Ladybug Studio

End of the Month

It has just occurred to me that today is the last day of June. I mean, I know that June only has 30 days, but for some reason I have been thinking of 31. Crap. That means we have a bunch of calendars that will be officially late. I'm trying to console myself (and the frantic salesman) that while they will be a little late, they aren't nearly as late as some of the 2008 calendars. I'm not sure that's really making anyone feel better.

I'm still plugging along with the work. No more staying up until 3:00 though. I think I was just freaking out that night, caught a second wind or something. I can't keep that up and no one wants me to. But I am putting in a lot of hours, that's for sure. Friday night I worked steadily and again most of yesterday.

I spent all day Saturday at The House. I painted the baseboards in the dining room. Two coats of course. Then I painted the door frame from the kitchen to the den. That job was more time consuming and complicated than it sounds, actually. And two coats, again, thank you. Then I did all of the cutting-in around the front dining room wall, two coats, then rolled a coat of Kills (primer) on the wall.

Tom's baseball team lost their morning game, thus ending baseball season. He came over in the afternoon and rolled paint on the dining room wall, the inside of the front door and the bathroom.

Television is getting pretty stale in my computer room lately. I've been watching lots of Food Network and episodes of MASH, but that's begun to wear thin. All of the shows I've been recording, but not having time to watch, are in the Tivo in the spare bedroom. So in an effort to keep myself entertained I bought a speaker set for the Mac yesterday. They're by Creative and are middle range, I guess. Not too pricey, but not cheap either. I hooked them up last night (with Tom's help) and they sound pretty good to me. Way better than what had been coming out of the computer's speakers.

It's an oddity that I've noticed over the years. I have such a musical background and a pretty good ear, yet I have no problem listening to less that perfect quality sound. My MP3s on my iPod sound just fine, despite the compression. Tom, on the other hand, is extremely picky about sound quality. He fiddles with the bass and treble on the car stereo, getting the balance just so. Me? Unless it's extremely lacking in one range or the other, I don't even notice. So while these speakers probably aren't up to Tom's standard, I will enjoy them very much. I found a nice classical internet radio station last night and liked it so much, I hung around on the computer longer than I had to.

But at 10:30 I decided to treat myself to a few minutes of Me Time and retired to the spare bedroom to watch on of my shows. I chose Grey's Anatomy and when I was well into the story I realized that I was watching the two-hour season finale. Crap. But I just had to know how it ended, so I ended up staying up until 12:00. Stretching out the weekend, I guess, but it didn't make it easy to get up this morning.

It's Friday

Not exactly TGIF. It's hard for me to get excited about the weekend when I know I'm going to work the entire time. I haven't been to The House since Sunday, so I don't know what sort of progress Paul might have made over the past several days. I know Joy was there at least once, working on the front porch. I really, really hope to see that he's finished the kitchen cabinets and the front dining room wall. Dare I hope that he's moved on to the bathroom? No, I will not get my hopes up.

Tom has agreed to paint the bathroom, but I don't know when the heck he's going to be able to do it. His baseball season is coming to a close, with play-off games and such. That shouldn't be a problem, except that we're having our afternoon rains every day and various games keep getting canceled. At this point Tom's team has a game scheduled for tomorrow morning. If they win that one, they will play another later that day. However, the team they are to play has a game tonight and if it gets rained out, that will shift everything. No telling what's going to happen.

We have to, have to, have to get this house done before next Friday. I don't think I can stand it if we don't. I am perilously close to loosing it and that just might finish me off.

* * * * *

Sorry that's all I have to talk about. Either that or freelance. Not much else is happening in my life.

Oh, I got a new camera last weekend. My first DSLR, a Nikon D80 (Digital SLR - changeable lenses). But I have barely gotten to use it, time not being on my side and all. In a couple of weeks I should be able to focus (get it? focus?) on learning how to use it. For now, I am shooting in auto mode, but I want to learn to choose and play with the settings, see if I can take it to another level. Because I bought my camera at Southern Photo in Melbourne, I get to take a free DSLR class. I'm signed up for one on July 12. I'm really looking forward to it. I took photography in college and enjoyed it and did well in the class. This was before digital cameras so there was a lot of film developing and processing involved. I'm not going to miss that part at all. Plus, that was all black and white. Which is great and I can fully appreciate black and white photography. But I prefer color.

Both KSC tennis leagues are officially on summer break. We won't start up again until September. I am truly grateful for the time off. I'll still have my lesson on Mondays and I can participate in Mary Ann's Wednesday clinic if I want. Plus I know I can find matches easily. But for now, while I don't want to back off completely, I am interested in doing some other activities instead. Biking comes to mind, of course. Tom and I both want to get back to biking on a regular schedule. It's been pretty hot lately, but road biking isn't so bad. You create your own wind as you ride. Trouble is, you have to keep going or you lose your personal "fan".

Two Hours

That's all the sleep I got last night. Not because I couldn't fall asleep. No, I could very easily have done that. It's because I was up until 3:00 am doing freelance work. The calendars I am currently working on are called Summer Calendars and they run from July 2008 to June 2009. Well, July is just around the corner and I have a slew of work that I have not had time to do.

I feel really bad because this poor company has basically traded one slacker graphic designer with personal issues for another slacker graphic designer with personal issues. There are complicated technical reasons why I can't farm more of this work to Jolie, though I have given her some. At any rate, I'm not going to let these people down. They are trusting me and maybe they've piled on more than I can possibly handle, but it's my fault for waiting too late to realize it. I will soldier through, surviving on caffeine and a cat nap whenever I can manage it.

How long can a human go without sleep before they expire?

* * * * *

Oh, I wanted to comment to Denise's comment. That is one thing that's keeping me and Joy going. We grew up in that house. It's Home. It's the center of many of our childhood memories. To let is be sold as is would have been unthinkable. We want it to be pretty and shiny and attractive to a new family who will hopefully cherish it as we have. It's definitely bittersweet.

I am planning on taking plenty of photos when we are completely finished. Then I'll post them in a little Mac web page so you can all see them.

Monday Already?

What happened to the weekend? Oh yeah, that's right. I didn't really have a weekend. Again.

Yes, another lovely two days off spent working: 1. At The House and 2. Freelance.

This is getting so very, very old. I truly cannot wait until it's over. We have set a goal that everything is to be completed by the July 4th weekend. Can we do it? I don't know. There's still so much to be done. Every time we turn our heads we see something that we've missed.

For instance, the dining room. Of the three walls, two are wallpapered. It's not great looking, kind of dated and it's obvious where furniture used to be and where a picture used to hang. But after dealing with a small wallpaper border in the bathroom, we have declared that the dining room walls will stay as is. However, what about the baseboards? (sigh) Yes, we need to paint them. The front wall of the dining room is complicated and involves a window seat with three sets of blinds. The blinds need to be removed (and hosed off - you should see the dust!). Paul has offered to help paint that in addition to the kitchen.

I thought he was going to paint the bathroom, but that may not be the case. I started with the cutting in yesterday and got Tom to agree to roll the walls and the ceiling.

Anyway, despite all of that, we are making headway and there's a pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel. The bedrooms, the hallway and the living room are all painted. The kitchen is done except for the cabinet doors, which are in the process of being painted. There is new vinyl on the kitchen floor and new carpeting throughout the house. Joy has been working on shoring up the front porch. There is some wood rot, but she is using putty, duct tape and witchcraft to make it all look presentable. Of course, we'll have to paint all of the wood. In my book, "paint" has become a dirty word.

Some of the ceiling tiles in the den need replacing and we haven't been able to find an exact match. But I think it will be fine. There isn't much outside work left to be done. We're just going to use brooms and a leaf blower to take care of the dust and cobwebs in the garage, storage rooms, workshop and storage building.

I think we really are almost done.

Trying Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon turned into a trial of sorts. The weather was looking cooperative so doubles was declared a go. After changing into my tennis clothing, I walked out of the building to find that it was beginning to rain. But there was no way to tell how long or how hard it might rain. Plus, the tennis courts at KARS I are several miles away, and it might not be raining there at all. So I drove to the courts, encountering heavy but sporadic rain during the route. When I arrived I found that while it had rained quite a bit, it appeared to be over. So I began the arduous task of rolling the courts.

Rolling the courts sucks. It's tougher than it looks to push the roller and it was incredibly hot and steamy. But it did the trick. Spreading out the puddles allowed them to dry. My big mistake was being the first one to arrive. Next time we have a passing rainstorm on tennis day, I'm getting to the courts late and someone else can push the bloody roller!

As if that wasn't bad enough, when I went to my car to get my tennis bag, I found that my huge water jug had fallen over in my trunk. Fortunately, the jug was in a plastic basket in which I store a couple of hats and my seat cover, so the trunk wasn't completely flooded. But everything was soaked and I had very little water to get me through a sweltering Florida summer afternoon match.

At my court, I hung the seat cover, a hat, a visor, a bandana and a sweat band on the bench and on the fence. It greatly resembled a hobo camp when I was finished. One of the other players had extra water, so I survived the match. It took a while for my sour mood over the rolling and the water spillage to go away. But once we started playing, I had a good time.

Some Relief

My tennis lesson was rained out yesterday, but we so badly need the rain I can't really complain. Besides, it was nice to go home after work. Though, it's not like I got to lounge around watching TV or taking a nap. No, not with the over-abundance of freelance work piling up in the office. I was so busy this weekend working at The House that I didn't have any time to spend on any and I've been feeling panicky about it. I swear, and I'm only 10% fooling, that if things don't ease up here soon I will end up having a mental breakdown. In the mean time I'm going to start sneaking some of Tom's Happy Pills. I'd probably benefit from seeing his doctor, actually, but I don't have time!

In all seriousness, I am getting a little bit concerned about my health. I don't feel well most of the time. Nothing I can put a finger to, no symptom I can name, just… not right. I am anxious, nervous and upset. There's a churning and fluttering inside. Yet at the same time I have no energy and feel entirely sluggish. As if I am just dragging myself through the day.

But here's something that might help a little. With everything going on and so many demands on my time, I have fallen way behind in my housework. It seems that all I can keep up with is the laundry and the dishes. All other chores are going neglected. So yesterday a woman I know from tennis (her teenage son plays at Singleton) came over to see our house. She cleans homes for a living and now she's going to clean ours too, every other week. Maybe it's extravagant and in these leaner times it's going to be tight to pull off, but if it eases my overtaxed mind even a smidgen, it will be worth it.

Work: Labor, Toil, Drudgery…

It was hardly a fun-filled weekend. In fact, calling a it a weekend at all is a bit of a stretch. So much of it was spent working in one capacity or another. Bah.

Okay, I admit that I didn't work Friday night. I went with Tom to his baseball game. Not because I wanted to watch the game or even because I wanted to support him in his endeavors. No, I went strictly for the ice cream. The game was held at Rockledge Park, which isn't very far from Avenue Viera, in which there resides a Coldstone Creamery. After dropping Tom and his gear off at the field, I drove over to the shopping complex and bought myself a Love-It! size half chocolate half cake batter with strawberries and caramel in a waffle cup. I took it back to the field and savored it while watching the game. It was a little bit melty after the drive, but still delicious. The game was okay. It was a nice evening with a little breeze and no bugs. Tom's team won 6-1 so everyone went home happy.

Saturday was all about painting at The House. Despite the many hours we've spent painting so far, there is still plenty more where that came from. Tom, God bless him, had agreed to paint the ceilings in the living room, the hallway and Dad's room. Carl loaned us his power roller and Tom was convinced it would take no time at all. Of course, that's not how it went. Something was wrong with the roller and it kept leaking and dripping paint everywhere. Tom had to abandon the tool and paint with his roller stick. It's a pretty cool gadget whereby paint is sucked into the pole and comes out the roller. Better than the typical roller and pan, but heavy and therefore not necessarily ideal for ceilings.

With Tom handling that project, I rolled doors while Joy cut-in around door knobs and the like. While it doesn't sound like much, It's amazing just how long that takes. We did make one run to Wal-Mart (hiss!) for more paint and we cruised through McDonald's for lunch while we were out. Other than that break, we kept at it until 7:00 that night.

Since it was another lovely early summer evening, before heading inside to shower, I spent some time in my much neglected yard. Everything needs trimming again. Particularly the topiaries as I never did get back to them after the baby mockingbird incident. But I started with the robellini palm, crouching around underneath trimming out the lower branches until I couldn't stand it any longer. Spying a dollar weed in a flower bed, I yanked it out, which led to another, and before I knew it I'd spent an hour pulling weeds. The trimming is no where closer to being done.

On Sunday I went back to The House to continue painting doors.

I have to stop here and complain. One reason it's taking so long to paint is because we are having to do two coats everywhere. And the reason we're doing that is because Jo chose crappy paint. See, this whole paint thing is a fiasco and I'm blaming it solely on Jo. When we all started talking about painting the inside of the house, I declared that I hated painting and had no intention of doing any. Joy concurred and we had pretty much decided to pay someone to do the work. But Jo piped up, insisting that she and Rachel, her daughter, could paint the house in a weekend. So we let her handle the project. She and Rachel started painting on Memorial Day Weekend and never came back again. They got just far enough that it wouldn't make sense to pay anyone to finish. We did get Paul (Ann's friend's son) to take on the kitchen and bathroom, but it's been left to Joy and me to finish the rest of the painting.

To reiterate: Jo agreed to do the painting, but has abandoned the job. She knows full well that Joy and I are having to take over and she doesn't care. I can't imagine why this surprises me. But it surprises me a little less than it would have not too long ago. I'm finished with her. She's had plenty of time to do some damage control, to show some consideration, some concern, but she hasn't. When this is finally done and the house has been sold, she will find that she no longer has a family. After everything that has happened in the past year, this seals the deal as far as I'm concerned.

So anyway, I continued painting doors and doing whatever else I could. I took down the blue masking tape around the ceiling fans and screwed the blades back on. Which was not an easy task, I'd like to point out. While waiting for the doors to dry so that I could remove the tape around the door knobs, I went to the back yard and, dragging a trash can behind me, collected riff-raff that had escaped the estate sale. After filling a can, I started in on the flower beds, yanking out weeds and grass. My fingers are still sore from the abuse.

Finally, I'd had enough, though there was still more to do. I headed home, had lunch, took a shower and lounged for about an hour or so before heading outside to wash my car. It was still speckled from the neighbors sprinklers over a week ago. A fair amount of elbow grease was required to get those spots to disappear, too.

See? A weekend of work. It's nice to get back to my day job where I can relax a little.

Survivor

I survived tennis yesterday. In fact, I didn't play too badly at all. I lost 6-4, 6-4, but it was actually pretty fun.  Because it was fairly hot, my opponent and I took plenty of breaks and drank lots of water. That probably helped a great deal. I have to wonder though, if I wasn't recovering from giving blood, could I have won those sets?

I had pizza on my mind when I left the courts and had pretty much decided that's what we were having for dinner. It was Thursday, not Friday, but since Tom has a baseball game tonight, we won't be having our usual Friday Night Pizza. However, I was denied. Tom had a garage type car-related project that just couldn't wait and he ended up needing me to help hold stuff. By the time we were done, it was 9:30. So I cooked a frozen Stouffer's bag entree and that was dinner.

All Tuckered Out

That new blood taking system is a turkey and I will never, ever do it again. I feel so absolutely, completely drained today. I had to stop and catch my breath after putting on my socks this morning. That's very pitiful, isn't it?

The headache I mentioned yesterday turned into a migraine. By the time I got home from an after work errand, I was in so much pain. After taking two pain pills, I shucked off my shoes and changed into my XXL gray sleeping t-shirt and crawled into bed. I stayed there, barely moving, for several hours. During that time I apparently had a conversation with Tom that I can't recall in the slightest. I do remember him coming in later and suggesting that we go out to dinner if I felt up to it. But I waved him off and went back to sleep.

At 8:15 I got up tentatively and staggered out to the living room to join Tom for a bit. Eventually I fixed a simple dinner of frozen chicken bites and frozen corn. So much for an anniversary dinner, right?

So today is really iffy. In addition to the energy deficiency, my head is concerning me a little. I don't have a headache, but I suspect that I could very easily develop one. And I'm supposed to have a singles match this afternoon. I don't see how I can manage it at this time. But I hate to forfeit to my opponent…

Happy 14

Today is mine and Tom's 14th anniversary. I'm pretty proud of that number. A lot of marriages don't make it anywhere close, so I think we're doing something right.

My tennis slump seems to be ending. It took a long time though, which was rather frustrating. I really think the problem stemmed from playing too much. Though I would expect it to be the other way around. Whatever. I'm just glad to be playing well and enjoying myself again.

I'm trying to think of what to write, but as my mom used to say, "There isn't any news."

Actually, that's not entirely true. There's plenty going on, I just don't have the energy to write about it. Lots and lots of freelance, many, many hours spent working on The House, blah, blah, blah. I think if I started to delve into it all I'd probably break down crying. I'm just so tired.

And giving blood this morning hasn't done much to help. I like to give blood. Well, not so much the giving part, but the feeling good about it afterward part. Virtuous, even. I saw an announcement that there would be a blood drive in front of the O&C today (that's the building just east of mine). I started taking iron tablets about a week ago, since my iron is often too low. It worked and I was cleared to donate this morning. Because I have O negative blood, I was invited (read: encouraged) to try a new collection machine called ALYX. My blood was drawn into a small machine that separated the whole red blood cells from the platelets and plasma. The platelets and plasma were then returned to my body. By doing this, they can actually get two whole blood donations at a time. Because of the fluids returned to me, I shouldn't be as dehydrated as I would be with a regular donation.

That may be true, but I otherwise feel like crap now. I have a headache and I feel just woozy and off center. I've got things that I have to do today and things that I'd like to do today, but I think a nap is going to take precedence. As nice as that sounds, it's not going to help my frazzled mind.