Quirks, Irks and Mishaps

As usual there’s always way too much going on in daily life around my place, hence I’m a bit tardy with this post.

When I was eating breakfast about a week ago, I heard a loud thud on the large windows we have in the family room.  We have three windows across the house facing the desert and many a bird has met their demise by hitting them while flying at full speed.

The first thing that entered my mind was the fact I was going to have to find a shovel to bury another bird, thinking it was probably a quail, or pigeon, or perhaps a dove.  I was not up to this task because of the mishap I had while we were preparing for the tile job in our master bedroom and closet.  But I hate to throw dead birds into the trash bin because I think they do deserve a proper burial.  I guess maybe this is a quirk of mine.

 Wow!  Isn't this something?

I got a surprise when I looked out to see a bird of prey knocked out on my patio.  This never happens.  They are too adept at flying and usually chase other birds they’re hunting into the windows.  I grabbed the camera and stood there taking pictures and willing him to wake up and fly away. 

I’m happy to say he did eventually come to his senses enough to fly into the desert where he probably sat a spell until he was revived enough to carry on with his daily routine.

The mishap I mentioned earlier is to my right hand, which is still bandaged three weeks later.  I guess this is going to mean another trip to the doctor.  My mistake here was not going to the doctor to start with and treating myself at home like I usually do.  I’m sure this will just be another battle scar of life to the old bod.

 Isn't this beautiful tile?  It looks like wood.

As mentioned earlier, we put tile in the bedroom and closet so we had old carpet and pad to tear out before the tile layer got here to start the job on the first of November.  Just getting this stuff out and the rooms down to concrete was such a big chore that it wore us out.  Of course all the furniture had to be moved first before any removal could be done as far as carpet and pad were concerned. 

The first day was spent draining the water bed and getting that out of there first, and then came the frame pieces and finally chairs and dresser and chest of drawers, etc.  Then we had to remove everything from the lower half of the closet.  We took four days off work to get all this done, which we needed and then some.  We had furniture, bedding and clothing in every room in the house.  Of course, my cats loved all this excitement.

 Raven snuggled into the bedding we had piled on the couch.

The next day we had to rip the carpet out and then the pad.  The first thing I did was step on the tack strip barefoot.  Duh!  How stupid was that?  I was hauling loads out of the closet and working in the construction zone barefoot.  It was all rush; rush because we only had a couple of days to prepare everything for the tile guy.

By the time we got to the carpet pad we were worn out, but had to get down on our hands and knees with putty knives to scrape up the remnants.  I really don’t know what kind of glue they use for carpet pads, but I think it’s meant to stay there a lifetime.  We made the mistake of leaving all the pictures and sculptures on the walls.  I got up to get the hammer to pull out a tack in the cement floor and fell against the wall because I was so tired.  This knocked an Indian metal sculpture off the wall and it gashed me good and deep across my right hand in two places.  I’m lucky it missed my head. 

Of course I ran for the bathroom sink leaving a trail of blood behind me.  It did cross my mind to go to the emergency room.  My hand looked like a fillet of meat.  I thought I may need stitches.  But it was late in the day and the emergency room would have cost a fortune, not to mention hours of time we didn’t have, so we finally got the bleeding stopped enough to use a band aide to patch it together.

So I kept doctoring this hand twice a day and bandaging it up.  After about a week I decided I should probably see the doctor for it.  Of course, this was impossible too because you can never get an appointment when you need one, so I spent an entire day sitting in the waiting room to see the doctor on call for the day.  They gave me a tetanus shot and also an antibiotic shot along with a prescription for antibiotics.  They said I had done a good job with it so far.  I can say that shot in the rear end made me forget my hand for a while because it hurt so bad I could hardly walk for about three hours. 

I headed to the pharmacy and then to Walmart to get a new heating pad.  Mine is about twenty years old and I’m not sure it even works anymore.  I got home just before dark.  I couldn’t believe it took all day to deal with this.

I’m back to work, but doing easy demos while my hand is healing.  It’s still a bit swollen and red and itches like mad.  I think I’m allergic to the ointment they gave me, the bad aides I’m using, or something, so I’ll have to make an appointment on my next day off and see if I can get in again to have them look at my hand.  I’m ready for this to be well, so I can move on to other things.  I have to keep it dry so I have to put on a glove and rubber band around my wrist so I can take a shower.  It’s getting old.

 This is my hand these days.  I wasn't thinking about the camera when this first happened.

I’ll end this long post with the irk portion.  Three of my neighbors have Xmas lights up already!  Good grief!  This is even earlier than last year!  Doesn’t anyone celebrate Thanksgiving anymore?  I know the house down the block at least remembers Thanksgiving is after Halloween and before Xmas because they have a whole new load of large “blow up” lawn ornaments for Thanksgiving.  As annoying as this looks, at least it’s not Xmas lights yet.  It irks me a great deal to see Xmas decorations go up before Thanksgiving.

 This is one of the prettiest sunrises I've seen since living here.  The whole sky was like this.  It was amazing.  It was about 50 degrees but I stepped out on my patio in my pj's and got this shot.

 

We should all be so thankful for all the blessings we have every day.  But the holidays have become so commercialized.  Decorations are showing up in the stores earlier every year.  I just really hate this, but I know it won’t change.  We had Halloween costumes in Costco in August and then Xmas trees up in September.  Ugh!  What is this world coming to?

Projects can be dangerous and lots of work

Right now we’re in the middle of such a project.  We took four days off work to get part of this done.  We removed the carpet from the master bedroom and closet, something we’ve wanted to do a long time.  It’s almost impossible to keep off-white carpet looking as crisp as the day you moved in the house.  After fourteen years of cleaning up fur balls and other spills, it needed a change.  Yes, with cats fur balls can’t be avoided entirely, even with regular doses of petromalt.

 The old carpet

We’ve been wanting to switch away from carpet altogether anyway.  After all, it’s just a big rag on the floor that you can never really get fully clean.  So it was a debate between wood and tile and wood and tile.  Finally, we decided that tile would be best because it’s indestructible.  We can’t move the furniture every week to clean up fur balls.  That kind of situation won’t be as harsh on tile, if they have to sit there a while.  This sounds terrible I know but fur balls are a fact of life with cats.  It doesn’t happen every week, or even every month, but they do happen.

 Pulling up the old carpet and pad.  Raven is helping.

The last few weeks we brought home countless samples of floor coverings, but when we found the tile on sale that’s a good match for the one we had installed in the house fourteen years ago, it was a done deal.  They don’t make our large chipped edge tile anymore.  So this one is a plank tile that looks like wood with the same colors as the tile we already have. 

 Clean and ready to go

Then it was a matter of finding an installer that would actually show up to do the work.  That’s a real problem around here and always has been.  We wanted to get three bids, but as it turned out only one guy showed up and he was reasonable so we hired him for the job.  And he did a fantastic job!  Now we want to do more, although we already swore to ourselves no more big projects like this one.  But the stairs need to be done and maybe the loft too.  We’ll see if we come to our senses.  At least there’s not much furniture to move in those places.

 Some of the stuff from the bedroom and closet

Once we settled on the installer, now it was time to get to work.  This whole ordeal about killed us and we still have to put all the furniture back into the bedroom and things into the closet.  It’s a daunting task when I look around the house.  We have furniture stacked up in every room downstairs.  We’re walking around things in the house and will be doing that a bit longer.  We still have to seal the tile but have to wait three days to do that, so the grout can cure and dry well.

We expected a few mishaps and this project didn’t disappoint in that department.  It took a whole day to drain the water bed and move all the furniture out of there before we could even start pulling the carpet and pad up.  We were beat.

 

More stuff from bedroom

The next day we got the carpet and pad out.  What a mess.  I was moving stuff out of the closet while hubby was cutting the carpet into smaller pieces to make it more manageable for the dump.  Silly me, I forgot the tack strip was exposed.  Of course I stepped right on the thing carrying a load of clothes.  Hubby said to get shoes on because the room was a construction zone.  He was right.  I kept on working though, after I put my flip-flops on, and then put peroxide and band aides on my foot after I cleaned the bottom half of the closet out.

 Koki on pad we covered water bed mattress with

Raven on the dresser, which is now in the dining room

When we finished that task and tying the carpet and pad up for the dump, we were too exhausted to do anything else.  So the next day, I went into the bedroom to scrape the pad up that was left on the floor while hubby pulled the tack strip up.  This was a slow going job and quite strenuous working on your hands and knees.  They must use super strong glue for the carpet pad.

I was so blasted tired that I stood up to get the hammer to pull out a nail we missed in the slab and fell against the way causing a metal sculpture to fall off the wall.  Luckily, it missed my head and cut my right hand deep in two places.  I was gushing blood all over the concrete, so I rushed to the bathroom to get my hand over the sink.  Hubby came with paper towels, peroxide, ointment and more band aides.  Good grief!  Of course my hand hurt like the devil and it was gaping open a bit, but we got most of the bleeding stopped and the thing doctored.  That was the end of my work for the day though.  I went and sat down with an ice pack on my hand for the next two hours.  We thought we would watch it to see if I needed stitches.  So far, so good, but I’m glad I have a couple more days off work.  The thought of squeezing them into gloves right now isn’t very appealing.

 The tile in progress

Of course it would have been better to remove all the pics off the walls before we started the job, which we didn’t do.  But the Indian sculpture that hit me is down right now.

 Our installer busy cutting pieces

 Done except the grout

I feel like the walking wounded right now.  Thank goodness for pain killers that help me sleep at night.  Between my back, my hands and my foot, I’m in a heck of a mess at the moment.

And the cats are wondering what the heck is going on around here, although they’ve enjoyed crawling on all the piles of stuff stacked everywhere.  But they’re quite disturbed that they can’t go and investigate the bedroom.

Working, classes, and other things

Clip art

Sometimes daily life is hard to juggle, but I’m sure most of you know that. 

Police academy classes are ongoing and will be for the next two months, twice a week.  It’s very interesting.  The last two classes were on use of force and all the weapons that are used in crime enforcement.  We watched demonstrations and listened to protocol lectures.  Along with this we had a three-hour class on dispatch.  This was the only civilian that’s spoken to us so far.  They have a battery of tests they must pass also but it isn’t quite the same as for a police officer.  You aren’t expected to leap over six-foot walls and things of that nature.  This dispatch supervisor had moved here from Los Angeles twelve years ago.  He was very passionate about his job.  I actually think he would have talked to us all night, if we let him.  He let us listen to calls that came into the center and took us up to the control room where he explained all the equipment.  This place had more monitors than NASA. 

I always thought being a dispatcher would be an interesting job.  I still think that way, but it would take a lot more fortitude than I have to have to hand out food samples.  You don’t even get a lunch break on this job, but eat between calls when you have a chance.  This center works 24/7 all the time.  There are no holidays off. This would be very intense.  What about bathroom breaks?  I think I can cross this off my bucket list.

I would also like to tell people PLEASE don’t call 911 unless you have a real emergency.  Some of the typical calls they played for us were totally ridiculous and not at all emergencies.  You’d be surprised what people call 911 for. 

I’m enjoying this police academy class immensely.  I turned in my paperwork for a ride-along last Thursday so we’ll see how that goes once they do more background checking to make sure we’re qualified to sit next to an officer, I guess.  We had to sign the form where it stated in big black letters at the bottom that we would control ourselves in any situation and stay in the car while the officers made their stops.  Of course it asked what shift we wanted to ride on etc.  I told them to give me the most action packed thing they had and that I wasn’t easily rattled by things.  More on this later.  I’m hoping I can bring a camera along but something tells me this is probably a no-no.

In other news, we’re working all the time, which seems strange for our status as part time people.  We’re so shorthanded and very busy at work.  That alone will wear you out by the end of the shift because it’s nonstop all day long.

To add a little more to my plate, I backed into hubby’s truck last week and dented both our bumpers and broke my tail light.  This happened right in the driveway!  How stupid of me.  I was ready to kick my own ass for being in a hurry and not thinking.  I guess all the extra money I’m making right now from working so hard will come in handy, although I didn’t have in mind to use it for car repairs.

And so life goes on here in the desert without a minute to spare.  I still have a new printer sitting here I’ve never hooked up over the last two weeks because there’s no extra time.  I sure hope it works since it’s a replacement for a defective one.

And we’ve had days and days of rain.  The Parade of Homes is an annual event held in February every year and it rains every time.  You can set your calendar by it.

Until next time…