May 29, 2011

Memorial Day weekend

It's 95, (but it's a dry heat!). October, 2005 in Las Vegas. We decided to take a walk around out hotel. We went around back of Excalibur, then next door to Luxor. The mountains in the distance were beautiful, and the hotels were stunning too. Donna was hot and tired here, but happy to be outside.
That's my son in the striped shirt. He wanted to see the pool, and the hot females. I did too. Unfortunately, all we say were normal, every day people. The pool was only about two feet deep, and boy was the air hot! BUt, it was a dry heat!
Shona and Eric got married out in the desert near the place where they tested the moon rover. It was an amazing place. I was over 300 pounds then, so I didn't feel too good in that dry heat!
This is a reflection off Luxor (the pyramid) of the Excalibur. I was lucky to get this shot.
These pictures were found by me on a disc that I had given to my wife. She had taken it to work to show it off. It came home in a box after she died.
Now, for the rest of the story:

With my fatigue problem, things are moving slowly. But, I do need time to work through problems and to finish up things I've been doing the past year, so I'm not depressed about it. I just slog along slowly but surely.
I didn't get invited out for the holiday, and that's a good thing because I just don't have the energy.
I asked a friend to help me move a drafting table up from the basement Friday night, and I transferred the TV and accessories over to it. It's a very old piece and has no real function, so I thought I would give it one. It allowed me to center the TV in the living room, and it raised it as well. Now I can get a big dog and not have to worry about seeing over him/her when she wants attention! I will also be able to organize the room better now. Before, the TV was in the corner, and this interfered with the organization of the room.
I will be working on setting up the stereo too. I have a turntable, old AM/FM receiver, power amplifier, and speakers that I've been wanting to do for some time now. I should be able to shake the paint off the walls when I finish.
I also want to drill a hole in the floor and send all the cables through the basement instead of running them across the carpet. I didn't get to that yet, but might just do it this weekend sometime.
I rotated the mattress today. It is a California King size, which is much bigger than a regular kind. This sucker is very heavy! The handles ripped on one side after I tried unsuccessfully to flip it over. It is very hard to flip because the ceiling fan gets in the way. It will take two people to flip and I didn't feel like asking my friend to come over again. I managed to vacuum both sides of the mattress as well as the base of the bed. I changed the sheets. The whole job took over two hours because of this damn fatigue.
I relived some memories in the basement this afternoon by going through the last pile of boxes. There were rolls of contact paper from when my in laws lived here (pre-1992). That stuff has lost all semblance of usefulness, yellow with age, and sticky from the glue running.
I found old Christmas cards, lots of useless pens, some novelties given to my wife from her various customers over the years. Most of it went into the trash because they no longer worked.
I turned on the AC this weekend too. Today (Saturday) it was on all day, but yesterday, I only ran it at night. My brick house collects heat during the day and gives it back at night. I wanted to get ivy or some other clinging vines to cover the wall where the sun beats down ruthlessly, but Donna didn't like that idea. I think I might just do that this year.
So, there are still many things that have to be done here, and I'm looking forward to completing them, but I am also enjoying the journey.
  • Ugh, more painting.
  • I need to get the carpets cleaned. Whatever I end up doing, I won't put any more money into replacing anything until I am sure I can stay here. Or should I say until I'm sure I will stay here. So, a good cleaning is all I'm willing to do.
  • The porch still needs to be finished.
  • We will be having a heat wave this week, so I will probably not go out and prepare the mulched areas for planting. I had everything pulled out last year, and covered the area with heavy plastic and mulch to kill anything so I could start new. I need to pull the plastic up and do some work to the ground before deciding what I want to do.
  • I still have a bunch of furniture, and other things I want to line up, take pictures of, and sell or throw away. I'll whittle away as time and energy permits.
  • I have to go job hunting. I have my blood work scheduled this week, and a colonoscopy/endoscopy scheduled for the day after I finish driving, so any job would have to wait until after that (June 22).
  • My guitar has been played, but not as much as I want. I have been wanting to write out a business plan also to try to see if I can move towards working for myself.
  • After a long walk this morning (Monday, Memorial Day), I decided to not spend any more money on the house, except to finish up what I started. I still need a few curtains, and maybe some more (ugh!) paint, but I'm going to leave the re-carpeting until I am working full time again. I had considered writing down a list of things that have to be done, but I already have lists all over the place.
Life keeps going forward and that is good!