Well, I feel better able to face laundry now

I got up at 3:30 am and have done some small tasks, including putting the bedding into a laundry bag and getting the other two out of the hamper frame. I have at least four loads, counting a comforter in the trunk of the car that never got properly clean after a friend's puppy barfed all over it.

A different friend asked to use my computer (the desktop) on a regular basis, and I don't mind that at all and actually it will give us a better chance to see each other, but it occurs to me that I have basically set up my computer just for me. The workstation is against the wall, when it really should be catty-cornered to work well with the bookshelf that comes very close to it. I have a keyboard that is too tall for my regular tray. My mouse is on the left and set as left-handed. If I try to put it on the right, I'm not sure he'll have enough room to type on the keyboard, short of putting the keyboard on the actual table and not on the tray. And there's no chance of getting a deeper tray put onto this desk.

We'll try it out and see if he can comfortably use the computer. If now, I do have a solution, although it's one I don't relish. I'd need to turn the computer desk catty-cornered, of course. To do that would mean taking down two shelves of books that span between the entertainment centre and the desk hutch. I could then move the desk, put the shelves back up, and re-shelve. It would be a lot of work, and we'll save it until after the current cleaning frenzy. It would make the computer more user friendly for both of us, actually, and somewhere in the closet I have a triangular piece that joins my printer table to the desk that would work that way and provide better stability on that front. But we'll see how cramped he is in my little computer space, first.

This evening is turning out to be a bust

1. I fell asleep until 10 pm, so it's a little late to start laundry.
2. I'm really hurting--in my back, especially. Even though I planned to sort paper in boxes, I do have to lift the boxes, or stand at the end of the hallway and do it there. Not good.
3. I just got mustard on a favourite shirt. (And no, YKWIA, it's not one of the tacky ones.) It's soaking in cold water as we speak.

Harumpf. I think I'll take some meds, go back to sleep, and then get up early--as in 2 am-4 am--and try again. It's not ideal, but it's my best shot of not wasting the night. I've already slept 3 hours. Four more should do it.

Listening to (for Beltane)

PS I've ordered both the DVD of the 1973 movie and the novel Wicker Man. I'm looking forward to watching/reading those when I have some time.

It's May Day, and I'm having the urge to garden

Which is somewhat difficult to do, when you don't have a yard, balcony, or really even a private patio. My solution? Window boxes. I could have gotten some lovely flowers, and it's true the purple sweet potato vine looked promising, but instead I got some herbs and strawberries. There are six strawberry plants, two for each box, plus a rosemary, sage, lemon thyme, oregano, sweet basil, and dill. Wish me luck!

Work went really well today. I got there a little early and stayed a little late, in order to make up some of my time from Monday's doctor's appointment. I had a lot of sheets to enter, and I dreaded it, alphabetising them slowly. But then I sort of caught a second wind and actually got everything in, meaning I've caught up there. Tomorrow will be a lot of shelving and doing interlibrary lending in preparation for being off again on Friday.

I also gave blood this morning. The phlebotomist got the vein in one stick, yay. I try to give blood about twice a year, and I'm on my fourth or maybe even my fifth gallon of donating (I started when I was 17). I don't always manage to, of course, and there's lots of people who have given more over their lifetime. But I do try. What I forgot was you're not supposed to lift anything heavy for about 24 hours, so instead of doing the rest of the books, I'm going to go through boxes of papers and some of the lighter stuff. I am going to do some laundry tonight, though, but I don't have heavy loads of it, and I have the carts and the car for that matter, if need be.

But I'm going to start the evening's work by opening up my windows. It is far too warm in here, and it's a lovely day, sunny and about 81 degrees. :)

Happy Beltane, by the way!

I have some mead I could break out for the occasion, but I'd better not mix alcohol with my medication.

Beltane is an odd holiday for me for I really don't want to be literally fertile, I have very little in terms of crops and livestock (I have a few plants and goldfish), and the one time I jumped the Beltane fire I hurt my foot and it was a problem for about six months, till Samhain. So I keep celebration of Beltane low-key. I do occasionally watch the older version of 'The Wicker Man', the one day with Christopher Lee, not Nicholas Cage, a delightful movie that many call a cult horror flick, but it really isn't. That's on VHS, and I recently got a DVD/VHS recorder, so I can watch again. I've been without a VCR for a number of years, but hung on to the tapes anyway, and now I can watch them (and convert them to DVD, for that matter). Okay, that's it for the night. I'm on my phone in bed and my hand's cramping. Good night.

That so did not work

I put my feet up in the bed and lay there for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, in pain, but not wanting to get out of bed to take medicine. Then I finally fell asleep and had a dream about superheroes trapped in a state of weakness that only got better when they worked together and put their combined power to work. Then one of the super-heroes used an undisclosed power to take over their world, power which was used to run the world with an iron fist. It then became a mystery/rebellion to figure out how to depose him, and it turns out the power was derived from Justin Bieber. Later a young woman was able to wrest the power from him, and again the world changed, but she was eventually persuaded to give up the power for the greater good of everyone, so they would have choice in their lives. It was quite entertaining, actually, better than a movie. And it was as long, or even more actually, as I probably fell asleep by 9ish, and now it's after 1 am.

So I woke up, was still actually in quite a bit of pain, and took my nightly meds. I'm eating a bit of hummous. Before I go back to bed I'm at least going to get those clothes together. But I'm pretty bushed, I must admit, from my day off. :)

Just in case your Galaxy S3 starts talking to you randomly...

No, you're not hallucinating. Apparently the S3 (and I'm presuming the S4) has a driving mode that if you accidentally hit on the pull-down screen, the phone will suddenly start telling you, 'message from...' 'call from...' and give you the name. Which is actually quite helpful, but freaked me out a bit when it happened, since I didn't know about that feature. I was trying to use the phone earlier in bright sunlight, which usually is okay with this phone, but I was having some trouble, and I must have accidentally toggled it. Fortunately I Googled the problem and found the answer immediately. [I find it funny that it could manage one friend's 'normal' name, but not another's which is a little unusual. So it just spelled that one. :)] Also, the voice was female, so I guess if I ever decide to 'name' my phone (does anyone do that, like they do cars?), it'll have to be a female name, although I suppose there may be a way to change the setting to male.

I think my list was a bit ambitious. I did get a lot done, but not as much as I'd have liked to. I have moved the literary books out to the living area. Now I'm sitting at the computer in my underwear and a camisole extremely hot and sweaty, and I'm thinking of just going ahead and taking a shower and resting a bit before going on to the next phase of things. And the switch out of shelves for the fantasy and mystery books may have to wait till tomorrow. I don't think I can lift any more books. I will try to get the clothes into bags to take to Goodwill, though. I can drop them by tomorrow. And if I can get the bedding put away, then most of the bedroom floor will be clear. That leaves Wednesday and Thursday evening, and then Friday and Saturday to get the closets all taken care. I think I can do it. On Friday I'm off as well, and I'm taking a friend to Nicholasville on a hunt for coffee mugs, since apparently you can't just go into a regular store and find them any more. There's Carpenter's Dish Barn in Nicholasville, but they close at 6 pm. Who knew it would be this difficult to find just plain coffee mugs, not part of some sort of set or strange shapes? Okay, time for that break.

I'm off today!

And although I didn't sleep in much (I sat down at my desk at home about the same time I would have at work, but in my jammies), it's still nice to know I have a break. Mind you, I'm still cleaning the house, so that will take up part of my day. But that's okay.

Yesterday, work was fairly busy and I had a couple of interlibrary loans to request, a book order, some stuff for referrals, and a teleconference with other state representatives to the Greater Midwest Region of the National Network or Libraries of Medicine. The last was quite enjoyable, given I missed our annual meeting in Chicago last year due to injury, and there was a new member who was quite bubbly and vocal. I also had a doctor's appointment, then took a friend to mail some items and we went out to Long John Silver's. When I came home, I had all intents and purposes to clean, but laid down for about an hour, without really falling asleep, because weariness kind of overtook me for a bit. But I got up and then tackled the bedroom, taking boxes to be sorted out of the closet, gong through my clothes (putting them in the following categories: those winter ones to be put away for the season, those current ones to be put away (which I did), clothes to go to Goodwill, clothes that are too damaged to do so and just need to be thrown away (I have one sleep shirt that is very comfortable but riddled with holes from being caught in the washer), and clothes to be laundered, which are in a hamper by darks, lights, and hand-washables. I also sorted out bedding to be put away, towels, and resuable bags, of which I have many. There are also a series of wire carts that collapse that are useful but would do better in the walk-in closet, as there is now room in there due to the dead electronics graveyard's cleanout and they can't be damaged should the air conditioner leak (something that's happened twice in the time I've been here--which is why clothes and books do not go in there, just to be safe. I lost some clothes at one point due to this.)

Today's agenda (which may bleed into tomorrow, if needed, in some cases):
1. Take out the some things I found last night that are garbage (like the plastic from my bedsprings I was supposed to keep 14 days but wound up being a month and a half).
2. Bag up the clothes for Goodwill and load them in the car.
3. Buy a new swimsuit.
4. Check for a book at Half Price Books.
5. Go by Kroger and get cleaning supplies and four more bookshelves (I think I can squeeze them in).
6. Go by the bank and get quarters for laundry.
7. Fold up all the bedding to be put away.
8. Collect up the reusable bags.
9. Take a friend to a doctor's appointment.
10. Drop both clothes and reusable bags by Goodwill.
11. Put away bedding and other folded items.
12. Clean the bathtub.
13. Put together the bookshelves.
14. Move literary books from closet to living area.
15. Move fantasy and mystery books to bed.
16. Move metal bookshelf to closet so they're both there.
17. Move fantasy and mystery books to new bookshelves in bedroom.
18. Use metal bookshelves for any remainder books, Magic cards, collectibles, etc., so they're not on the floor.
19. Move the comic boxes to that closet [actually, scratch that, I can't pick them up at present. I need someone to help me with that.]
20. Do laundry.

That's enough, I think. :) It's a full day, but if I can accomplish everything, I'll be very happy (and probably in pain). Okay, I'm finished with breakfast, so I should probably go take a shower and start hopping!

By the way

I managed, despite my injury in October that kept me homebound with limited mobility for three months, to overwinter a pepper plant that Brenda had given me last year. It's putting out new leaves and blooming. It makes small purple bell peppers. So since spring does apparently plan on sticking around and the lows aren't supposed to go below 50 for a few days, I put it outside so that it would pollinate. Wish me luck!

I'm tired, but I can't sleep

So I've been putting the final touches on the living area and dining area (I hesitate to call them rooms, as they're all open). I moved a shelf with movies on it, moved some sturdy crates, got some books off the floor, and got extraneous stuff off the shelves. I still need to organise the audio tapes, as well as one shelf on the entertainment centre. I set the clock ahead on the DVD/VHS recorder (missed that when we went to daylight savings). So that leaves the bedroom and the apartment's closets, and there's a toss-up as to which closet is worse. But I have accomplished a lot so far; I hope to finish in time for the game next week. I'm off Tuesday and Friday, so that should help.

Okay, I'm going to try to go back to bed. Good night!