Beat

I am *still* tired.

Yesterday I spent over twelve hours working in the basement. When I was finally done last night, I couldn't keep my eyes open - I was asleep early! There is no radiant floor heat in the house yet, but we are closer. My Uncle and Randy came over yesterday and we got bunches done. Things are getting changed a little from the original plan, but the changes will definitely make things more comfortable once the system is up and running. I can't wait until it's done :) At least now the manifold is hooked up to the water heater - yay! I feel very lucky to have people willing to help me with this project. My goal is to have the system up and running Thanksgiving weekend - we'll see.

Every day this week, when I got home from work, I checked the chicken coop. I kept hoping that maybe some of my chickens had survived the attack and had come back home. Sadly, none have appeared. I had a dream last night that the two gray chickens and one of the babies came back. That is so weird. Who dreams about *chickens*??? I'm going to try chickens again in the spring - I'll have all winter to come up with a foolproof plan to keep them safe.

I've mentioned before how hard it is to get stuff done working Monday thru Friday 9-5. This week I ran out of stamps. I like the collector stamps - not the plain stamps that you always get at the supermarkets. Not being able to get to the post office to pick out pretty stamps (and not wanting to stand in line forever on Saturdays), I tried ordering stamps online. It costs an extra dollar for them to be delivered to your house, but other than that they are sold at face value. This is a trial run for me - if it works the way the post office says it does, that's probably how I'll order my stamps from now on. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? :)

9 to 5

Just about all my life I've had jobs with weird working hours. I either had hours that fluctuated or just had strange start and quit times. I can only think of two jobs I've had with 'normal' Monday through Friday hours. It didn't matter then because I was young and still living at home. As a homeowner, odd hours definitely have their advantages - it seems like there was always time to get stuff done. I could go to stores during less crowded times. I could do projects around the house while the sun was still shining. Appointments were easy to schedule. Things were way more flexible.

My present job is Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. How does anyone who has a house and/or a family get anything done working these hours??? It's getting even harder for me as the days get shorter. It seems like after I get home from work each day, I check my email, eat dinner and then it's already too dark outside to do anything. I find it really hard to get motivated to get anything done when it's pitch dark outside. Not getting things done during the week pushes everything to the weekend - and that is just not enough time for me.

My original plan today was to head out to Akron and pick up a travel bug that made it to New York from a friend of mine in California. It's been a long journey getting here and I am anxious for it to complete it's travels. I didn't get out of work on time - only about 15 minutes late - but I knew that I wouldn't be able to make it to the cache site and be able to find it before it got dark. The new plan when I got home was to skip dinner and email and cut my grass. I ended up finishing the last part of the yard in the dark. It was like a race between me and the sun - and I lost. I do have to say that the lawn looks like a perfect golfing green by the light of my mower's headlights. I can't wait to see what I missed and what it really looks like tomorrow morning :)