So cognitive dissonance continues apace. Oh, look, there’s some horrific thing that’s happened. Ah, we need more yogurt. Rinse, repeat.
I keep trying to plan around what things that I want to do. Or more accurately, I have these thoughts about things I want to do. “Oh, I’d like to set up the garage so I can work in there on some of the non-house projects”. And then I remind myself that in 20 days we might need to flee the fucking country.
That there’s a non-zero possibility of roaming white supremacist / terrorist militias roaming the f’kin streets and shooting people that they decide shouldn’t be in the country. That there’s a non-zero possibility that we’ll need to peel the queer pride sticker off the back of the car and drive north with nothing but our (brand new, shiny) disaster kit in the car and pray that Canada lets us in.
Trying to tread a line between sensible precautions and paranoia is incredibly challenging. Even knowing where that line is, that’s proving harder and harder with each passing day.
So I keep thinking – I’ll set up the workspace in the garage. Hell, I’ve even moved the tablesaw around to the side and put up another shelf for wood (well, really it’s a shelf for ‘stuff’, but currently it’s holding up wood); I’ve tried to work out where the hell the micrometer is (still no idea) so I can work out which specific part I need to replace the flange in the diff; but at the same time I’m hesitant to do stuff that has a longer timeline than a couple of weeks.
I can tell how stressed I am because I’ve managed to bite my lip 3 times in the last 3 weeks – each time leading to a hole that takes a while to repair itself. The constant stress is just fucking with me now.
Anyhow. Iiiin other news. I have now grouted the kitchen tiles. They still need a final clean and polish, but they’re looking pretty tidy:
Which is the first job, after washing up today. A quick clean off of those tiles.
The outside is also more-or-less painted. I need to cut the last few bits and go get some more paint, which is probably a job I should do today. Buut, the front and south sides are completely painted. There’s about 4′ towards the north east corner of the north side that’s not done yet; and similarly there’s about 8′ of the east side where we’re missing a few trim pieces (because I hadn’t done the trim bit around the door…which I’ve now done). I need to get those cut and up, but the weather’s been pretty… wet of late.
Unfortunately, in maintenance VS repair jobs – the sump pump under the house (this is a afaik a USian thing, I never had one in the UK. It’s to pump out water that pools under the house*) has died. It’s just tripping the breaker when it tries to turn on. This may be related to when we had the membrane under the house replaced and they kncoked crud into the low point in which it sits, and it ran dry continuously for days before overheating.
So I need to wait for a dry block of a couple of days, grovel under the house and replace it. Because I’m not a f’kin scum landlord, unlike the one that’s under there now which is held in place with string, ours will actually have to be fixed in place and will have non-flexible pipe running into a drain.
Which is tedious, but if I’m going to replace it I’d like to do it properly.
In the hopes that we get to stay to enjoy it.
*I think all the houses we had in the UK were built high enough up that you didn’t need to pump water out from under them….
Except my mum’s which had a solid concrete floor.
