And now to assemble the darned thing....

 

Today's story starts with what happened overnight.  RQS and I got to sleep late last night, and this would be a minor problem.  Delivery was scheduled for some time between 8 am and noon, and I wanted to be sure to be ready for it.  

Sometime in the middle of night, I had to get up for a bio-break.  Somehow, I wasn't as sure on my feet as I should have been, and tripped in an interesting way.  First, I started falling towards the far end of the bed, and then rebounding to the right until I was stopped by a bedroom chest.   It was if I were drunk, and stumbled across the room.  RQS was worried that I might have hurt myself (I did - a minor bruise on my ankle), and helped me get back on my feet.

After my bio-break, I was back in bed for a couple of hours, then got dressed to await my delivery.  My ankle was hurting a little, and I knew that I couldn't lift the two boxes from the entry to my building to my apartment on my own.  Luckily, the delivery men came at 10 am, and brought the two boxes into the apartment for me to assemble.  And then, it was time for me to go back to sleep - until 2 pm.

 

I started work on the chest sometime after 4 pm, and it was slow going.  Ikea's instructions are written without words.  They only use diagrams to instruct the assembler what pieces to use for each step of the process.  And this can be confusing, as not all of their illustrations are clear enough to use without test fitting the pieces together.  I don't know if this is a deliberate part of the design process.  But I feel that someone with more experience assembling Ikea furniture could have done this faster than I could.  In fact, It wasn't until a little bit after 7 pm that I got the body of the chest put together.  

Shortly after this, we took a break for dinner.Then I started up again around 8:30 pm, finishing around 10 pm.  It was a long time taken to assemble the dresser, and I hope it does the job I want it to do for as long as I need it done.  Is the chest perfect?  No!  I can't open it as fully as I could the old chest, for safety reasons.  But it will hold much of the intimates in my female wardrobe, and that's what's important to me now.

PS: Tomorrow, I'll move the old chest to the trash area and move the new one to the now vacant space.

A day spent doing nothing. (A quick post.)

 

Last night, I decided to wear something pretty to bed.  Little did I know that neither RQS nor I would bother to get dressed to go out today. Thankfully, my apartment is warm enough that I could wear a "little nothing" and feel comfortable all day.

We had no plans for the day, and given the outside temperature, it didn't make sense to go outside.  Instead, RQS straightened out my kitchen while I emptied out a chest of drawers, so that I could buy a more functional chest from Ikea next weekend.  I could then move stuff from the chest that currently holds part of my female wardrobe to a chest whose drawers open and close without difficulty.  (Would it make sense for me to repair the old chest?  Yes.  But I don't have the woodworking tools to take care of this simple task.)

Once our tasks were done, it was time to relax.  And we did so for the rest of the day.  We thought about booking another cruise from a last minute booking list.  But we held off.  I wasn't sure if RQS could afford another trip, and I didn't want to encourage her to take any trips she couldn't afford.

- - - - - -

Luckily, I had more than enough in the house to make a decent dinner.  However, I know that my GP will read the riot act to me when I see him this coming week.  I shudder to get on the scale, as I don't want to know how much I weigh.  Yet, I need to ask the doctor a couple of questions, and this will be my one opportunity to do so.

Little things of note to me - a short note

 

As I write this, RQS is coming up by train, and I won't have much time to write later.  Right now, I am the proud resident of a mess.  It's hard to get my place uncluttered without help.  And even if I get it uncluttered, there is still so much to do.  For example, I just had tile and wall work done in the bathroom due to water damage from the shower.  What I didn't notice before is that due to shifting of the tub over the years, is that I've notices an area that needs re-caulking to prevent future issues from occurring.  While I'm at it, there are some areas that need to be re-grouted.  There goes one weekend day!

But it's not just one thing, it's the multitude of things that have fallen through the cracks and have to be taken care of.  My TV in the living room will need to be replaced, and that forces me to ask a question: Do I want to get rid of an old entertainment center (which I like, and once cost a lot) to both have more wall space and allow me to buy a larger TV.  This would make it possible for me to consider getting new carpet.  But first, I'd have to purge a lot of things from this place.  And then, it would need its first paint job in years.

Yet, it's the little things that bother me most, as I can't make enough headway in eliminating the little gatherings of clutter around the place.  Each time I empty a basket of unsorted items, I have a new one to deal with.  At least, I can say that I'm on top of my bills....

Taking care of business (part 3)

 

A week ago, electricians came to the apartment to remediate issues caused by the aluminum wiring in my apartment complex.  Not dealing with this issue would increase the possibility of a fire, and our insurance would not cover us until this work is complete.  Today was the second visit from the electricians .  However, this visit was to deal with outlets behind my bed and dressers that couldn't be reached on their first visit.  To get to these outlets, I had to dump lots of stuff into bins and boxes to get it out of the way (to be sorted out later), so that the furniture could be moved to access the outlets.

In the process of moving furniture, I found a lot of stuff that had fallen behind the dressers and bed that was too hard to get at in normal circumstances.  Once things are back to normal, I will sort through everything I put into bins and boxes to determine what stuff to keep and what stuff to trash.  This is something that everyone should do every few years, and it's been almost 30 years since I've done this because furniture movement is a daunting task for me these days.

- - - - - -

The electricians were supposed to be here at 9:00 am.  By 9:30, I was getting concerned that something was screwed up, as I had no notice of any problem.  So I did two things in parallel: Write an email to the co-op's managing agent to notify them of the problem, and to call them immediately afterward.  Obviously, I got someone's attention, as within 15 minutes, I found out that the electricians would be here within a few minutes.

When the electricians arrived, they were apologetic - they had come off of an emergency call (the electric had gone out in half of a person's house in White Plains), and couldn't make it back to me on time.  They were also surprised to find out that I hadn't been notified of the problem, as I would have been less anxious and annoyed at having to wait longer than expected.  Within 30 minutes, they had finished work on all 3 of my remaining outlets, furniture was back in place, and I was able to relax and take a nap.

- - - - - -

What I haven't mentioned about today was that I didn't get much sleep the night before.  So, when TCL called to tell me that she wasn't feeling well and couldn't do lunch today, I was a bit happy that this happened.  We can schedule lunch for when I'm more rested and awake....

Last minute preparations for the Electricians

 

My apartment, from what few pictures I've provided, is an obvious cluttered mess.  Although RQS and I have been working on getting this mess cleared out, there is still too much clutter in the way of my electrical outlets to do all the work on them at once.  This means that I will have people invading my space for several days to come.  AARGH!

It could be worse.  I have the resources to move furniture out of the way, as if I were playing a game of Jenga™.  But I will only be able to move furniture away from one wall per day (at best).  There is way too much heavy stuff (e.g.: 75 y/o file cabinets, beds, dressers) in the way of each wall outlet to get everything done in one fell swoop.

So, I expect to stay in Mario mode until this work is done. YECCH!  At least, RQS will be with me most of the first day of work.  And I will miss her when I drop her off at the station this afternoon.