Haven

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Return of The Moth

The audacity of The Moth increased moments ago when it came out in broad daylight and dive bombed me! It landed on my picture window and I came at it with the fly swatter.

It landed on its back on my desk and raised its legs in supplication. I could hear it begging me for mercy. I told it to surrender. It rolled over onto its stomach and tried to rise to its knees, then collapsed.

I scooped it up and brought it outside. It took a lurch step and then took off on shaky wings. Will it live? I have no idea. Will it come back? I doubt it.

To be continued?

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Rae Versus The Moth

Just a bit of levity on a very hazy and smokey morning…

I have been dealing with a moth for about a week now. It comes out as soon as I go to bed, attracted by the light in the loft emanating from my iPad. It is HUGE. I can hear it coming, its wing flapping being that loud.

When it arrives, it repeatedly dive bombs me, landing on my head, my hands, and my thighs, as well as on the iPad. I have on multiple occasions thought that I managed to smack it because it lies still, but as soon as I go to dispose of the body, it takes off again. Yes, the moth is playing dead. I have determined that not only is it sentient, it’s smarter than me!

It took me ages to go to sleep last night because I was laughing so hard at the moth’s antics. It really does seem to be toying with me. I started giggling as soon as I heard the drone of its wings and then, boom! Impact with my ear! Then it flew around a bit while I tried to smack it, played dead for a bit, then took off, only to land on my NOSE.

I finally shut the iPad and the moth left. I’m at the point where I think it has earned the right to live since it has obviously outsmarted me, so I’ll just consider it a sign that I need to turn off the light and get some sleep!

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A Much Needed Domestic Day

I’ve been back at Haven for just over a month now and today was the first day that I was able to just focus on home. Now is the time to confess that I wondered what it would like to return to teeny tiny Miranda after a winter of rattling around in my huge Mexican casita. Well, it’s been wonderful, so cozy and comfortable. I’m in no hurry to move!

Before beginning the domestic stuff this morning, I started some updates for my computer since I wouldn’t need it today. Unfortunately, I had to cancel them a few minutes ago after trying all day to get them downloaded and my connection repeatedly timing out. I called SaskTel yesterday and we determined that there actually is something going on with my account, but they can’t figure out what until my billing cycle resets in two weeks. *sighs*

While the computer was busy, I set to work in the kitchen. It’s been feeling very chaotic since I got back, mostly because of the under sink leak and not being able to put things away under there. So I spent some time cleaning the area well, making sure that there were no other leaks, and put things away.

Then, I decided to empty out and clean my pot cupboard since I found some weevils in my soup pot the other day. I’ll spare you a picture, but let’s just say I’m glad I’m not squeamish because I found weevil central. And by weevil, I mean little critters that look like tiny worms, not necessarily actual weevils.

Since I had to wash everything in that cupboard, I decided to do some much needed scrubbing of my pots and pans with Barkeepers Friend and some steel wool.

I’ve been using the same set of Meyer pots and pans since I moved out on my own in 1998 and I have made thousands of meals with them. Needless to say, they get pretty crusty and covered with grease and scorch marks, no matter how hard I scrub them after making a meal. So a couple of times a year, I do a big scrub and restore them to a mirror shine with the Barkeepers Friend and steel wool. It’s a process that’s really hard on my hands, even when wearing gloves (!), hence why I don’t pull out the BF after every meal.

I did this to the lid of my soup pot in just the last couple of weeks after using it as a lid for my cast iron pan:

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That black stuff is all under the lid, along the rim, and it goes right to the top of the lid:

And after a few minutes of scrubbing:

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Once my pots were all shiny, I put everything away again and took the time to reorganize the cupboard a bit as well as some of my overhead cabinets. Then, I washed all the cabinet doors.

By this time, I was beyond ready for lunch, so I finished up the zucchini and chicken I had for dinner last night. I still can’t believe that I have found a use for zucchini outside of chocolate cake. It is such a wonderful replacement for pasta.

After lunch, I started the dishwasher, collapsed in my chair, put my feet up for a bit, and read for a couple of hours!

Speaking of the dishwasher, it is amazing. 🙂 It is exactly the right size for my kitchen. It lives between the bookcase and the canned good cabinet, leaving me ample room to access both, and it’s not in the way to climb the ladder to the loft. I can pull it out, turn it, and bring it to the sink without having to move anything. I haven’t had any use for that space since I lost my cats, because that was where I stored their litter box, so the dishwasher doesn’t feel like it’s taking up any precious space.

It also gives me the little bit of extra counter space I needed for my food processor and tortilla press. I use both too often for it to be worth storing them between uses.

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I am really happy I bought the dishwasher. It is a huge improvement to my quality of life.

Late afternoon, after cleaning the dressing room, I went for a walk. It is very smoky and hazy out there. Saskatchewan is having a record breaking dry June and we are having tons of wildfires. I’m not sure where this smoke is coming from, but I know that the northern part of the province is burning, so I imagine that the smoke from there is drifting south. The conditions remind me of my first Klondike summer, when Yukon was plagued by wildfires.

When I came in, I made a giant pitcher of lemonade. All the recipes I found had the proportions as being 1 cup of sugar to 1 cup of water to 1 cup of lemon juice, and then dilute as needed. Since I don’t do much sugar anymore, I only used a half cup of sugar and it was still way too much. Next time, I’ll do just a quarter cup. I really like lemonade when it’s very hot out as it seems to quench thirst better than just plain water and I haven’t had it in eons. For some reason, there are no lemons in Mexico, so I do ‘limonada’ there, which is limeade. Tasty, but not the same!

And then, it was time for dinner and I didn’t feel like cooking. So I went to the grainery to get a quarter of Co-Op’s amazing frozen ‘deluxe’ pizza (peppers, pepperoni, sausage, onion, black olives), quite simply the best frozen pizza I’ve ever had (they also do a yummy chicken and pineapple over BBQ sauce pizza!). I buy the pizzas on sale (3 for $9.99). They are a little soft by the time I get home, so open them up and use scissors to cut them into quarters, rewrap, and toss in the freezer. Then, when I have a day when I’ve been active and my kitchen is perfect and I don’t want to mess it up, it’s easy to pull out just as much pizza as I should be eating at one time.

While the pizza was baking, I went outside and dug a hole for my antenna pole. I might actually get that project done one day. It’s just that I have service now and every time I play with the antenna it takes ages to find service again. So I really need a full day for this project. Maybe this coming Friday will be the day…

I’m so glad I got this day off before starting the new job tomorrow. I feel like I managed to reboot my brain. I’ve had a lot of technological frustration in the last few weeks, so having a day away from the computer did me a world of good!

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Redneck Plumbers ‘R Us

I debated whether or not to share this plumbing horror story and decided that this is the kind of DIY post I wish I saw more of, one where the desperate DIYer stopped giving a rat’s ass about what people might think and just dealt with the problem already!

All kidding aside, I want to preface the post by saying that this is not the way to do things. It’s a last resort for when you live in a home with components that were never meant to be repaired and when you can’t afford to hire the professional who could probably do something that is more ‘correct.’ This post is about establishing goals, finding ways to meet them, and accepting that the solution, while not ideal is good enough and that there’s no shame in that.

So again, please, do not try this at home.

I found another leak under my kitchen sink, this time from a joint right at the water heater. It’s likely that all the jostling from the other repairs caused it. This is something I always fear when working on an older plumbing system, that repairs to one part lead to damage to other parts. It becomes an endless vicious cycle of repair. I’m not kidding. The minute I applied pressure to the pipe, the whole assembly snapped loose.

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In a way, this wasn’t a bad thing. By eliminating the other bypass, I removed no fewer than seven joints and reduced them to just two. But you can’t repair PVC piping. All you can do is cut it out and put in a new piece. But what if there’s no room to attach anything? What if you’re looking at a section that is hard welded to the water heater in a tight space where is no room to work?

Well, there was just enough lip left on the bit sticking out of the water heater to attach a hose and clamp. Just barely. So I decided that I was going to fix this by bridging with a hose and clamps, just like for the first bypass fix. Of course, this would not be a fix and forget about it sort of repair because of just how precariously the hose would be attached to the bottom joint. I will never feel comfortable leaving my water pump on when I’m not around. But it’s a solution that it won’t leak as long as the clamp is tight. And I should add that I don’t drink from my holding tank, so I don’t mind not using plumbing grade hose.

I wanted to give myself a little insurance in case the hose did ever come loose. After a bit of rummaging around, I found a hard plastic tube that was the perfect diameter to stick in the bottom piece, secured with a bit of rubber tape. My reason for doing this that if the hose were ever to loosen, this would keep the hose from separating from the pipe and flooding the rig. Spoiler alert, I had to do the hose installation twice and when I did it the second time, I was able to test my theory and was absolutely right. I got a few drops when I loosened the clamp, but most of it remained in the tube and I was able to drain in a controlled manner.

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When I did the installation the first time, the hose was too short and I got a bad kink in it.

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I still had regular pressure coming out of the tap, but I was worried that water pressure would build up because of the kink restricting the flow of water and that the pipe might explode. I tend to think pessimistically when I’m dealing with plumbing. 🙂

So I went back out to my MacGyver pile and cut myself a longer piece of hose. I still have a kink, but it’s not nearly as bad.

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And there you have it. No more bypass, fewer joints, and, best of all, no leak. I’m posting this on Saturday afternoon because I’ve already done a few posts today, but it’s actually very, very, very late Friday night. I just wanted this dealt with now since I have a big Saturday of work and don’t want to be distracted. 🙂

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Carpe Occasionem

There is major good stuff happening in my life right now in regards to work. One of you lovely readers gave me an incredible gift that I wouldn’t have even dared to wish for — a dream job. It’s all rather surreal and I am infinitely grateful! I have no idea how long this opportunity will last, so I don’t want to say too much right now, only that it involves proofreading.

It’s no secret that I have been growing more than a tad disillusioned with the transcription field. I’ve determined that it’s nearly impossible to make a decent living in that field without working inordinately long hours to make up for low pay. Other fields that require the same strong language skills pay a lot more, but transcription clients just don’t seem to get that and only pay very low wages. I work too hard and have too much education to settle for being this poor (in a purely financial sense).

One of the things that transcription gave me was an immense freedom of schedule, which is why I stuck with it for so long. When this latest opportunity came up, I had to decide if I was ready to be a little less temporally free to gain some financial freedom. The answer was yes. I’m at a part of my life where I’m okay with working weekdays, having weekends off, and having to request time off for vacation… since said vacation will be for me to travel between my Canadian and Mexican homes! Everything falls into place, doesn’t it? I truly believe that.

I’ve finished basic training and am starting this coming Tuesday. At this time, the job requires me to be at my desk 24 hours a week split up into eight-hour shifts Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I really need to be at my desk during that time. I can’t slip out to switch loads of laundry, go to the post office, or do chores, just like being at an onsite job, only without having to deal with other people and a commute! It’s a good schedule in that it still leaves me four days a week to do other things and I still have two week days for going to town. There is a possibility of getting more hours later that will restrict my schedule further, but I’m just taking it a week at a time.

I am still an independent contractor/freelancer and am still doing transcription part-time for now. But this new job will really pad my resume in a field that I’ve been trying to break into and so I will likely leave transcription behind as more opportunities in proofreading develop. Since I’m not an employee, I don’t have any sort of job security and so I’m loathe to put all my eggs in the same proverbial basket and drop my loyal transcription clients. Once burned, twice shy, and all that.

Who knows if my new schedule will be visible in my blog posts over the next few weeks and months, but I thought that I might as well give a heads up in case I go quiet. Some of you actually worry when I do that! 😀