Dumpster Diving

My moving date is rapidly approaching.  While I’m still hoping to extend my lease until September 30, I haven’t received the renewal notice yet, so I’m planning to put in a serious demolition effort this coming week.

Plan A

Initially I had planned on just doing what was necessary to get the wiring up to snuff.  But once I started digging in, I discovered how deteriorated the wiring had become.  Since it was essentially unusable, I proceeded to tear down parts of the walls and ceiling to allow access for running the new lines.  That’s when I discovered there was NO insulation in the house — a very bad thing!

Plan B

Having no insulation would mean excessive heating and cooling along with very high utility bills (gas and electric).  So I really had no choice except to start pulling more of the interior walls down.  This lead other problems and caused some serious delay in my progress.  Imagine tearing out a wall or ripping down a ceiling and having the debris pile up in one of the rooms.  Eventually you’ll get to a point where you have to stop work and clean up the mess before moving forward.  To date I’ve only been using small 55-gallon rectangular containers to haul the debris to the dumpsters located in the apartment complex where I’m currently residing.  But with the lease expiration looming, it’s time to kick into high gear — I’ve ordered a 30-yard dumpster for Monday delivery.

Demolition To Begin

The first of my vacation periods begins next week.  I purposely chose that week because my night job work week spills over into the weekend of July 4th (I know it’s two different weeks by normal calendars, but the night job is anything but normal).  Since I’ll be off work, and with the dumpster on-site, I should be able to get more of the house torn out and discarded than I’ve been able to do in 6 months.  Yes, 6 months is a long time and I had expected to be further along.  But hauling out relatively small amounts of debris at time (to avoid attracting too much attention) has really dragged the process out. 

Of course, as with anything else, the amount of progress I actually make will depend on how long I’m able to work each day.  I have no doubt that at some point each day I’ll just be too sore to move and will have to pack up.  I just hope I’ll be able to get 7 good days of work in for a change.  If so, I should have most everything ripped out, including the old, smelly carpeting.

As with everything else, stay tuned…

Stress? What’s that?

It’s been a few days since my last post, so I decided to take a few moments and jot down what’s on my mind.

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Obviously there really isn’t anything going on upstairs.  Automonic functions seems to be OK, but higher-level activity is pretty much null at this point.  Perhaps that’s because I’m sitting here waiting for a service call (I’m at my night job now) and it’s fairly quiet. 

The problem with working the night shift is that it really messes up any attempt to get on a set schedule.  Just imagine having your work week start on Monday night @ 10 PM.  Add a 30-minute lunch and my “day” ends @ 6:30 AM.  Then it’s back to my apartment for a 1 – 2 hour nap (if I’m lucky) and off to the day job I go.  Now, to make things even more challenging, imagine having to do everything by yourself.  No spouse or “mate” to help do things: shopping, laundry, cooking, cleaning are all done by me.  Then there are the activities I’m involved with: meetings every Monday evening (before work) and on the second Tuesday of the month.  It’s just impossible to get anything established that would allow a semblance of normality.

Oh yeah, I forgot the house.  You know the one that I’m completely gutting, rewiring and re-plumbing.  That’s what I do on the weekends.

And people wonder why I always look tired.  In a way I’m glad I don’t have a signficant anything, save the cats.

But what’s with the blogline?  I don’t believe in stress.  At least not the stress that people tend use a blame for their problems or behavior.  Simply put, stress is entirely our own creation.  If people would truly accept responsibility for their actions and the resultant consequences, stress would evaporate.

You are the cause of your own stress.  It is within your power to end it permanently.