the water out of the bathtub, took apart the plug, and spent some time scraping clay, hair, clay, and what looked like pieces of the husks from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers plus more clay out of the pipes. Then I scrubbed the shit out of it. It's now a pristine gleaming white and the water runs clear down the drain without any pooling. Go me.

Before


After


Yesterday I went to a seed swap that was hosted in one of the local community centres. I came home with some arugula and some suggestions for local ground covers. I didn't buy more because honestly I think the yard is going to be a multi-year project. I went outside to poke around and it's... gonna be some work. Basically they took all the clay from digging out the basement and threw it over the yard and it's full of broken glass, broken concrete, whatever trash they uncovered. And the original plan said it would slope away from the house to reduce runoff, that is definitely not what I saw when I went out there.

In the short term, I'm going to just rake up as much crap as I can and then throw some white clover seed over it. Long term I'll section off a piece at a time to rehab with some compost to dilute the clay. I'll start with a square of garden and work from there.

But first the basement. I spent a lot of time digging through all the crap down there and trying to organize it. I found more things left behind by the housemate, which needs to be boxed up so it can leave with the rest of their stuff. I filled the garbage bin again, and there will be another full bag to go in once that's taken away. I have uncovered a lot of my tools and supplies that will come in useful. And lightbulbs. Apparently my housemate was ordering a case every time we needed one - they were cheaper that way I guess? But then promptly lost track of the box when we needed another so just ordered another case. I have so many lightbulbs y'all!

Also found some full wine bottles so tomorrow might be slightly less productive than today was, but I'm ok with that.

So much dust. And so many spiders. And I'm only halfway done down there.

march comes in like a emu and goes out like a tapir

Today's checklist:

Plumber came today to check out the sump pump that the contractor installed. His reaction was a very polite version of "what the actual fuck?" so that confirms my suspicion that the whole thing is extremely jury-rigged. I also showed him where it empties into the backyard and he agreed that it's undermining my neighbour's fence, so he's going to have to redo the entire thing. Now I wait for his quote. I think the city will chuck me a small amount of money for the work if I get a proper receipt for it.

Filing the Old Man's taxes is the last piece of paperwork I have to do before I can close his estate account. I went through the paperwork and discovered that I never received the forms for his pension. Today I called them and they had sent it to his old retirement residence. Which is annoying because I know they have my address, they sent me the notice of overpayment the month he died. And the residence would have sent anything addressed to him return to sender - which is also annoying, because the post office won't let me request a mail forwarding from that address. So if they're sending stuff back from a company that I don't already know about there is literally no way for me to find out.

Boxed up the housemate's things. Dug through more of the basement and found some of my painting supplies, although not the main box. Organized another small box to leave the house. Put in a service request to have somebody inspect my roof. Updated the house grant info so the energy auditor can file her assessment.

It's flipping back and forth between sunny and cold sleet and the pressure fluctuations are giving me a headache. I took some drugs and I'm about to head out to the gf's so hopefully some fresh air will sort my bucket out.