lists

Things the electricians are installing in our house:
-Outlets
-Recessed lights
-Ceiling fans
-One chandelier
-Bathroom fans
-Cable wiring
-Telephone wiring
-CAT5 wiring

Things Don and I have argued about placement of:
-Outlets
-Recessed lights
-Ceiling fans
-One chandelier
-Bathroom fans
-Cable wiring
-Telephone wiring
-CAT5 wiring

Arguments won by me:
-Ceiling fans

Arguments won by Don:
-CAT5 wiring
-Bathroom fans

Arguments won by the electrician:
-Outlets
-Recessed lighting
-One chandelier
-Telephone wiring
-Cable wiring

tra la, tra lay, the month of may

I've run out of pictures and I have rather a lot of work to do today, so I think for today's post you get a list. Here are some things I plan on doing this month:

-This weekend: I'll be doing laundry, writing my final paper for my 'Visual and Verbal Rhetoric' class, working on several proposals for work, and watching Don mow the lawn.

-Next weekend: I plan on heading to the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm (in Glen Rock, PA, about an hour north of Baltimore) on Saturday. This is the 'original' fairy festival in this area. I'm trying to convince Jason to go with me, since my usual cohorts are both busy that weekend.

-The weekend after that: Probably nothing, although I might head over to the 32nd Street Farmers Market to see what they've got on Saturday morning. Also, I'll call my mother on Mother's Day. I promise.

-Thursday the 17th: The semi-quasi-bi-monthly Baltimore Blogger Happy Hour. I will try to be there, even though it's all the way out in the county. Plus, when I asked ACW if he was going over gchat, he abruptly signed off. Totally a bad omen.

-The weekend of the 18th: The Maryland Faerie Festival. Lindley and I will be there again this year -- we didn't get accepted as vendors, unfortunately, but we'll go just to enjoy ourselves (and take cute pictures of kids dressed up as fairies).

-Memorial Day weekend: Balticon 41. I'm going to try to be there for at least one day this year.

I don't think I'll be going to Intergem in Chantilly this month -- it conflicts with the Faerie Festival and it's a long way to go to spend money I shouldn't be spending on beads. Besides, there's one in Timonium in June.

If you want to catch up with me at one (or many) of these events and/or places, either leave a comment or drop me an email at jamailac at gmail dot com, I'll let you know more specifically what my timing is going to be like and give you my number if you don't already have it.

grueling

Peeps, I am losing all my motivation, and this is so the wrong time for it. I'm a little stressed out with my various commitments, and stress sort of makes me shut down. I'm deep in the throes of a seriously down cycle, and I've spent the last couple of days unable to do much of anything besides lay in bed. And Don just emailed me this schedule for the upcoming pre-demolition week (I should probably mention that all bizarre spelling and phrasing is his):

Demo Week List…
Tuesday
Get boxes back from parents
Bag up couch pillows and extra blankets
Breakdown TV area
Breakdown Jamaila table
Put cabinet back together
Wednesday
Into Garage:
Couches
China Cabinet
Corner Cabinet
Bookcases
Coffee table
TV Unit
Dinning room table
Jamaila Table
Thursday
Dumpster stuff in house
Friday
Move TV to parents
Move treadmill to parents
Move electronics to parents
Drain radiators
Sort tools

I have no idea how I am going to get through the next several days.

it's that time of year again

That's right -- it's dumpster season!


Our good friends over at Benjer delivered this dumpster on Friday, in the middle of some very unpleasant freezing precipitation (thanks guys!). Now we know why most of their other customers cancelled their deliveries, though -- by Saturday morning when we went out to start work, there was a LOT of ice inside that dumpster! We cleared what we could and left the rest to drain or dry up as it gets warmer, and went ahead and started loading. That's right, you heard me -- we accomplished something! We actually cleaned out the garage! Can you believe it? After months of nothing interrupted by brief periods of pipe-related panic (broken pipes so far this year: three), we have started to work again. And in honor of this accomplishment, I submit unto you a list (I love lists!):

Things We Put Into The Dumpster:
-a cooler
-a fireplace grate
-fake logs (there is no fireplace anywhere in the house, so I don't know where this stuff came from)
-a broken table
-a lot of decaying plywood that was forming the quasi-floor of the garage, having been laid directly onto the dirt
-a wheeled drafting table
-some sort of electric bug killer
-a lot of broken plexiglass
-some mysterious platform things -- maybe proto-floors?
-a big plywood base which we think might have been from Pop-Pop's train garden (a family hobby Don hopes to start up again someday)
-a giant glass window pane (we just couldn't think of a reason to save it -- plus it was pretty scratched up)
-a homemade shelf thingie
-some old homemade weights
-a box of fishing weights
-two really long metal poles

Things Which Could Not, For Legal Reasons, Go Into The Dumpster:
-two window air conditioners, broken
-three car batteries
-approximately twenty four pint sized cans of transmission fluid

Things Which Did Not Get Put In The Dumpster Yet Because They Are Really Heavy:
-the staircase unit from the pool
-the deck platform the staircase used to lead up to
-a fifty gallon drum
-an old barbeque
-lots of really long PVC pipe
-the antenna that used to be on the roof
-a lot of rubble

Things We Decided To Save:
-the school lockers (certain people will be glad to hear that we decided to salvage the lockers -- they are in pretty bad shape but I love them too much to let them go, so we will build the floor around them for now and try to refurbish them someday)
-an ancient post hole digger made entirely of steel (VERY HEAVY and no I didn't know that until I tried to pick it up. Don laughed at me. A lot.)
-several other old tools (maybe we'll start a museum!)
-some cabinet doors, because they were pretty (maybe we'll use them as frames for something crafty! or maybe they'll sit around in the woodshop until the next generation decides to clean out the garage)
-spiders (really we're just wusses)