Broken Record

I feel like I'm beginning to sound like a broken record. I'm tired. I'm "behind". I need to get caught up. Hmph. Bitch, bitch, moan, moan. Blah, blah.

So, what can I do to change things? Well, getting more sleep would probably help a lot. Going to bed at 1:20 AM does not make Weslie a happy girl, I've learned. (Come morning, anyway!) But, I'll blame that Wednesday night bedtime on my husband . . . who asked me to do some paperwork for him MUCH too late in the evening (thus pushing my right-before-bed-R&R time even later . . . resulting in the insane bedtime). Thursday night? Hmm, can't remember that far back. Friday night was a late one, too, if memory serves. Definitely more in the AM of Saturday than the PM of Friday when I hit the sack. 'Course, I didn't get home from my town day until 9:00 PM. Last night, I was in bed before midnight, but I slept badly - as I had the night before.

I had bad, horrible, yucky dreams last night - probably not helped by the DVD episodes of 'CSI' I've been ripping through during my previously mentioned right-before-bed-R&R. Also, my inexplicable fear of anything supernatural was awakened during the middle of the night last night when the dispatcher on the police scanner crackled a request for a patrol to drive to the west end of the county to investigate the eerie "flashing green and red light in the sky 40° degrees above the horizon" that SEVERAL folks had called in to report. Notice the insertion of the adjective 'eerie'? Did the dispatcher say that? Of course not. It's just that my half-awake / half-asleep mind instantly went there.

So, the bottom line? Go to bed earlier, don't listen to the scanner while trying to sleep, and don't watch so many episodes of 'CSI'! Duh.

I know my brain was a bit foggy pre-bedtime, too, last night from the massive quantities of chemical fumes I was sniffing. No, 'a bit foggy' is an understatement. A more accurate description would be that my head felt like it was gonna pop off and float around the kitchen!

About 8:00 PM last night, I decided to start painting and staining the kitchen. (Perhaps this is where my problems began - starting a project like that so late at night. But, hey, I AM a night-owl!)

Anyway, the kitchen has a fairly high, vaulted ceiling, and it is a room unto itself (vs. many which are open to the dining room or living room). So, any fumes created in the kitchen are generally fairly well trapped in that room. And, it was cold outside, so I couldn't (well, didn't) open the windows. But, I got the window trim on the window above the sink stained, and one quarter of another window stained. Then, I stained the cupboard Tom and I had made a couple of weeks (months now?!) ago. Next, I argued with the firmly stuck lid on the 5-gallon bucket of the treatment we put on the timbers until I finally gave up and gently shook it instead of stirring it. Then I poured some out of the pour-spout in the lid and treated the timbers. (We affectionately call this stuff 'Jesus Juice' 'cause the company that makes it is very religious and prints their doctrine on each pail of the stuff. A local who began using it way before we did coined the new name, and it's stuck!) Finally, I pulled out the 2 gallon bucket of sheetrock sealer / primer and mixed that up to paint all but the edges of two kitchen wall portions.

This morning, I hoped to get the primer onto the edges of those areas, but the 'Jesus Juiced' timbers were STILL STICKY!!! 'Course, with us not having fired up the wood furnace yet, it IS only 55° in the house! So now, as I sit in my office - my fingers FROZEN as I type - the kitchen is closed up with a toasty fire corkin' away in the cookstove. I just checked the timbers when I went in to get another cup of coffee, and they're still a little slimy . . . but I anticipate they'll dry as the day progresses (provided I keep that fire goin').