Tag: cleanup on aisle 5

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Lawn Furniture

Tomorrow is the start of bulk item pickup week, so we had to get my old furniture out to the curb today. We couldn’t start on an empty stomach though, so I made us some wraps out of leftover barbecue chicken. Then I milled around the house and got things shuffled around so we could get the chairs out the front door while Summer went to the gym.

The living room feels so empty without large furniture, but I can’t let that massive change make me feel like I’ve made any real progress. It’s all the little things that will kill me. I got the coat closet cleaned out and organized too, so that was a big help. We may eventually get this place presentable after all.

After we moved the furniture outside, we met Julie at my parents’ house to cover up the pool. I really thought we were going to finally get a mesh cover this year, but it just didn’t happen. I think I’ll have to make it happen myself if I really want it. It would make the entire process significantly easier both in the spring and fall.

Summer and I came back home and cleaned up the fire pit, even prepping it with some kindling for the next time. I need to come up with a way to store some wood for a proper burn, because last night was great. I just wish the fire wasn’t so smokey, and I’d bet some better wood would help.

Summer eventually headed back home to get some housework done and receive the kids. Then I went to my parents’ house for some eggplant soup for dinner. I ended the evening with some more rummaging through closets. This time it was the linen closet in the hallway. I’ve never used that closet for linens, but I’ll pretty much have to with such high occupancy. It’s going to be tight, but it’ll be better after I find all of these empty boxes I’ve stored everywhere over the years.

There’s no time to take out trash, living in a hoarder’s paradise.

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Smashing Good Time

We got up this morning and almost immediately got up to start cleaning up around the house. I still had trouble finding a good focus, but managed to mostly stay busy. Summer went to the gym for a while, then came back and tried to clean up the patio a bit so we could have a fire in the evening.

A little while later she got a work call and ultimately had to go in to resolve an issue with a customer. Not long after she got back, I took a call from Mark and had a short remote session to work through some questions with Google Calendar.

By the time that was all done, it was about time to meet Suzanne and Trent at Linhs for dinner. It was relatively slow and quiet in there, yet somehow a group was sat right behind us. I haven’t been impressed at all with any of the new servers in there. Our spring rolls lagged behind our meal, and we basically never saw the girl again after she took our orders. At least the company was good, and it was nice to catch up again.

After dinner, we came back to the house and started a little fire. There were enough small branches to actually start a proper flame, but the logs burned really smokey. It was a good time though, and a beautiful night. Suzanne accidentally shattered one of my fancy glasses, so I’ll have to re-complete that set the next time they go on sale. Otherwise it was a really good day, and I can’t wait to get the old, ratty furniture out tomorrow for bulk item pickup day.

This is why we use plastic.

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Sunday Runday

I got up and made eggs for breakfast again this morning. The slow cooker barbecue chicken burned a bit and seemed dry, but I didn’t really think forward enough to actually turn it off. I tried to start cleaning the garage while Summer went to the gym with Noah.

It was pretty overwhelming to find a place where I could dig in enough make enough room to rearrange things. I paced around quite a bit at first. Summer eventually came back with Noah and we made a late lunch out of the barbecue chicken. It tasted alright, but you could really tell it was overcooked.

After lunch, Noah went to take a nap while Summer and I tried to tackle the garage together. By that time it started to get pretty warm out there, and I got crankier the hotter I got, and the more she pushed to motivate me. Then I got a text from Mark and realized I had to get cleaned up before I could go meet him.

After my shower, Summer took Noah to work and I left for Mark’s office. He had some new questions for me, and I felt good about what we accomplished in just over an hour. Before I left, he urged me to vote to keep the penny sales tax.

From there, I picked Summer up and we went to my parents’ house for bún bò Huế. Nova was there too, and I guess Dad had taken her out practice driving before ending up there. We stayed a little while, but eventually left as I seemed to be allergic to something there. My head stopped up and started to throb until we got back home.

Summer and I settled in pretty quickly, spending a little time to talk about our feelings some more before bed. Communication is easy if you just suck it up and do it.

When someone asks if you want a parachute, the answer is always, “yes!”

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ALL THE ROLES

I spent all morning running around the campus trying to fix the PaperCut issue. I finally got on a call with support, who offered some tips that ultimately only helped a fraction of our issues. I guess nobody’s ever heard of print jobs getting stuck like this.

I was going to go home for lunch to check on the cat, but that never happened. I just worked through lunch, then made it back to the shop in the afternoon so I could learn to print some staff badges. It’s really annoying that people in quarantine are testing negative but not coming back to work. I really don’t even understand why they’re testing in that case.

After work, I headed home and started cleaning. I got a load of laundry done, then went to Walmart to try some other cat food before coming back to clean more carpet. It feels like the water will never run clear, and my waste tank is so incredibly tiny that I think I walked a mile just emptying it repeatedly.

At least I got a snow cone.

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Corrugation Station

We got up this morning without any plans for lunch and a sizeable hunger, so Eaddie and I ran to Burger King for a super cheap bag of food. I really don’t even know how they can sustain those multi-packs of food, because nobody else can feed a family of four for a lucky thirteen bucks.

After we ate, Summer took the girls home to do their chores while I tried to clean up a bit more at home. I got a bunch more empty boxes out of the house, including a big one from my first flat panel TV. The Vizio is still in the garage from when I brought it home from Summer’s, but it stands freely without too much trouble. My newer LG OLED, on the other hand, would require much more care in shipping, so I really didn’t want to get rid of that enormous box, filled with high density styrofoam.

Eventually I made it out to Walmart to pick up a few things to take up to Summer’s for dinner. She tried slow cooking a pork loin for pork tacos, but it just didn’t shred at all after such a short cooking time, so I chopped it up for tacos. Overall it was a super fresh dinner that I could have felt good about if I hadn’t eaten over twice the three tacos I should have eaten.

After dinner, Summer, Eaddie, and I watched a couple episodes of Glee before I headed back home for the evening. I broke down a few more boxes, still failed to get the cat to eat anything, and eventually made it to bed before the loneliest, most stressful work week ever.

Just call me SuperTech.

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Finding Room

I got up pretty early this morning for how late I made it to bed. I really ought to look into blackout curtains or blinds. I didn’t really have any trouble getting out of bed though, so I got showered and started cleaning up a bit around the house. I finally decided to get rid of some big, empty boxes that were taking up a lot of space. There are still more to go, but today was already a noticeable improvement.

In the early afternoon, I went to Mark’s office to help with some trouble he was having with G Suite. I ended up sticking around for quite a while before making it up to Summer’s for a chicken dinner with some kick.

I didn’t want to leave Split for too long, and I still wanted to try and clean up some more, so I didn’t stick around too long. The girls ended up beating me home though, because I spent too much time in Walmart picking up some fresh, refrigerated cat food to try, and then perusing the clearance items. I did come out with a couple gems though.

Julie wanted to chat on the phone for a bit on the way home from there, and then the girls and I watched an episode of Glee before they each started wandering off to bed. It was nice to have enough room again to pull the futon out to make a more proper bed for the girls.

A wonderful place that becomes slowly less comfortable over time.

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Looking for a Handout

Summer brought Autumn to work for me again today, and we started handing laptops out to the seniors. It was an all-day affair, and for the most part the kids were pretty spread out. Seniors are always a bit more chill since they’ve been through the motions a couple times before.

Noah came by to get his laptop and then needed a ride home, so I dropped him off on the way to pick up Stoby’s for lunch. Autumn had a dentist appointment around lunch time, but then came right back. Work orders continued to flow in all day, and I did what I could remotely. Ben called at the end of the day and said he needed me to work on deploying Impero first thing tomorrow, so hopefully Autumn can handle my part of the laptop handout without me.

Autumn’s band practice was cancelled due to the rain, so we picked Eaddie up after work and I dropped them both off at karate. Then I went by my parents’ house for some fish soup before heading home to clean up a bunch more carpet. It was a bit of a slow-motion nightmare, and I was exhausted by the end of the night. The girls came over to spend the night, and I just crashed as soon as I could.

I don’t like it, buddy. I don’t like it.

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Living Within the Means

Summer got up and took the girls home while I started cleaning in the garage. Frustration and anxiety about some of the things I’ve hoarded has made it a tiny bit easier to get rid of them, but it’s still not easy. Seeded deep within me is a primal need to be prepared for the day I’ll need some of those things, and I have a genuine fear of not having them when the day comes.

Along with removing the less valuable things comes reorganizing the things that will stay. I have amassed a veritable trove of things larger than I am, and I’ll have to find enough wall space to store them all. I can get a little creative with suspending things from the ceiling, but that will take a considerable amount of work in and of itself. It is neat to be back in a place where I can imagine a realistically finished project though.

The girls eventually came back and we took the leftover barbecue to my parents’ house for lunch. We got there and realized I had forgotten the sauce, so Summer and I ran back across town for that before we could eat. After lunch, Mom seemed to be feeling some kind of way about the way I’ve tried to live within my means, and kept encouraging me to go into debt all just to build a new house. Being out of debt and having money in the bank has been a point of personal pride for me for quite a while, so building a new house isn’t even in my 10-year plan.

We made it back to my house and the girls went home while I cleaned up a bit more. Split wasn’t well, and has gotten to the point where he only eats the gravy out of the canned food I’ve been getting him. Of course he’ll eat the more expensive cans though, so I suppose I’ll be getting more of those tomorrow. Ultimately I made my way up to Summer’s for the evening, and watched some Glee with her and Eaddie before bed.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
-Douglas Adams

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Is This What White People Sound Like?

I went to the shop first thing this morning to try and recruit some help moving all of the old laptops from my office to The UPS Store. Josh and Kyle drew the short straws, so I got the truck and we headed out. We managed to get it all into the back of the truck, except for a half box of laptops that we forgot to grab.

Once that was done, I dropped Josh and the truck off, and then Kyle and I went back to the high school to replace some docking stations. It got me a little out of my groove I was in, but we got a lot accomplished and I appreciated the help. He was only working the half day, so he cut out at lunch and I went back to my office for the afternoon.

I still had a leftover sandwich in the fridge, so I ate that while I worked. All of my flash drives accepted the new laptop image, so hopefully I can start on that next week. I got a couple huge boxes of parts in, but it was all for Heather’s new laptops, so I’ll have her come take them away eventually.

After work, took the last few laptops to The UPS Store and encountered a loud, ignorant couple that was just hellbent against wearing masks. It seemed like they were just out for an argument, because he was wearing a completely open mesh mask that I guess was intended to comply with the most generic definition of the word. The girl at the counter asked them to step away, and they both immediately started spouting off about how the CDC said surgical masks didn’t protect against COVID-19, and asked on whose authority was his mask deemed unworthy. I’m sure if they had done a little more digging on that same internet where they found their information, they would have learned that idiots and assholes are not protected classes of people, and that private establishments like The UPS Store aren’t infringing on their rights by not serving them. I spent the rest of my evening winning arguments and delivering sick burns to them in my mind.

I stopped by to see Summer on the way home, and then finally broke out my new carpet cleaner to make my living room a little less gross. It seemed to do a really great job, and really made me want to continue on cleaning the rest of the house. It did pull up a lot of carpet lint, but I figured at its age, that wasn’t enough of a reason to stop cleaning. I felt like the room looked a lot better when I was done.

Summer headed over after work while I ran to Walmart to pick up some wet cat food. Split has lost a ton of weight from his formerly fat and floppy self, so I imagine he’s finally on his way out after 15 years. He really took to the canned food when I got home though, so maybe he was just having trouble with the dry stuff.

I warmed up the leftover nachos with some extra salad stuff and watched Forged in Fire with Summer until she started to fall asleep on the couch. I think even I was more tired than I realized.

The lady asked you to leave….

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Rinse and Repeat

I spent most of the morning duplicating flash drives for next week’s imaging party. Heather will be with me then since they’re going to be her laptops next year, but today it was just me by myself finishing up what I started at the beginning of the week.

Gary and I ran by Wendy’s for some lunch, and I had some trouble with the app. There was no line at all, so I just ended up ordering off of the menu for about four times what I would have paid for my promotion through the app. Then I spent all afternoon shopping for more flash drives.

After work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer since she seemed busy all day. She had a lot going on, so we chatted for a little bit before I headed home to meet Zach. He eventually came over after interviewing at the shop, and started working on the Fiero again. We got some brake fluid into the clutch reservoir, and I was able to get the car in and out of gear. The starter worked, but the fuel pump never made a sound.

Zach’s father and grandfather came over to look at it for a little bit as well, and then they all left for dinner. When Summer finally got home after her long day, I went to Zaxby’s to pick up some dinner. I heard a pretty loud wreck from the end of the block, but it was too dark to really see anything.

I wrapped up the evening with some Overwatch with Johnny and Aaron. The kids are gone all weekend, so tomorrow is my chance to clean up at home.

Bite off more than you can chew; What can you do?
DARE TO BE STUPID