insomnia diaries: sleepy sleepy

We are definitely getting less productive as we go along; I can't think of a single thing I actually achieved today of any note, besides 1) not getting caught peeing under the bridge in Pooley Bridge (I didn't think I could wait the fortyfive minutes it would take me to walk home) 2) half a teddybear baby present sewed on Mrs. M's ancient sewing machine (it's a Singer from 1963, and the case alone weighs about a hundred pounds).

Ennyway. Um.

Day 3 was, in contrast to today, massively productive; I got up really early and moved all the furniture I could lift by myself up into the bedroom where all the furniture is getting stored (for a while we had mostly chairs in there, and it looked as if we were hosting a convention up there or something, and all that was missing was the little table with nametags and donuts). Then (this is the gross part) I rolled up the ancient brown carpet that has been there more or less since the house was built, peeled the hairy sticky carpet backing off the flagstones (giving myself cancer in the process; that shit is gross), and then vacuumed up as many of the dead earwigs, live earwigs, dust, fur (fur growing on flagstones just doesn't seem right. but I'm not making it up) as I could before the only vacuum cleaner bag we had decided it had had enough.

Day 4 we spent sorting out the kitchen cabinets and consolidating all food and china into one cabinet. We have (again, not making this up) an entire box full of small jugs. I would estimate there are about twentyfive in there. That was, I have to point out, _after_ I made my mother winnow the collection down to the ones she really couldn't live without. We also discovered a stash of silver flatware in the secret compartment of the little wooden portable writing desk that I bought at the PFK country auction last year, which was kind of exciting.

Day 5 was spent cleaning out the mudroom; we moved the table and cabinets into the barn, and I organized the bike barn into a state of gleaming perfection (at least relative to what it had been). Several fun treasures - an old wooden car dashboard that turned out to belong to the M's son Undrell (he was saving it for a reproduction of the first car he owned), a complete ram's skull, and the old stone animal feeding troughs, buried under a LOT of old crap. A few slightly scary items as well - industrial quantities of weed killer from the 60's, a petrified rat carcass, and an estimated 200 lbs of dust. (I actually calculated this: I had a bucket that I was filling as I swept, and full it weighed about as much as a one-year-old child (i.e. 20 lbs) and I did ten trips out to the compost with it, so... wow. 200 lbs of dust.

Day 6 I think was the day the builders and RP came out to go over the plans etc etc. which was kind of fun, because it was like, HEY! it's actually going to happen. It's sort of mesmerizing; these guys stand around and talk about things like architraves and outflow tracts and where we want the combi boiler to go, and you nod enthusiastically and knowledgeably and then realize, wait, wtf, i have no idea what an architrave is but at that point you're too deep into the conversation to admit it at that point.

OK, time for photos and bed...