doing things

 I'm unable to respond to comments for some reason.  OThers may be blocked as well, and I cannot figure out the issue.  Sorry, not ignoring you!

Today's good news is that I revived my old yogurt.  Since what I was making started to go off a few weeks ago, I pitched it and dug out of the freezer some old dried yogurt flakes that I dried before hurricane season 2022.  I've traveled thousands of miles with them, I stuck them in the freezer and forgot about them.  

So the trick is to do back-to-back fermentation.  Yesterday morning I heated about 1 cup of milk and sprinkled maybe 3/4 tsp of yogurt flakes and stirred, put it in a thermos and shook it, and let it do its thing all day.  Before bed I checked and it was all milk; I put it in the fridge.  This morning I heated milk again and used yesterday's milk as starter.  The bottom of the thermos had some milk solid, maybe yogurt?   Otherwise it was just like milk.  Shook it up, pulled out a tsp or so into heated milk, back into thermos.  Tonight I checked and it's freaking yogurt.  No idea how that worked so well, but it did.  I was so tempted to add more flakes, give up, etc.  But I didn't.  And now I have a healthy starter again.  Woo hoo!  IT tastes better than storebought yogurt and it's cheaper to make.  I need to get back to eating more of it and not just sharing with the dog.  The good bacteria may have gotten weak because I was going too long between making it, especially since I didn't have a kitchen for so long.  I usually would make it every 3-4 weeks and it was fine, but I stretched to two months and maybe that was too long.  

So now for what had my heart still racing when I think about it - the dog almost got out.  She is really funny about her rules, like she does not push doors open.  Even when I tell her to, she won't.  She is adamant about it.  Until she isn't.  So, yesterday I was cajoling her to just push the kitchen/mudroom door open on her own (it didn't yet have a doorknob as I've been waiting for the right time to remove the door to finish it), and today she took me to heart.  I was out talking with the tree guy and she pushed that door open and then also the stormdoor which doesn't shut well, as she wanted to be part of the conversation.  She had been really subdued with him, but she still wanted to be part of the gang.  And then I said, "Wait, is the gate closed?"  It was not.  It was wide open.  I yelled at him to grab her, but she was having none of that.  Nobody gets to grab her but me.  Before I could get over to her, she came to me.  I said, "Hey, let's go inside!" and she said ok, and she went inside.  Say what?!  Awesome.  I said, "I'll get you a treat for being so good in a minute," and went back out - and then she dd the same damn thing because I am a fool and I thought i'd left the door open the previous time and didn't realize that the rules had changed.  Out she came, unable to be caught by that man, and then just pranced back in the house when I asked, and I got her a damn treat this time without asking for it on credit.  

Nothing happened, obviously.  I was alert and she was good.  Crisis averted.  But tell that to my body, which is still feeling major adrenaline about this.  I've personally experienced my dog ripping into other dogs' flesh, and there are always dogs walking on our street.  Many of them are small dogs, which my dog loathes.  The horrors of her attacking dogs, of screaming owners, of the blood, of the accusations, the animal control knocking on my front door, the neighbors shunning me and talking trash about my dog behind my back.  I hate it all so much, even when it doesn't lead to my boss calling me to say she read about the incident in the local newspaper.  And so I had surge of adrenaline and it is not dissipating.  

Once there is no more Catahooligan, will my anxiety levels drop drastically?  Probably.  She just keeps me on high alert.  and it takes a toll.  I still feel like vomiting when I think about it, and I can't stop thinking about it. 

***

The dog kept me up in the night needing to go out (diarrhea, I think, though likely also vomiting).  She's been under the weather.  But I still got enough sleep to feel better today, thankfully.  I had planned to have woodchips delivered, a massive quantity, but there's something going on that has the streets filled with cars so it'll have to wait.  Instead I pruned the grape vine which is pretty fun, to hack it all the way back.  I want to remove all the dead bits but then I just hacked it back because I need to replace some rotted out boards on the trellis.  I also set up a dog fence to keep her away from the fence where she screams at the world walking past.  She can easily jump over it, but it will slow her a bit.  I'd like to start leaving the dog door open for her to go outside when I'm not home - it would sure make my work life easier instead of having to ask Friend to stop by so often.  

***

Friday of vacation week and of course I haven't finished everything I wanted to, but I've gotten to do some good spring cleaning.  Things like washing jackets I rarely do, finding a dry cleaner.  Next spring cleaning I'll also focus on organizing closets, but I'm not even fully moved in yet so that isn't necessary right now.  I think I was a little early on the timing, though yesterday was a gorgeous day and I pruned grapes which is pretty fun.  Low pressure (it's impossible to kill the grapes, they say) and a lot of hacking away.  I need to finish removing the branches from the trellis and in the next couple of months replace rotted trellis boards, and then train the grapes on it.  They were so crazy they even grew way up a pear tree.  

I've also gotten to a spot where I can go to Ikea tomorrow with returns and then to a cool plant nursery where I'll pick up things like pawpaws and honeyberries.  I cut my order way back, and I can get more things next fall or spring.  I'd love a couple of hazelnuts but the squirrels are already suuuuper active in my yard.  It would be nice if I were more ready to fill in more trees and bushes in my yard, but I'm still definitely in preliminary stages with smothering grass, planning fence, etc. I almost got some other trees that grow big and I need to take a beat on that.  I have a couple of spots for that, but I need a fuyu persimmon for sure. 

All these things I'm doing will be best in like seven years.  I'll be rolling in fruit then.  Will I still be here?  The dog - who drags me to spend time outside on nice days - will not.  Maybe I'll have chickens then, to keep down the codding moth problem and for all the other good reasons to have chickens. 

I have someone bringing me eggs today - chicken and duck.  She lives outside town and has eggs abundant.  I'm not willing to drive for yard eggs but I sure like to buy them, and so we'll connect when she's doing errands near me.  And the plumber comes today to put in a hose bibb in my backyard.  Essential and weird there isn't one.  Also expensive to put in, unfortunately.  I keep spending so much money, but I check myself and it seems like it's necessary.  Not having a water source in my backyard is a real pain in the neck with all the gardening I'm doing.  I'd have to fill buckets in my utility sink and what a hassle. I could do it, of course, but it's worth it to not have to.  And that's kind of where I'm at with so many things - dropping heaps of cash to make my life more comfortable.  The house isn't a money pit, there are just a lot of things to upgrade.  I'm really hoping this throwing cash at the house shifts soon from upgrades to saving to pay off mortgage.  I cannot retire until I pay off my mortgage, and that is a hefty sum.  

Going to try really hard to not check work emails today.  I failed on that account yesterday, hard.  Monday would be a lot easier for me if I spend a half day today catching up on emails, but I am not in the mood and I need time off.  I also need to figure out ways to make my work less stressful.  

OK, coffee done, time to roll with this day.  Looks like another lovely one. 

stuck

 I cannot get these fucking cabinet doors on level and it is making me completely insane and very very grumpy.

step by step

 Sometimes a very long list is motivating and gets me going to check things off.

Other times - like now - a long list is overwhelming and I respond with inaction.

And so I remake my strategy for this week off of work.  Giving myself credit for the things I have done, and doing what is in front of me instead of relying on a list.  First thing this morning was to enjoy a good cup of coffee thanks to my fancy new coffee grinder.  Ooo la la, the difference between pre-ground coffee or even blade-ground coffee is extreme.  This is soo much better.  I went with a Baratza Encore for longevity and repairability.  This may be my forever coffee grinder, yay.  

Then I cleaned the kitchen.  I'd made and canned goat bone broth for the dog, which took up much of the kitchen space.  

I moved everything needing to be put away to the kitchen table and now I'll tackle that.  Then all the things lying around, and hopefully that will inspire me to install the last cabinet doors and handles, and then hopefully that will inspire me to cut the shims in the doorframe and move forward with framing.  

Step by step.  I cannot do everything but I can do things.  

The tree trimming tradie is coming today and we always enjoy that.  Well, last time the dog was an asshole so got locked up, but maybe today will be another good day.  I"ll mostly let him just do things because he's good on a ladder and I am not, but maybe Ill cut the grape back myself under his tutelage.  

I spent quite a lot of time last night researching to order a heap more fruit-bearing trees, shrubs, even groundcovers.  I think I"ll put a creeping raspberry in my curbstrip, and so many other things are saved ready to order.  Several pawpaws to ensure pollination, jujubes, honeyberry, blackberry, hazelnuts, feijoa.  I need to call and see how soon things would be shipped or if I should drive the hours to pick up and if I want to do that with my new car.  Now is peak planting season.  But I really need to just order the massive amount of woodchips and dig into finishing that project.  I keep hoping arborists will drop woodchips, but it's not happening, and so I probably have to suck it up and pay.  I can make a good dent in it and then I may need to hire to get it done, and maybe they can also remove all the shrubs along the fenceline where I want to have a fence built.  First I need to talk to my neighbor about it as it will remove all the bushes and I don't want to have a squabble about where the fenceline is.  But just arranging that conversation has been too daunting.  And I want to spread woodchips first to smother the grass.  But first I need to order them, but I've been hoping for free ones, and so this cycle goes.

AFter today, only one more tradie, the plumber to put in a hose bibb in my backyard, where currently there is none.  It's not going to be cheap as it's a bit elaborate, but it will be critical to my happiness to have a water source in the yard.  

I really want to put in rhubarb and asparagus but don't yet know where to commit to them being.  I need to turn my attention outwards, obviously.  OH, maybe I'll start things in pots, like the raspberries someone gave to me.  

OK, enough ulling about.  Time to get moving.  Like literally, move my truck out of the way of the tree trimmer.

Oh yikes, forecast is for high winds.  I do not want him to do anything dangerous.  We'll see what happens today. 

tradies

 I've been watching My Life is Murder with Lucy Lawless, set after season 1 in Auckland, and catching some of the terms is fun, like tradies for tradespeople.  Also, kumara bread has definitely caught my attention - it's a sweet potato yeast bread and I plan to make that tomorrow when it's raining hard outside.

So the trady came today to check my woodstove and chimney, and it is shockingly in pristine condition.  I'm set to burn.  I'm not going to, because I have three other sources of heat (ductless, baseboard, and monitors, all of which work well).  Obviously I do not normally need a fourth source of heat, but when I lost power during an ice storm this winter, it made me interested in having this backup.  So once I get through all of my urgent projects, I'm going to build a woodshed, chop up what I have from my downed tree, and get more firewood.  Let it season and have it ready, just in case.  People can shelter here then as necessary. 

So that was some great news to start this week of vacation!  Plus he was on time and informational.  Unfortunately the dog was an asshole to him so she didn't get to "help" him. She is frankly uninterested in strangers coming into the house these days, and sometimes she doesn't even want friends here.  She slept with me last night which is unusual for her, but she's definitely been clingier than usual.  

Oh, so back to Lucy Lawless - I met her once, in an elevator in northern Louisiana.  She's smaller than I imagined, polite.  I don't know that I would have recognized her if I hadn't been given a heads up that she was around.  I was too starstruck to spark a real conversation but I wish I had.  

I should get my errands out of the way, like picking up a stockpot so I can process the goat and chicken bones in my freezer and make more room, and then I really need to focus back on my projects.  So much to do! 

the other side of canning and vacation plans

 I often focus heavily on the production side of canning, and moving back into my kitchen made me realize I need to focus more on the consumption side.  I have probably 40 jars of jam, just to start.  So I resolved to consume more of the canned goods.

Today I had jam on sourdough toast, a grape juice shot, canned pears, pickled okra.  Off to a good start. Pulling out some potatoes that I want to grow and eating up the rest.  Contemplating more beets.  

Unfortunately, I've had to realize that my days of home remodeling with Friend need to come to an end.  Our visions are too different and when I defer to her, shit gets fucked up.  Like my flooring.  And walls, and ceilings.  She just jumps and yanks things and doesn't think through what that does.  It's also super slow going and she doesn't have a good sense of it.  She said replacing my door would be easy, only taking an hour or so.  NINE HOURS LATER, I have no trim and it doesn't look great and my kitchen floor got ripped.  Would i rather pay $600 for door install like I have before?  Or even more?  Maybe.  I don't know. It's a difficult situation for me to decide.  I will say that things go much better when I do all the research and take lead and she just hands me tools.  So it's my fault.  But also I need to start hiring professionals more.  

The problem with professionals is they also can do a crappy job, so then I'm stressed out and have bad things done and it cost me a lot of money and my dog got super stressed out.  The dog loves to "help" Friend and me do things.  She loves hanging out with her people but strangers are not always gopd.  

So, maybe we're not totally done, but I don't think we can do the bathroom remodel together, and I think she needs to not have any more involvement with the kitchen.  

I will say, it's a nice door.  It was really fucking hard for me to find the door I wanted but I finally did and paid some good money.  It's fir and almost Shaker style, similar in shape to the white Ikea cabinets I have and the wood ties in to the rest of the house's oak floors.  I didn't like how my kitchen became so different from the rest of the house, and I feel like the door ties things together nicely.  I still need to do repairs, trim, paint, and finish the door.  These projects go on forever.  

I finally killed a mouse.  When I was cleaning up the really bad mess from Doorgate, I found one in a trap.  I don't think it'd been dead long.  Ick.  I hadn't seen a mouse in weeks, ever since the dog saw it and chased it.  It got stealthy after that, I guess.  I never saw any sign of what it was eating (food all kept contained), and very few droppings (behind furniture).  I know that catching one after traps have been set for many weeks doesn't mean that they're all gone, but I'm moving back in.  Pushing the furniture back against the wall, putting food away in cabinets.  

***

This draft has sat unpublished for quite awhile so I'll just keep on.  

I have a week of vacation in which to power through undone things, and it's Saturday morning to commence this week and I am completely overwhelmed with the very very long to do list.  Where to even start?  The dog is being super demanding and I don't know what's up with that.  

Just a few of the things I need to do: fix the rip in the kitchen flooring, trim out the kitchen door, figure out what finish I want on door and apply that and install hardware, finish install of kitchen cabinet doors and handles and toe kicks, learn how to scribe and cut and install cover panels, assemble two night stands, clean and organize garage and shop, get heaps of woodchips and soil to build gardens, remove nails from a bunch of lumber I salvaged from kitchen demo, clean the patio area including the storage spot that was overrun by rats last I looked (I just put in poison, closed the door, and haven't looked again in months because it was too much to handle), put up dog gate in yard, plant tree and plants, probably get more trees and plants, start seeds, bake bread, cook a bunch, deep clean house, figure out how to get returns to Ikea after I finish and know what I need to return, see if I can revive old dried yogurt because I've wrecked the starter I've been using for years, be here for appointments with chimney sweep and tree trimmer, make medical appointments, install over-range microwave and figure out venting when I don't fit through the very small attic access, replace a dozen doorknobs, finish a big drywall patch in the mudroom, finish cabinet install in mudroom, and of course all the usual laundry and vacuuming and cleaning.  My key goal is that next week at this time I will no longer feel like I live in a construction zone.  The biggest hurdle to this is that I fucked up the ceilings - we overestimated the depth of the cabinets and there are ceiling sections right by the cabinets that need another coat of mud (or three), primer, texture, primer, paint.  That's a huge messy project and I don't think I can take it on right now on top of everything else, but I will not feel finished until that is done.  Maybe next long weekend.  

And the yard is a massive massive project that is going to take me forever to do because of my health limitations (and budget limitations; I could easily pay thousands of dollars to have all the things done but I don't want to spend that kind of money and so this stretches out indefinitely).  I really want to get a fence up soon but there are so many steps to do before that (much more woodchips and other things easier to do before a fence in installed, moving big pieces of tree that came down that I'm hanging onto to split for firewood, removing a bunch of brush after I talk to my neighbor about where the fenceline is, figuring out how far out the fence can go because the city couldn't tell me and I'm not paying for a survey).  I've kind of come to terms that I won't have the huge garden I want this year because it's a bigger project than I can do now, and I can grow in Friend's four large garden beds.  She has irrigation hooked up so I can just pop in every week for care and harvest.  

I really cannot wait until the day I retire and can have time and focus to do all my projects instead of having the best of me consumed by this really stressful job.  Yesterday was an insanely stressful day and I'm still feeling the adrenaline like I was chased by a sabertooth tiger.  It'll be quite a comedown from that surge.  And my body is feeling the effects of chronic stress, for sure.  So maybe it's not really that I want to retire full-stop, it's just that once I am in a better financial position that I could move to a less stressful job that pays less and doesn't demand all of me.  I keep chanting FOUR MORE YEARS to myself, as though I'm running for presidential reelection.  But it is four more years to get to a more solid financial footing (and longer if I keep paying other people to do things I can do myself at least in theory).  I do like my job and I seem to do it quite well but it is probably the most difficult reasonable thing I've ever done (the job that required my 24/7 call and destroyed my ability to sleep was also difficult but also unreasonable).  I am now to a place of it being possible - for the first six months or so it was very nearly impossible because of lack of support to learn and do what I needed.  Now I know the major things (though I will always be learning new things every day, which is a good thing for me not getting bored) and have a stronger team that is getting up to speed with my standards, but it is still an insanely busy job to do as well as I require of myself.  I thought that by now it would be more chill, but it never will be.  So I just have to not work so hard as to make myself sick and just keep being me.  I am not everyone's flavor, and a lot of people have underestimated me, but things are coming clearer.  

And also, I really need to STOP going to Trader Joe's.  It's just a bunch of processed garbage.  I went to pick up some dog treats and fiber for the dog who seems be having anal gland issues, and ended up with chips and chocolate marshmallows, and until I can stop myself from getting the crap when I go there, I need to stop going there.  I need to lean heavy into healthy eating.  A co-worker was extolling the virtues of AG-1 and how it's helped with her digestion and given her so much more energy, and I'm tempted to give it a try.  But really I can just cook and eat a lot more vegetables.  I have a kitchen now (mostly). 

OK, time to start the errands.  Commence another working "vacation." 

the ups and downs

 I've been pushing pretty fucking hard.  I think it was a year ago today - or around now - that I gave notice at a job, and then within like nine days I ended a life I'd known for 17 years.  Not much time for grieving, I had to push.  And then I drove 3,000 miles and took a breath for a few weeks but it didn't feel long enough, because of course I immediately started on projects and did a lot to friend's yard and started growing a lot of food.  

And then I started my job 10 1/2 months ago and it has been a wild ride.  Bought a house and ripped out a kitchen and a large yard. 

And now it's calmer than it has been and I'm not fueled by adrenaline and caffeine, and I can breathe.  But without all that adrenaline, I'm wiped the fuck out.  Like I have nothing more to give.  

Thankfully my house hasn't fallen into total chaos, but there are still projects midstream everywhere.  Doors and handles to install, doorknobs, shelves, cardboard - so much - to take to recycling center, light hardware to install.  And those are the easy things - then I have cover panels that I have to learn to scribe, and do I want to first remove the cabinets so that I can fix some ceiling mud/texture/paint issues?  I don't, but I also don't want it to not get fixed.  

Yesterday I had almost 40 cubic yards of woodchips spread over my backyard, and while I'm super glad I didn't have to haul and spread all those fucking woodchips myself, and I'm also super glad that this should get me through the muddy season with my fecking dog's paws, now I have to fix what they did.  No, I do not want mountains of mulch on my trees, and no, I do not want woodchips piled up high against my house and fence.  It just seems like for everything done, there's more to do.  And I spent so much money to get this done because my yards are basically unusable in winter.  It rains constantly and the ground gets so saturated.  The water table is high and it's all mud.  I mean, it's fine if I don't walk on it at all, but I want to walk in my yard year round, and the grass is weak sauce.  I should say was weak sauce, because I have covered the fuck out of about 7,000 sq ft of yard with leaves and woodchips, and there's more to go.  I want to do a lot of planting of native plants, and I want to put in a lot of garden beds.  Of course, I can grow the garden each year, don't have to start with a massive plot right out the gate.  Put in enough for peas, then carrots, and so on.  

It's just a lot.  Everywhere I turn.  And I know it's my own damn fault, but it's still just overwhelming, and I'm kind of shutting down. And I'm fumbling at work, making mistakes.  It's been a lot of stress and I was trying to do too much.  

I know I need to chunk it all, break it into small pieces I can take on, rather than being overwhelmed with the huge projects.  But my executive function is drained right now. 

I'll get it back.  I'm just afraid I'm going to fall into a hole of depression for a minute and then have to claw my way out.  It'll be fine, it's just going to hurt for awhile, and I need to just focus on the key priorities: don't get fired, don't let my house get dirty.  The rest can wait for now.