Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Basement cleaning, lawn cutting and painting

 Yesterday was a busy day. Perhaps it was growing up in a family that owned their own business but Labour Day was never overly significant for me. I do believe that we have done better overall as a people with unions but I never really belonged to one if I could avoid it. It was just my character that liked to be free and negotiate on my own terms for a job and how that job proceeded. I was in a union when I worked at the hospital but the only time I heard from them was when I didn't take a proper lunch hour so I followed the union rules for a little and took a walk at lunch time which I had planned to do anyway. I brought my lunch with me every day and spending it with a lot of people since I talked to a lot of people all day long was not my idea of a relaxed moment in the day. But I do believe unions have made the work place a safer place to be in for people especially women. I think they overstep their mark when they side with the idea that working at home is an option;  not so in the public sector you need to be there in person to serve the public because that is what you do. Feel you are more productive at home but the new employees, those learning the ropes have a right to see a proper workplace where the knowledge of the elders is passed on in a daily fashion. So back to work, COVID is over and that was just a blip in time that will not repeat for a bit but when it was does we will be much more ready to realize that hiding in a house for a year and a half is not necessarily a good option. Masking and hand washing is much better. 

So the basement is clean again although it is never really dirty to be honest since I clean it every week. But I do not like dust to pile up as it makes me sneeze! I also painted one of the basement steps just to get the feel of painting once again; it has been a while since I did that. I will paint them all - likely half of each step so as to make it easy to go up and down. It will be a couple of weeks project because I will do it on cleaning day. Along with that I cut all the lawns and that is done. I expect to cut them once more before I put the lawn mower away for the winter. This is a big yard - not wide but long although shorter than I thought with my new eyes. The next task is weeding and I expect to have several bags out there every week for a bit. I have nearly 40 bags on hand it appears so lots of weeding to come. I pulled up some of the pepper plants that were not producing and will pull up the rest of the tomato plants and put those cages out to the next metal recycling day here. I am done with growing tomatoes like that. The local market has beautiful crops all summer long - the lettuces were magnificent with small bits of broccoli scattered in the package. 

Today is the main floor and the top floor. The house is small actually just 1400 square feet so doable in one day although I will be somewhat tired at the end of the day but I do not do any other exercise so that works. About the normal level of tiredness. At the end of the day the house will be clean and I will size up the blue painting that comes next; the steps are red. Then the only painting left is a bit of patching that I had to do and some of the heavily used areas could use a touchup. That will complete my painting in preparation for moving one of these days although it looks like next year or the following these days. I do want to get through all of those research boxes and the photo binders before we move on. 

I did work on the Siderfin material and I am into the eleventh generation, just the twelfth to go and then I can start producing charts. I still think having it done sooner is more likely than I thought. I am behind now in both the Kipp and the Pincombe Newsletters but that too will get done this month. Then I begin my desired work for the moment which is the Blake and Pincombe books. I have not really looked at them since last May just before my first cataract surgery so three and a half months. A little longer than I planned but I have gotten more downsizing done and that is actually more important. I can work on the Blake and Pincombe books where ever I live  because that was always the plan that my work would be very portable and it remains so. 

Breakfast completed, latin is next and then on to cleaning. 


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