SoCS: out it goes

On my kitchen counter there is a can of OFF! Usually I would not allow a toxic chemical in my kitchen but this is length I have to go to remind me of things.

Today is the Household Hazardous Waste Depot- Mobile Event and this time I’m not going to forget. I had the notice on my fridge but I get blind to things on my fridge so last night I took the flyer, printed from Facebook, put it on the counter with a can of OFF! on it.  No way could I walk by this on my way to coffee and not see it.

I have years worth of empty aerosol cans; bug sprays,  hair products, cleaning products. There’s a box of spent batteries and a lot of painting refuse I’m not sure I can put it the bin. I collect all kinds of garbage because I’m not sure how to “throw it away” . .  . can’t use that phrase anymore. Where’s ‘away’? Even our outer space is filling up with junk.

So my mission for this morning is to go through all those creepy places under the sinks and get this crap out of here.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “preposition” Start your post with any preposition. Bonus points if you end with one too.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-24-19/

SoCS + RDP

It’s really hard to co-ordinate a party for people who live far away. I have tried and failed. My old gang from Toronto likes to have re-unions and I’ve suggested my place but its far in Southwestern Ontario which isn’t Muskoka; the favourite destination.

Recently they started to show interest in coming here and I got sucked into trying again. Why would someone write about coming when they already know they are not coming? I can’t stand flakey people.

So I put it in someone else’s hands. People can co-operate and co-ordinate with him if they want to. . .  I’ll be here if they feel like visiting.

Eventually they will find out this is a good place to party!

Too bad ‘co’ had to be a prefix because I got my new couch! Yesterday I had my first afternoon nap on it. It looks so big and new. Now I want to buy a new rug to co-ordinate with it.

 

 

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “co-” Find a word that uses “co” as a prefix and use it ihttps://lindaghill.com/2019/08/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-17-19/n your post.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/08/17/rdp-saturday-embrace/

https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-17-19/

SoCS: where

“Wheeere the boys are . . .  someone waits for me.”  I have this affliction that may be in my DNA because my sister has it bad. Any word or phrase can start a song; a song you haven’t heard for decades but there is it. I see ‘where’ and Connie Francis is in my head before I can even think.

And that phrase means nothing to me. I don’t want to be where the boys are, YUCK! And I’m pretty convinced that no one is waiting for me. If they are, they won’t find me because I stay home most of the time.

This habit of the brain may be contagious. I have a friend with it, she’s the one I hadn’t seen in 50 years and we’ve reconnected. She said when she was young she wished she was in our family. She remembered my dad sitting at the piano cracking jokes. Maybe she picked it up from us.

She said her daughter complained that she found a song in almost every conversation. Oh, it can be very frustrating when you are trying to talk, I know.

I said my sister has that affliction so I’m going to test her (my friend).

“I was on my way to Parkhill and saw two bald eagles sitting in a tree!”

I could see my friend starting to twitch, she chewed on her tongue and rolled her eyes. Finally she could take it no longer:

“K…I…S…S…I…N…G!”

Well, its not a song but its a singsong. They’re just as bad.

You know where I’m going today? No where!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “where.” Start your post with the word “where” and write whatever comes to you. Bonus points if you end your post with “where” too.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-10-19/

SoCS: astronomical

You know what’s astronomical? The cost of replacing windows. My living room windows are so awful but to replace them would be so many thousands of dollars there is no way I can ever do that.

You know what else is astronomical? Rent. I have a friend who got an apartment in our local small town. $800 a month plus hydro (electricity). WTF?

So why in hell would I complain that I can’t replace my windows? I should be ashamed of myself!

It bugs me so much that some people have so much money while others can barely survive. I’m very lucky to be in the middle with a home of my own!

I look one way and see the astronomical amount of money spent on luxury bullshit then look the other way and see so many people struggling to make ends meet.

Affordable housing is right behind climate change as a very pressing issue!

Tax these astronomically wealthy people and corporations and give poor people a basic income and affordable housing!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “astronomical.” Use it any way you like.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/08/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-august-3-19/

RDP: odour

First of all you are spelling it wrong: the correct spelling is odour. Odor just doesn’t look right.

I’m in luck; the heat has broken (somewhat) so I will be able to paint with the windows open. Its not just an odour with paint, its toxic fumes that give you a headache. Its a sharp chemical smell that stays in your brain.

Its been 6 days preparing to paint my living room. I’m going out of my ever-loving, freaking mind. It took two days just to wash the walls. I just want to get this done.

The painting goes pretty fast compared to all the prep. I started painting yesterday. It was 3:00 by the time I finished taping and I was punchy, stumbling tired but I had to start painting even if it was just a little bit.

I was worried about having to keep my windows closed, circulating the fumes with my air conditioner.

Today and tomorrow I can paint with the windows open! That will really help with the odour.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/07/30/rdp-tuesday-odor/

SoCS: dirty to clean

Oh good; more opportunity to talk about my big painting project. You can see why I have so many hundreds of followers.

Yesterday I continued emptying my living room in preparation to paint. I moved furniture into the guest room and took everything off the walls. Its shockingly dirty.

I have a woodstove which is responsible for the grey tinge in the corners but when I started to take stuff off the walls it left an outline of grey, dusty grime.

I have a very short set of shelves (once a headboard) that’s adjacent to the woodstove. When I pulled that out I screamed! OMG! Dust and dirt and cobwebs . . .  I found 5 pencils, a ruler and a sweet grass braid all bound up in dust and cobwebs.

My first thought was; I’m not doing this without a puff first. (marijuana; its legal here) After that; I donned my gardening gloves and moved in stealthily with my vacuum hose, picking out fallen pencils and vacuuming them off, sucking up blackened dusty crap.

I should be ashamed of myself! But I’m not, so there.

I finished what I wanted to accomplish yesterday; getting every unnecessary thing out and exposing all the dirt. Today I start cleaning; washing the walls. Its a lot of work but it really is important before painting.

My other rooms where easy due to low ceilings: I could use a step stool. The living room has a high ceiling so I’ll be up and down on a ladder all day. This could be the worst part of the whole job; washing the walls with Mr. Clean (or M. Net if you are French)

Mr. Clean gets rid of dirt and grime and grease in just a minute. Mr. Clean can clean your whole house and everything that’s in it.

(Sorry, I can’t help it.)

I can keep my TV plugged in, thankfully. Its on a rolling cabinet. Yesterday I watched two movies while doing this; Cry Freedom! and Witness. In the morning I made a playlist calling ‘painting’. Its over four hours long.  I listened to many podcasts while painting the other rooms so there’s still that. I couldn’t do this without some music or entertainment. Well, I could but it would be awful.

So clean/dirty is going to be dirty>clean today!

 

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “clean/dirty.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you like.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/26/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-27-19/

RDP: prepare

Good word for today. That is what is on my agenda; preparing to paint.

The painting part is actually easy: its the preparation that take so long, especially when you are 66 and do everything by yourself.

I posted Wednesday that I cleaned out the corner of my living room that has a woodstove and firewood rack. That was enough for one day; I had to get outside and do some weeding as the weather was so nice!

Yesterday I sorted and stacked all the magazines I’ve acquired over the years. My sister subscribes them and I let them stack up here. I took as many as I could carry to my afternoon volunteer gig at Opening Doors. The CAA travel magazines went into recyclables.

And that’s as much as I got done yesterday: this is going to take a long time.

Today and all weekend I have no commitments. Its all prepare, prepare. Empty the living room, wash the walls and tape, tape, tape.  My TV and Big Chair will stay in the middle of the room.

I don’t care if it takes all weekend just to prepare to paint. . .  it probably will.

I’ll need to take a few ‘Spanish Pauses”.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/rdp-friday-prepare/

RDP: extravaganza

Let the extravaganza begin! I can procrastinate no longer. Well, a little longer if I write this post.

Today I begin the project of painting my living room. This is going to be a huge job compared to the bathroom and the guest room. Those two rooms have low ceilings, I could do them with a step stool, but the living room has a high ceiling which will means a lot of up and down on a ladder. And the other rooms where small; this is big.

I’ve got a long way to go before I can start to paint. Preparation is most of the work when it comes to painting a room: the actual painting part goes pretty fast in comparison.

This morning I start with the wood stove area. I haven’t cleaned that up from winter yet. I was burning wood into June this year and I knew I was doing this big paint job and would be cleaning the whole room thoroughly. This mess is usually hidden by the couch but I gave away my old couch a few weeks ago.

The flash really captures the cobwebs

 

Its going to be a dirty, dusty crappy job and its probably as far as I’m going to get today. I still have outside work to do, too.

I wish I had started earlier; the weather is cool now and I can open the windows which is wonderful! However, by the time I get this room and walls cleaned it will be hot again. I . . .

OMG! Breaking news! There is a Pileated Woodpecker outside in plain view right now! Yes, a real Woody Woodpecker! They are quite big! So cool. . . 

Where was I? OH, yeah, the extravaganza of a paint job. The Big One.

This is how I do things now that I’m 66 years old and retired: I chip away at big jobs. Its so nice to be able to say; “that’s enough for one day”.

I’m also doing this outside with the jungle that is trying to take over my shrubs. The weather is cool now so I’m weeding until I can do no more. I just chip away at the worst areas; take my little garden bench and do a 20′ stretch.

Everyday I can, I do an outside job and an inside job. This could take weeks and it probably will. I am going to set up my TV viewing in the centre of the room and cover it while I clean and paint. Its on a rolling cabinet my dad made many, many years ago. Thanks, Dad!

looking the other way

Well, I can’t think of anything else to write about it; I can procrastinate no longer!

Let the extravaganza of a paint job begin!

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/07/24/rdp-wednesday-extravaganza/

SoCS: frame

I’ve been sitting here for a while. . .  ‘frame’. Frame.

Let me frame a moment of my morning; (gosh, that’s a stretch.) That moment is me, sitting on a huge, stuffed chair I was lent because I have no couch right now. We had no power: the electricity or hydro, as we call it in Canada, was out.

(Background to framing the moment): I had woke up around 5:45 and realized the power was out: the fan was not blowing a breeze through the bedroom. The atmosphere was dense and dark. I went back to sleep hoping it would be back on when I woke up again. It was not.

We are having a heat wave as I’m sure most of you are, too. This is brutal. Hot and humid right through the night. I am so fortunate to have central air conditioning, I don’t take it for granted because I have lived without it. Nowadays, its necessary.

Yesterday I did a lot of TV viewing. The rain completely missed us so I went out and watered everything. HOLY MOLY! It’s hot! I thanked God when I went back in to my cool house, my big stuffed chair and TV. OMG: I’m so happy to be retired and not have to go to work! That’s when we forget how great it is to have electricity.

Every morning, when I get up, I turn on my computer and my coffee-maker. I go to the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, get my coffee and head to my computer.

Not this morning.

I went and sat on my big chair and stared at the black TV. I need coffee. Please come on. What will I do if it doesn’t come on? I need coffee. It’s 7:30 a.m. and its already hot out. What do I do now? What am I going to do today? I need coffee.

That’s what I repeated, over and over, until that lovely hum and click of my answering machine told me it was on. YAY!

 

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “frame.” Use it as a noun or a verb or any way you like.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/19/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-20-19/

SoCS: How to Watch TV

I watch a lot of TV and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Like most people, I hate commercials and have found ways to avoid them. Here are my instructions for watching TV:

Record everything; constantly peruse the guide for shows that have too many commercials and save them. Sometimes you want to watch smart stuff but sometimes you want stupid stuff with people who make you feel better about yourself. Ghost and scary shows can be saved for daytime viewing when there aren’t many ghosts around. The Daily Show can be recorded to watch at dinner the next day instead of sleeping through most of it. Old movies can be saved for rainy afternoons.

Perhaps you see a show that is streaming and you want to watch it now. Watch it until the first commercial then start a recorded show. The show that is streaming is running behind the recorded show so you can run it back when the recording is stopped.  Its good to keep half hour shows and shows with comedians or skits such as SNL for that purpose so that you can stop it and go back to the streaming program; running it back to where you left off.

Watching Dateline and 48 Hours at the same time is not recommended; it gets very confusing.

Your feet should be up on an ottoman or something similar. (Right now I have a Rubbermaid storage bin with a pillow on top). Remotes should be at a 50°angle just beyond your reach. That way you get a little movement to keep your blood circulating. You’re working your core!

Snacks should be at a 30° within reach. A drink should be on the opposite side, also within the 30- 50° angle and within reach. Your cell phone should be within viewing sight but not desperately close. If you are serious about TV, its more important than your phone.

Warning: DO NOT watch Dr. Pimple Popper while you are eating.

I hope this has enhanced your TV viewing experience.

 

 

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “instructions.” Write instructions for anything you know how to do. As detailed or as rambling as you’d like.

https://lindaghill.com/2019/07/12/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-july-13-19/