Saturday, May 10, 2008

And So It Goes..........



Here it is, 4:00am and sleep is eluding me once again. That must mean it is time for me to post to my blog which has been neglected for sometime. We finally got gas heat the end of the first week in April. The electric bills were sky high because, as we all know, the small ceramic electric heaters make the meter spin and two kivas do not keep the house warm enough. About a week after the heat finally started working, the kitchen sink backed up and since the landlord was on his way to Colorado on business, I had a bucket under the sink for the week he was gone. Seems a tree root had grown through the 40+ year old pipes. The kitchen is part of the original 100 year old house. So along with having the backyard torn up to replace the gas line, the side yard was also backhoed to dig to the kitchen drainage pipes. I have my fingers crossed that nothing else will happen for awhile.

At least the house is starting to look like someone actually lives in it. We purchased ceiling fans for the livingroom and one of the back bedrooms as the ceilings had not been finished as far as putting in light fixtures. And after losing about half of my plants, my hibiscus has come back and has it's first bloom in the new house.
On the job front, things have been bleak. I left the security position after 3 weeks. Being a reformed smoker - but not one that lectures - I found that I couldn't handle the smoke in the casino. Apparently the building had been a school and was converted to a casino without making any improvements to the ventilation system. I never thought that I would be bothered but I guess when you aren't smoking it is a different story. I took a position with an E911 dispatch center in an adjoining county only to find that after being the lone operator at smaller police agencies for the past 12 years I am not fast enough for 911. The center is severely short staffed and instead of having 3 or 4 on a shift, there are only 2 dispatchers working. I could not concentrate on the 3 police agencies, 15 fire depts. and the various EMS units that were dispatched and take calls and type the information into the CAD all at the same time. I hope this doesn't sound like sour grapes, because it is not meant that way. I don't know that I could have handled this position 20 years ago, especially as short handed as they are.
So for the past 2.5 weeks I have been playing domestic goddess, working around the house. I finally got the small bathroom painted and replaced a few tiles that were missing around the bath tub. My next challenge will be to paint the master bathroom which has 12 foot ceilings. The ceilings are the wooden beams (vigas) and don't get painted, but there will be a lot of stretching to do those walls. I don't think there is any other major project for me to do, just the normal cleaning. Spring winds here are really something and blowing dirt is everywhere. Not to mention the amount of dirt that 4 little "pot bellied" pigs (aka schipperkes) bring into the house!!