Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

I think I sprained my toes. This is what comes of rushing from one room to another while simultaneously scanning comics and moving furniture to make way for the carpet cleaners that are coming tomorrow. I’d have been fine if that folding stool hadn’t been moved. But it was. And then were my toes. It’s not horrible, it’s just one of those things. And I think I’ll definitely be wearing flats tomorrow just in case.

Managed to get this week’s comics finished this evening in totality which is good because I really should spend some quality time on the print submission this week to get back on track for the July 1 due date plus draft the next article tomorrow night. Thursday is Mom’s birthday so that’ll be another SCA meeting missed in favor of the birthday dinner. (Note to self: call and order her birthday cake tomorrow!)

Two nights in a row of major productivity. Tonight I managed dinner, cleaning the bathroom, another 4 miles on the stationery bike, inking Thursday’s comic, drafting an article, and scanning examples for another article. Whew! Granted, I was up a bit later than intended but, you know, it’s no biggie. The rest of the week and through the weekend is likely to be just like this.

Holy cow on a snowboard! So, last night as I was attempting to fall asleep it occurred to me that I have 7 days to finish up my eHow articles for this month. Why does this always feel like it sneaks up on me? After momentary panic I reminded myself that not only do I have all three remaining articles titled and planned out, I have the weekend to wrap things up as needed so really there’s no cause for worry.

Of course, when I then add in the two comics that needed doing for this week and the three for next week, plus the banner revamp the site conversion to the new theme, various housework and, oh yes, Script Frenzy which ends in 9 days and which I totally intend to win, well, okay– things start to get a little hinkey. What do I do? I make a list. Because, really, what better motivation is there than being able to cross things off said list with a tremendous flourish? None, that’s what.

Tonight, after dinner, I managed to detail tomorrow’s comic, sketch most of Thursday’s while palmie came over and chatted for a bit, clean the kitchen and take out the trash after she left, do an entire series of in-progress pictures for one of the eHow articles (the most labor intensive, I assure you), chat with Spec about his impending moving schedule and spend some time on the stationery bike (though that was earlier in time than it appears on the list). Now I am determined to finish the sketch for Thursday before turning in. I won’t let myself cross it off early! One more panel to figure out the angle for the backgrounds and I’ll be good.

Tomorrow is looking just as hectic.

Not quite uber-productive but seriously productive nonetheless. I managed to do some decent housework this weekend (the apartment is now presentable again) and the next 2 weeks of comics are done, scanned and uploaded. Rock on! Now I get to focus on the remaining articles I need for the month (4 of them! in a little over a week… yeah, busy busy busy). First, though? Bed!

Some nights you just have to recognize when you’ve been beat. Tonight was one of those nights.

The plan had been to head somewhere after work for dinner and some clickety-clack on the laptop, draft out an article or two, before the SCA meeting. But after having the Worker’s Comp audit pushed back almost two hours and the ever-present exhaustion and the return of the stabbity headache what I really wanted to do was go home and go to bed until, oh, Monday. Instead, I compromised: I went home, had soup for dinner, and took a one-hour nap. Then the nap became extended another hour. Oh, well, I figure I needed it, right?

Anyway, the other part of the compromise with myself was that I would get up and write after the nap. Well. One of the compelling arguments for not writing away from home tonight was my idea that doing the visuals before I wrote the article would streamline the process more and prevent the pictures from holding up the works. Ergo, I’d stage some photos tonight and be on the right track. Sigh…

I turn on the dining room light and it goes out. Drat. Plus I still needed to clear the New Year’s decorations away from the prime photographing spot (the dining room table) so I took care of all of that and then climbed up to get the globe off the ceiling fan. Man, I hate that, I’m always afraid I’m going to drop it. Anyway, I get it safely off and go in search of spare bulbs. Now, being the good little do-bee I decide that I need to use one of the CFLs that I picked up at IKEA last April. Ta-Daa! It works (after having to search for them) so then I go to replace the cover. Yup. The CFL? Is too long. Not compact enough, apparently, so I have to go get one of the not-as-earth-friendly incandescents. Bother.

But now the stage is set, as it were, to shoot some pixels on practicing calligraphy. Except I recall from Monday night that the camera batteries are caput (I had to take the holiday pictures with TheQ). I go to the box for a refill and there are two. The camera? She takes four. Oh, yes, she’s a greedy little bitch like that, total prima donna. And right about there is where I pressed the ‘fuckit’ button and decided that particular task could wait until tomorrow.

So, instead of writing or photoging and the like, I’m going to swap nights and chart out another chapter of Wedding Tarot. Take that, plan, I call bullshit on your ass.

So, I really need to download a more amusing game for the Q than solitaire even if it did come in handy standing in line at Best Buy. But now the tv is swapped out and so far, so good. Since J had an early day, I left work at 3:30 to meet him here so we could box up the defective set and go exchange it but BB was such a mad-house that it was still 5pm when we left there. Sigh…

Then I went and had my nails done and got them trimmed to a much more workable level (I won’t say what palmie calls this length) and decided to have my eyebrows done while there. Um, yeah, see, I’ve waxed at home and all but it was nothing like this. I suppose it’s worth the temporary discomfort to have them done right for once and I should be able to keep them up myself now but WOW did that sting!

Took a long nap after eating the wrap and smoothie I picked up for supper and now I’m finishing up Tuesday’s comic and going to start in on some editing of the graphic novel script. Yay for progress and double-yay for weekends. Aside from tidying up the apartment (still somewhat wrecked from the party/holiday craziness) and a load of laundry, I’m chillin’ this weekend as much as possible.

If I only managed to do one comic, tidy the living room and dining room, listen to a friend’s rant, and hang up all the clothes strewn about my bedroom but ordered dinner in instead of cooking? Oh, and I managed to do two sections of digital coloring, too, for the Secret Project.

Still, compared to the mad dash of the last couple of nights tonight almost felt like slacking. Of course, I couldn’t really allow myself to slack, but I oh so wanted to. Tomorrow won’t be much better, laundry list of things to do then as well. I’m looking forward to the weekend, though, maybe I can carve out some serious downtime then. It’s always good to hope!

Didn’t quite catch up, did I?

I was rolling along fairly well during Saturday’s write-in but once I packed up and got home I was beat. Intending to get back to it I did some NaNovel-related resesarch but couldn’t convince myself to actually write any more.

Then reality intruded: I need to have 2 more articles in to eHow by end-of-day Thursday and I haven’t started on next week’s “Random Acts…” yet.

So last night, before bed, I did some reading for one of those articles and today, after laundry and grocery shopping, I picked up some supplies for 3 other articles this month (writing for Arts & Crafts does come with a certain amount of visual expectation, at least to my mind). The painted ceramics items are curing in the oven now and I’ll go back to drafting those instructions as soon as I finish this post. Once that draft is done I’ll start this week’s comics.

The thing that’s getting me right now is that I am so incredibly exhausted all of the time. Ever since the party I haven’t been able to perk back up. I don’t know if it’s the shortening days affecting my circadian rhythms or maybe I’m feeling the time-change more and haven’t adjusted yet, but I find myself exhausted by 6pm seemingly no matter what. Even now, not quite 9pm, my eyes are heavy and I really feel like I could just sleep for days.

I could really use some caffiene right about now. Too bad it’s still firmly on the ‘not on your life’ list.

Because 11pm would actually be the 23rd hour, but that’s neither here nor there at this point. Suffice it to say, it’s rather late in the evening and I’m just now finishing up the stuff for the NaNo Kick-Off tomorrow night. Granted, I got a boat-load of stuff done tonight (tomorrow’s RA…, 4 laps at SLMP, a website, and now the kick-off tickets) but none of it was quick! Oh well, it’s all coming together. The resource page isn’t exactly pretty, but that can be done after the kick-off tomorrow (when I go add the write-in information as well… oops!); the important thing is that it’s up and all of the downloads seem to work (go me!).

Tomorrow is said kick-off, followed by more work on the resource page (change color schemes, add an icon or two, add the write-in information). Maybe try for the Ned-related bit of fluff that I really wanted to do last year but didn’t have time for. Start work on Thursday’s RA… if there’s time.

The party this weekend was unbelievably fun. I mean, I really got lucky with the group that came: everyone really did mesh well together and the last four of us were going strong til just after eleven. I, of course, have enough Spanish Fork Chicken Stew to last me the entire week (good thing, because I go into a no-cooking zone after a party) and some treats and salads, too. But I also need to get the apartment back to normal because I’m going to have a houseguest this weekend and I’d rather the place be more than just presentable.

And, of course, NaNoWriMo 2007 starts in the wee hours of Thursday. How is it November already? I know I probably ask this every year, but seriously, folks, where did the year go??? Anyway, the holidays are in full-swing now that Halloween is almost here. I do love this time of year but I have absolutely no freaking clue how I’m going to survive until New Years! The next two months are looking exceedingly hectic in the best possible way, but still, folks. Come January 1 I think it’ll be time for a complete and total pass out. Seriously.

I may have mentioned in the past the very real issue that my office/studio/craft room (aka the Abyss) is my nod to the universe’s need for entropy. Dude, today? The universe lost.

It’s not pristine mind you, there’s still a lot of organizing and debulking to do and under the computer desk is very messy but, the floor is clear, the desktops are visible (holy freaking cow, y’all!) and I’ve moved the workstation next to the computer desk so I can swivel between the drawing table and the computer (both computers, actually, since the desktop is clear enough to hold the laptop now!). It’s just a smidge surreal here right now and if I my proclamation that the world would likely end if I managed to clean the office comes true? I’m really sorry.

Friday night I started Tuesday’s RA strip and, uh, yeah… I’m still working on it. And we’re not talking standard procrastination, here. No, this is a full-on creative block. I know what needs to happen in this one panel but I cannot get it composed. The mental image is sketchy at best and ARGH! I had wanted to get the next 4 strips done this weekend and it’s just not happening. Granted, I have cleared some other items off the to-do list but that’s not the point! *beats head against the wall*

So I think I’ve stared at that blank panel enough for now, and at some point I need to write for a couple hours. Perhaps some totally non-creative manual labor will break the block? Off to tackle the laundry!

So I’ve been having a problem with a particular website causing severe lag and it finally occurred to me that perhaps it was IE not playing nice. Bingo! Downloaded firefox and suddenly life is good again.

Managed to clean up the living room and start on the dining table before leaving for the meeting tonight, but it was almost 9 when I got home so any other productivity was pretty much out of the question.

Because I got so very much done this weekend.

Needless to say, no plans materialized from RockStar (so glad I didn’t clear my Saturday night on that ‘maybe’ earlier this week) but it was just as well. Friday night I went through 7 boxes of office stuff: sorting and tossing, those now-empty boxes are being filled by Izzy since she’s getting ready to move next month. Then yesterday I did a bit more organizing, edited my third eHow article for the month (whew! contract fulfilled for this month!), and drew Tuesday’s RA. Thursday’s is almost finished as well.

Then a really odd thing happened. Last weekend we has such hellacious storms that power went out for several hours. Well, last Saturday night (after the storms the previous night) I noticed that the tv picture was a bit, uh, off. Basically there was a big green splotch in the lower left corner and the left vertical third had a decidedly blue tinge. I mean, you could see everything, but the colors were off. Mom had been talking about getting me a bigger set for Christmas this year anyway, and she’s saying it might just be an early gift with this development. In the mean time, if it got to me too much I could grab the tv from Drew’s room since it wasn’t being used.

Exposition over, on to today: I decide that (what with Palmie and I planning to hang out on Friday and as movies will probably happen) today would be a good day to grab the tv so I clear everything but the modem/router off the stand and head to Mom’s. When I get there (and Mom isn’t, but I have a key) I see that Drew’s tv is not just like mine (like I’d thought) and that I’d need to borrow the DVD player as well–I just decided to wait until I could talk to Mom this week. No biggie.

Knowing that the few shows I still watch will be on tonight, I put the tv back up on the stand and turn it on to make sure moving it didn’t completely kill it, right? Dude. It not only worked, the color was fixed. Seriously. The hell? I mean, there’s still a minor ghost of a shadow in the lower left corner, but it’s not bright green and the blue tint is gone. Go figure. Obviously something must have been loose and moving the set around jiggled it back into place (I’d figured the set had received a minor zap from the lightening last week, since it was coincidental) but how did it come loose since I haven’t moved the tv in months and months? Really.

Who knows, I’m just glad whatever it is decided to resolve itself. You know, I never did think to give it a good whack when it messed up. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when stuff like that happens? Whack the hell out of it and get it to straighten up?

That’s what I wish I were in the middle of

So, after Friday-night’s entry I’ll bet you thought I was done for the night and heading for bed. Me too. Then I got some freakish second wind and stayed up til two or three in the morning pulling stuff out of the Abyss. I got enough done so that I could at least drag the 6-foot table over to its new position. There was still a pile of stuff in the center of the room that was mostly magazines I needed to go through. Rather than drag them out and add even more clutter to the rest of my apartment (oh my word, the chaos, y’all… it’s spreading!!!) I just left them where they were (lazy!) and worked around them.

Apparently the hellacious storm knocked out the power just after I went to sleep because the clocks were blinking when I got up just shy of noon. I moved some more stuff, went through the first few magazines, then decided to escape for a bit.

Chelsea and Van have opened a new bookstore: Word Traffic Books on Lafayette (between Lindy’s and Wooly Bully) and their grand opening was Saturday so I had to go check them out. Very cool space. I didn’t get a chance to go back and knit today but maybe next week. Go by and, uh, go buy! lol

Other errands of the day included Office Depot, World Market, and Dollar Tree. Then home for more organizing. I finally got around to working on the lamb again, only to have the weather turn bad. I didn’t want to end up with the power going out mid-roast so I stopped and waited, then after an hour the storm died down. Well, rats. By the time I started (again) it was way too late to roast it that night, and just as well as the lightening started up again! It was not my night… But I did manage, over the course of the day, to assemble the new bookcase and go through a full stack of magazines, reducing it from a full foot to a mere inch and a half of tear-sheets. I still have a /lot/ of work to do before this space is workable (not to mention getting the choas out of the rest of my apartment) but it’s on the horizon!

Then the weirdest thing happened: I had a dream about a guy–that I know! Now, y’all have to understand that I almost never dream about people I know. Almost all of the figures in my dreams are strangers, composites, etc. Occasionally I’ll dream about someone I haven’t seen or talked to for a while (so then I’ll go an call–or, rather, email–them to see how they’re doing). But I seldom dream about people I’m actively in contact with. Except this one guy. Now, you’d think that since RockStar just called I would have dreamed about him but nooo… It’s this other guy. And all we are is friends, he’s a great guy from what I know, and it’s not like I’m having sex-dreams about him about him or anything, actually in this last dream he was a bit of an ass (which is usually not the case), but he keeps. showing. up.

Back to the title of this post: If this were like a Friday or Saturday night, the mood I’m in would have me getting dressed up and heading out to a club. I’m just in one of those moods where I really want to find some trouble to get into, just to shake things up a bit, but the timing’s bad so I’ll be Miss Goodie-two-shoes, work on the Abyss some more, watch Army Wives and head to bed. Sigh…

Wow, apparently I just needed to get yesterday out of my system and today things were much closer to what I like to think is normal.

Of course, work went absolutely insane. Did I mention yesterday what happened? I don’t think I did, not really, so I will now. So. Our software company likes to mess with me, I’m convinced of this. Otherwise how on earth can they stay in business if they routinely ignore checking their reports before sending to clients, etc. I don’t mean to rag on all programmers and I’m really thankful that they got someone in there who knows what they’re doing, finally, but the salespeople/CSR/tech people are horrid. ANYWAY! Back in May I had discovered yet another problem with the check report not pulling in all the information from the payment batch so I had them fix it. Well, it never occurred to me to check (of all the things I already check on that report because they’ve screwed up in the past) that the written amount matched the numeric amount. I mean, really, why would anyone write a report that had those fields pull in different values? Why?

Nonetheless, any check we’ve written in the past three months (including the August 9th checks) that had an earned discount had the discounted amount in the numeric section and the pre-discount in the (legally binding) written out section. CRAP! Only, until this morning I didn’t know that the problem started in May, it could have been so very much worse. And after working my way back, finding the month it happened in, and figuring out what change led to that we luckily only had 2 checks that I had to call and humbly ask that they credit us for the earned discount but I’ve put the software company on notice that if I can’t convince the companies to work with us there, I’m holding them responsible for our lost funds. Two of the 8/9 checks that could be a problem have already cleared (at the correct, intended, amount) and the other two companies hadn’t noticed the discrepancy in the previous months, so we might be really lucky.

Then I had to go tell my boss.

He took it well. I think since I’d already done the damage control that I could and the software company has already sent us a replacement report that seems to be right (until the next occasional situation comes up and we find another problem… it happens quarterly at this point), we both agree that it could have been loads worse and it’ll all work out. But this brought up one of those when-I-get-a-chance projects: the bank recs. Dude, back in ‘04 we had some serious issues with our dot matrix (I know!) check printer dropping pixels and so many checks would come back 1 cent, dime, or dollar off (almost always in our vendor’s favor) that it drove our previous reconciler absolutely bonkers. And since I usually don’t have the downtime required to get in a bank-rec groove but once a year or so, I had managed to rec 2004 in December, but 05-present is still totally undone.

Well, not totally anymore. I managed to get through March of 05 this afternoon and since my schedule is looking pretty light I anticipate having ‘05 done by end of day Friday. Even if I have to stay late to make that happen. But if the other 9 months go as well as these first 3 did, I might actually be able to start on 06 on Friday, we’ll just have to see how long it takes before my eyes cross.

But enough of that job!

Since last Wednesday at All Saints worked out so well I figured I’d give it another try tonight. Two and a half hours and 1300+ words later and I have my next eHow article written. It’s a food article (medieval food) so I still need to actually make the item in question (which I’ve done twice before, once for 100+ people last Fall) and take the in-progess photos to go with the steps and give it an edit-check, confirm measurements and times, that sort of thing. But tonight was super-productive!

At least until I got home.

It wasn’t nearly as hot at the Cafe this week as last, but it was still pretty warm and I was sorta drained by the time I got home. Plus it was eight o’clock: way late for dinner so I made something quick, made a sandwich for lunch tomorrow, checked my email and crashed on the couch to watch more Girls Next Door, Season 2, and started on the front of the Grecian Plait sweater; I’m like an inch and a half in on the front so not bad progress (the bottom section is a quick pattern stitch so it’s semi-instant gratification knitting, yay!). Nothing more’s getting done on the Abyss tonight, definitely not, and I think that’s my only other really big thing. Oh, exercise. Well, that hasn’t really happened at all this week, but I should make up for it this weekend if I get to moving stuff in, out and around the Abyss: vigorous housework definitely counts as cardio!

In one of those bizarre twists of fate, with barely 6 hours of sleep, I was up somewhat bright eyed yadda yadda at 5:45 am when the alarm started. More than a little amused at the song playing as I made up my bed (Teenagers, My Chemical Romance–I so need to download this album from iTunes), I was ready to go before seven so had time for toast and coffee and 30 minutes of sketching on Thursday’s RA before heading to work.

Okay, so here’s the thing about work lately: I’m scarily efficient. Dude, I conquered the clutter-stack on the middle of my desk. I can actually /see/ desk, and my desk calendar that hasn’t been flipped since January, 2004, (no, I’m not kidding…) and it’s been that way for almost a week! I’ve tied up projects from months ago and taken care of filing that was just sitting in the ‘whenever’ pile (i.e. the bottom basket from my inbox). I don’t know what it is? I feel like I’m in one of those movies where the characters do that freaky speed-up thing that’s supposed to be (and is, to me) scary and not-right. I mean, it’s totally odd. And now I’ve probably jinxed it and I’ll go back to being just a smidge behind the eight-ball tomorrow?

But, anyway, so I’m heating up my lunch (at 2 because I had the insurance renewals come in this morning so I decided to do the 20 employee notices and a little algebra before pausing for a nosh) and I’m noticing that the 8-foot table we have in the break room really is too big for the space and rather overkill since we never have that many people in the room at once and it hits me: My 6-foot table in the Abyss (I swear it’s still there, even though the craft supplies have tried to claim it as their conquered mountain) would work much better under the windows and then the 2 half-shelves under the windows now could be stacked, using the vertical space that is currently the only space in that room, and allow room for a whole ‘nother bookcase while freeing up center-space in the room at large! My word, I’m brilliant!

Of course, the downside is that in order to pull this brilliant switcheroo I have to get at least half of the contents of the Abyss out of the way. So, once I start that little bit of insanity the rest of my apartment is going to look like the DMZ for a while, but it will be so totally wonderful that I’m willing to give it a go. A Saint Bernard with a cask of vodka would not go amiss, mind you. Or, well, how about a dalmation with a fifth of gin?

But tackling the mountain was only the first brilliant idea of the afternoon: I have plastic paint. And those shelved that are stackable? Totally white(ish) plastic. I should totally paint them black and red to match the keyboard/mouse/monitor mod they will be near, right? (The answer here is ‘yes’, smile and nod, my friends, smile and nod and pass the martini and everything will be fine!) So, now the plan is to evac the Abyss (sweet pasta!), paint and lacquer the old shelves (whee! all the pretty colors), then reassemble the Abyss into something of a working space so I can stop working on the couch or the kitchen table. I can do theees!

First things first: a little recon. I was torn between the metal heavy-duty shelving available at stenchMart or the slightly more economically priced Rubbermaid utility shelves at Tar-jay (more plastic, more paint), but eventually decided on the latter before leaving work. After informing Mom of my plans, she suggested dinner at Chili’s (eh… the only non-stellar portion of the day, chain food, blah) and then to shop. Dude, I totally scored.

I never did find the Rubbermaid shelves I was looking for because first I found the store-brand version of the metal heavy-duty shelves at half the price of stenchMart and still $20 lower than the Rubbermaid set would have been, and in a black finish no less: it was fate I tell ‘ya. And it was in a box I could actually lift (sorta, okay, I levered it into the cart and then into my trunk, but I did carry it inside after changing shoes… big heavy box + black strappy 3″ heels = me as a victim of gravity. again.) BUT! Since I was, uh, ’saving’ $20 on the shelves that I’d already reconciled spending, I went for a little stroll and found Girls Next Door Season 2 marked down just right. Double score!

Oh, and the add to the fun when I got home what was waiting for me? My Schoolhouse Rocks and Donald in Mathemagic Land DVDs. Yes! Media trifecta! Woot!

But now I’m late for bed, having finished this week’s comics, knit three inches on GP, and moving the first few bits out of the Abyss and into the hallway. Staging area is staging area. Tomorrow night I’ll seal the keyboard/mouse/ears, move more Abyss stuff, throw out a bunch of magazines I’m never gonna read, and finish (I hope) the Panhandle website. And do the shopping for the next eHow article: it’s food related

For a day off I sure did a bunch of work!

The weird thing about today was since there was absolutely NOTHING worth watching on televisions I’ve had DVDs in all day which rather distorts the concept of time as one episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch runs into another. Meanwhile I cleaned the kitchen (which included sweeping, mopping, wiping down counters and cabinets, and washing out the trash can), scrubbed the bathtub, tidied the living and dining rooms (which included the dreaded vacuum cleaner!), swept the back patio, made brownies and actually managed to grill hamburgers (more of a feat than you know…). In addition to all that I finished my first eHow article after re-reading the Style Guide and started the next Random Acts… strip. Oh, and I played pirate for an hour or two.

See what I mean? Apparently I should have days off more often. This weekend I plan to tackle my bedroom, the hall closets and the bathroom (I only got a tiny head-start today) so that the major tasks are done for the rest of the month. Maintaining order for the three weeks until I have company over is a lot easier when I start with a clean palette. At some point I also plan to make more headway here in the Abyss, but that will take much more than a weekend, truth be told.

I can see some of the Abyss floor. It must be announced.

So I decided today while at work that I had two choices for tonight: hide under the covers with the Black Dahlia book I’m reading or do /something/ about the crazy mess in the Abyss. Frankly the mess does nothing for me except make me claustrophobic and I hate the wasted space, so into the Abyss it would be.

Of course, I knew I’d need to bribe myself sufficiently so I picked up take-out on the way home as fortification (this also removed the necessary obstacle that would have been cooking dinner, thus taking up to much precious tackle-time). First on the list after dinner was putting the old table and chairs into the car, forcing me to take them to Goodwill tomorrow during lunch and getting them the hell-up out of the Abyss. Honestly things were looking somewhat civilized in there until I needed to put the chairs some place when I put up the new IKEA set.

That was when I saw it: proof that someone had been in my home. Gasp!

Now, living in an apartment complex with a maintenance staff means that there are certain other people with access to the insides of my home for various reasons (repairs, pest control, etc.). And, yes, when I signed the new lease this past weekend I did ask (again) about the Abyss door which has had a hole punched through it for the whole two years I’ve lived here (the original replacement was the wrong size and I guess no one ever followed up on it though I know I asked about it a few times). Furthermore, one more reason for my need to tackle the Abyss is that persons unknown would be subjected to it in order to eventually fix said door (hope spring eternal).

But I didn’t expect it to happen today!!!

No, the door still shows evidence of violence and now has a new hole where they took out the doorknob. The doorknob assembly leaning against my old Olympus typewriter being what clued me in that all was /not/ as I’d left it. (No, it was not that the things usually kept behind the Abyss door were now in /front/ of the Bureau of Fabric–yes the clutter is so bad that both table leaves, the slacker chair, a plastic shlef and the bed frame box being newly visible was not enough to alert me; does this give you an idea of the level of issues this room has?)

Still, I was already on a mission so the table top, leaves, legs and 3 chairs: into the car they went. After that I was a bit confused as to what to tackle next–there was just so much stuff everywhere. So I did the most logical thing. I hung up the dragon hanging organizer from IKEA over the folding closet door. At some point I’m sure I’ll actually store stuff in it, but for now it’s menacing flames are pointed towards the windows just in case someone gets a funny idea.

Next was the fabric. Oh my do I have a lot of fabric. The Bureau of Fabric? filled to the gills. But I did have a spare long tote that was hanging out empty (what I used for camping storage before I got the deep blue ones for Gulf Wars. Into the tote went a good bit of the fabric worth keeping (I had some tiny scraps that just went away-away) and then what to do with the tote: hah! under the bed it went (mostly willingly). Then I discovered the top-most tote in the craft closet was only about half full so more fabric when into it. Of course, I tried to be smooth and set the lid beside the tote, resting on the lid beneath it. This was stupid as it promptly slid down along the wall to the bottom corner of the closet. It can stay there, too, as having no lid meant I could pile the remaining fabric on top of the full tote for now. Serendipity! (I meant to do that, honest.)

I then took a nostalgia break and flipped through the 5 years of Latin scrapbooks the Bun offloaded to me a couple years ago. Some people’s Myspace pages will be eventually hit with high school photos, oh yes they will! I also managed to impale my left hand on a loose peace of hardware on the first book but at least I know when my last tetanus shot was! (two weeks ago Friday morning and the swelling finally went down last week)

Now I will say that the fabric and the excess furniture piled up, now being out of sight, makes a HUGINORMOUS difference in the room. I mean, there’s still beau coup stuff to be sorted and such in the rest of the room, but there is a serious amount of floor visible in all its beigeness. And and AND… my workstation desk with the tilted worsurface? Visible, accessible, and clear. I can see moving the Random Acts… stuff from the kitchen table to this workstation verra verra soon. How much do I rock?

A lot, I’d say. You would too had the progress been visible. I bet the maintenance guys will be impressed, too, if they ever actually come back…

I was trying to be so good tonight, honest. I went home, fixed supper, started laundry, did 40 minutes of pilates and worked on the Barony’s website. Dude, if it were only that simple.

See, first the was the washing machine incident. Just as I’m starting to load my delicates into the machine three really hot guys walk into the room. Why in the hell it happened I don’t know, but there was some knee-jerk reaction of ‘holy cow, cute guys, and me with a basket of worn undies; I know, I’ll try and cram the ENTIRE basket worth of clothes all at once and that will prevent any perceived embarrassment’. Sure. Didn’t work, I think I called more attention to myself, just as I realized that at least one of them was incredibly gay, so chances were they all were (judging by the ‘are you calling me fat’ convo I witnessed). Whatever, I got the machine started and beat a hasty retreat.

I go back to put the clothes in the dryer and the room is blessedly empty. There were a couple of machines to choose from, including one that spends more time broken than not. It seemed to be in working order tonight but something told me not to ues that one, instead choose the other open machine. It was only after I loaded the clothes in that I noticed there was a little bit of time left on it! Score! I finish my pilates and go to check the clothes in the dryer. Still damp, but I figured it had to do more with the short time allotted and the chill could be due to my workout running 20 minutes past the dryer time. Sure. Not.

45 minutes later, after working on the Barony’s website for a while, I got back to get the clothes. They should definitely be dry now. Nope. Granted, tumbling around in no-heat for an hour did manage to de-lint them and spin out some of the moisture but dry? No. And me out of quarters. Luckily I always have a back-up about five minutes away: Mom’s house. I swear I bring more laundry home /now/ than when I was actually a college student.

I’m still amazed I made it home only missing the first 10 minutes of Heroes.

In FLYLady world (an organizational system that I sporadically follow) Wednesdays are always Anti-Procrastination days. Since I am one among many Queens of Procrastination, sometimes this reminder turns out to be a very good thing.

So, tonight I registered for the domain for RA which will launch on May 1, blocked the gauntlets that I finished knitting ages ago, gave my Cabbage Patch Kid a sponge-bath in preparation for our trip to Babyland General this weekend, painted RA #1, and did some updates of the softwares on this website. Not bad for a few hours, no?

What I’m really jazzed about is WordPress finally managed to integrate the html toolbar to work with Safari, now I can insert links and basic code without having to do it myself (which I haven’t bothered with in ages because of the hassle). Now I have a nice little row of formatting buttons above the box I’m typing into. Yay for updates!