Saturday, May 9, 2009

May 9, 2009

My 100th post!

When I started this blog, I wasn't sure I'd make it to 100, which isn't that large of a number, but after things started going pear shaped on the Motel front, I was pretty sure that the last thing I would want to do is write a blog about our lives in Pocatello, but so far, it's been kind of fun. Cathartic.

Life -
I spent a good chunk of the day helping my mom with a few things. She is currently living in my grandparents old house, a shack that is slowly falling apart. They only have electricity in half of the plugs, and a few nights ago, their hot water heater split open along the side, flooding the dirt floored basement. So for the last few days my brother has been taking cold showers, and my mom has been heating water on the stove and using an old camp shower in the tub. The problem is that the house is tied to my grandmother, so it isn't something that either plans to stay in long term. (If our Motel had gone through, they would have been living in our current house when we moved.) It seems silly to pay $300 for a new hot water heater when the house will likely be sold to the state and demolished when my grandmother passes on, especially since they don't really have the money. However, they need hot water to live, so we've decided to put my old hot water heater in down in the basement. The one element is utterly shot, I mangled it pretty completely trying to get it out the first time, but the top still works, so they would at least have some heat. (About 7 minutes worth in the shower) It seems like my family has had pretty shabby luck lately. Hope that will turn around soon...

We walked the dogs tonight trying the Close method, and it worked really well. It was a gorgeous evening, cool and sunny, and we went the extra leg on the walk we take. The four of us are a bit fat for a couple of the sidewalks, especially the ones with ill trimmed hedges, but it looks like a really effective way to walk them. For the most part we could walk with our hands in our pockets with the leash dangling from them, which is a huge change!

I spent 3 hours weed whacking an especially stubborn patch of ground by our RV parking (Which sits essentially unused.) There is a patch of land there that the previous owners filled with small rocks, that has since been overrun with weeds and other growing beasties. We've decided to plant a few low lying evergreen shrubberies there instead, it should look decent, and they aren't supposed to grow larger than 1 foot high, but I couldn't just mow the weeds. The ground is uneven and all of the rocks make it very dangerous, and one of the weeds is a thick, resilient burr plant of some sort that resists the mower blade anyway, so I had to stand out there for hours, gradually wearing them down with the trimmer. Had to change out the cord 3 times, as it wore it down, but finally trimmed it all back to rocks and dirt, and planted the shrubs.... now they just need to grow! Also talked to my neighbor, who we have a bit of a rivalry with. The old owners used to plant and share tomatoes with him, and when we planted some the first year, we gave ours to my family instead. He was pissed in an old guy kind of way, and refused to talk to us, and filed complaints with the city for various little things. Today, he introduced himself like we'd never met, and once again, casually mentioned that they had grown "Some awful nice tomaters over there... yes sir." Sigh. Maybe I just need to give the dude a few this year.

Ever since the trimming, my arms wont stop vibrating and flexing. Its pretty annoying, especially since every time my bicep flexes my shirt sleeves rip off. Grr!

We also took a little trip to Tastee Treet Drive In and got some soft serve cones. Shouldn't have, since we're trying to lose weight, but it sounded fun.


Writing -
I ended up writing 3,031 words yesterday, and today I added another 2,824, which was a lot less than I'd hoped. I had planned on around 5,000 words, but I was interrupted by real life, and tonight, when I sat down to write, my arms were acting up from the weed whacking I did, and I am having a lot of trouble typing. (My biceps keep flexing and vibrating, which is very odd.) I have to work an asinine 5 hour shift at 8am at work tomorrow too, so I can't stay up late and type like I prefer. Oh well, tomorrow evening should be a good night for it, and I'm off Monday too. Maybe that will work. I was really hoping for 25,000 words by the time I went back to work.

The Last Sentence -

There were little bearded men carved out of the drawer pulls in the old dresser in the closet.

1 comment:

randymeiss said...

Congratulations on post 100! I'm sitting at 31 so far so I have a way to go yet before that milestone. Sorry to hear about your family housing issues. We do hope things start to take a turn for the better. I'm enjoying the "last sentance" entries. Keeps me salivating for the finished product. I just have to stock up on tissues to mop up all the drool.