I’ve been dreaming about the shower again. Not nice, peaceful relaxing water splashing luxuriantly over me as I relax. No, the tiling dream.
As the due date for another inspection approaches, and with Kathryn now vaccinated, there’s a potential small window of opportunity for us to coat the bathroom walls in the vile gunk that will waterproof it. That will mean I can finally get to tile the bathroom (and that will mean I get a shelf back in the garage which is currently filled with tiles).
It’s quite exciting, but it means I get the recurring dream about how to tile the bathroom, how to install the drain, plumbing it in… It’s all very useless – my brain’s trying to solve problems that I don’t know the answer to until I lay out the tiles. It’s trying to work out how I should space them out, how I should cut around the shelf…
It’s all pointless and irritating and means I wake up not feeling rested.
It’s fine for my brain to do this stuff when progress is quicker* and I’ve actually worked out stuff in the half-sleep/wake state which has been useful. At least, that’s happened at least once.
But for the most part it just means I wake up tired and feeling slightly grumpy.
Today, the plan is to measure out more trim and cut it – if it stays dry. If it seems like it’s going to not be that kind of day I might try and finish the last 4 feet of rock moving; it would be really nice to get that job done. I don’t want to push myself too hard today, though, because I’m going to be at work tomorrow. And work has, of late, been quite tiring.
In an NHSy way, all the local hospitals have been pretty full, meaning that we’re also busy. This normally happens for us in the summer when everyone gets out – and we fill up with people who’ve done something foolish outdoors. But at the moment we seem to be being hit with wave after wave of people who didn’t get X checked because COVID and now are very sick, or are just very sick anyway, or are having mental health challenges either because of the fall-out from a year and a half of limited option to be away from the people they live with.
…or because they’re (understandably) very stressed about the return to ‘normal’ when ‘normal’ involves a big chunk of the population walking around sans-mask-unvaccinated. And also it involves lots of social interaction – which many of us haven’t had much of.
And that makes work pretty exhausting, mentally and physically.
It really makes me more want to go live in the middle of nowhere – on a nice bit of land. Of course, the challenge with that is that money. And this year our growing… well, it’s not gone terribly well. I mean, some things seem to be doing okay, but as usual I’m feeling like I’m quite behind on planting. And the plants that we have – some of them really haven’t thrived, and I’m not sure why.
So, that’s that really. The world otherwise continues as is.
Which does worry. I mean, I’m pleased that there’s some progress from the new administration – but again a large chunk of the Dems seem to be trying to play nice and by the rules, and ignoring the fact the GOP don’t. It really feels like they’re trying to get bipartisanship from a group who’s only aim is to deliberately obstruct.
And in the mean time, while the Dems are playing nicely, the republicans are making it impossible for anyone but them to win. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, police overreach. I’m really concerned about what’s going to happen in the mid-term elections here. Because if the dems lose that slim majority then what?
*sigh*
And the endless attacks on trans people here, and back in the UK? It’s just wearing and tiring.
Definitely think a house far away from others would be nice.
*it’s not.
