Song: N/A
Mood: 6
Nightmares: 0
I slept better last night and didn’t have any nightmares. The numbers on my CPAP machine were back to normal, too, which was good to see.
I got a text from Dad at about 8:30AM and unfortunately the roads out his way were still pretty bad so he decided not to drive out here today. We got some snow here too so I think he made the right decision. It would’ve been nice to hang out and be silly (we have been known to spend hours watching episodes of The Three Stooges and laughing until we hurt) but we can work out another time to get together in the near future.
I was still feeling pretty foggy and tired so I decided I was going to go back to bed and see if I could get some more sleep. Unfortunately, as soon as I closed my eyes, I could hear motors and clanking outside. I got up and took a peek through the front window and there were trucks and a bucket loader on the street in front of the house. While I watched, a worker put out pylons and taped off the area, blocking the driveway, and two others started to lay out pipe and hose and connected it to a large hydro excavator truck. They ran the pipe into the neighbour’s yard.
My first thought was that the neighbour had a sewer problem, like maybe their sewer line collapsed. For whatever reason, I started to worry that there was a more general sewer problem so I went downstairs and checked the basement. Everything was dry and there weren’t any weird sounds or smells so I grabbed a wrench and opened up the clean-out to make sure sewage wasn’t slowly making its way up the sewer line. Fortunately, everything was fine.
Once they got everything hooked up, they fired up the equipment on the hydro excavator. It was LOUD. Crazy loud, and the sound kept changing slightly. Between the sound, all of the flashing lights, and not having a clue what was going on, I was getting very anxious. I tried camping out in the basement – that helped with the lights and people milling about, but even with ear buds in and ear defenders on it wasn’t enough to block out the noise. I tried grounding and mindfulness and breathing but didn’t have much luck calming down so I went and took some PRNs.
After about half an hour they started to take effect so I went back upstairs, put on some very loud music, and played around with the sewing machine again. I practiced sewing in straight lines and making hems (is that the right way to say that? I spent time doing hemming? I hemified some fabric? Hmm…). I think I’m almost confident enough to try doing something on fabric that didn’t come out of the rag bin. J bought me a package of felt – perhaps I will do something with a piece of it tomorrow.
If you cover your right eye and squint, the lines look straight.
The big noise outside shut down at about 11:10AM, leaving only the sounds of workers gabbing and the bucket loader moving around. I was just about to call my parents but they beat me to it – the phone rang as I was reaching to pick it up. We had a good chat and talked about all kinds of stuff. It was good to talk to them and between the chat and the relative quiet outside, I started to feel quite a bit better.
Unfortunately, just after noon the equipment started up again and went on for another three hours. On the upside, I happened to be looking out at the back yard while chasing another ghost and saw three workers in the neighbour’s back yard – one using an implement attached to the pipe and two others wrestling with a roll of cable. So there wasn’t anything wrong with sewer lines or anything like that – they were using the hydro excavation equipment to dig a narrow trench to put in a new permanent cable to replace the temporary one they strung up along the fence a couple of weeks ago. I went outside and unlocked the gate in case they needed to get into our yard. By 3:30PM they were cleaning up. I looked out into the yard and couldn’t see the cable hanging from the fence anymore. I also didn’t see any footprints and the gate was in the same position where I’d left it, so I’m not sure if they even needed to get into the yard. I locked the gate again and that was pretty much it for the noise and weirdness today.
Blargh… I just took 700 words to complain about noisy equipment. If you’ve read this far, I’m sorry – you must be extremely bored.
After things calmed down I watched some more sewing videos and discovered that my machine is capable of doing free motion stitching if I get an embroidery foot for it. The video looked really neat – the person was sewing squiggles into the material and it looked really neat. Probably a very handy thing to have around.
I did some more sewing and then went through my Internet bookmarks and wrote up another videos post. I didn’t realize it had been five months since the last time I did one.
I had a wonderful supper of leftover smokies, rice, and vegetables, and listened to some more music. Just after I finished eating, I got a text from J asking if I wanted to do a video chat. We talked for almost an hour. She had another good day today, learned a lot, and had a lot of luck talking with people from other offices around the world and sharing information. She was surprised at how quickly the week has gone by, and I think that’s great – it’s so much better to get to the last day and wonder where the heck the week went, instead of it being day two and finding yourself wanting to claw your eyes out. This will probably be the last business trip for a while, too, so it’s really good that she’s had the time to have one-on-one chats with her boss and others who are usually just voices over the phone or signatures in an email. The person who picked J up at the airport also offered to drive her back there tomorrow afternoon, which is fantastic.
I have missed J a lot this week but I am happy that she is having such a good time and learning and doing so much while she’s there. I’m really proud of her, too – neither of us are what you’d call social butterflies, but she’s told me story after story of the people she’s met and talked with and learned about, so she’s going a little out of her comfort zone and having a lot of success. I will be very happy when she gets home tomorrow night. If all goes well, she should be getting into the driveway around midnight or shortly after.
After J and I finished chatting, I gave my mother-in-law a call. I’ve probably mentioned this before but she’s a quilter (quiltress?) and has done some pretty amazing stuff, including everything from a throw quilt for the couch, summer and winter quilts for the bed, and quirky, neat quilts for J and I to stay warm under when we watch TV on a cold winter day. I wanted to ask her about that video I saw with the free motion stitching. She told me all about it and very kindly mentioned that with the feed dogs retracted, you have to move the fabric by hand. Since you’re moving it by hand, you have to be able to move it consistently along with the speed of the needle so your stitches are the same size. She agreed that it looks pretty neat but that a ballpark estimate is 100 hours of practice before one would become proficient sewing like that. So, no embroidery foot for me.
We talked for a while about various sewing stuff, like material and the kind of stuff that I’m planning to do with the machine. She also had some helpful suggestions about beanbags and how different kinds of material work. It was a good conversation and I enjoyed the chat. I should give them a call more often!
Shortly after I hung up the phone, my sister called and we also had a good conversation. My youngest nephew is playing hockey and their team has won all four of their games so far and he has scored a goal! I don’t know how my sister and brother-in-law do it – they are always running from one place to another, ferrying kids around or putting on parties or having people over or going out. There is a time each evening for homework and a time for playing video games and a time for reading, and the kids are often seen around the house, nose in a book. That’s pretty neat, considering how many people nowadays seem to throw a tablet or phone at their kids and let them play games all day.
I got a text from FA this morning. She invented a new word: “maintaint”. It means “something that worked better before someone messed with it”. I think an example might be “I don’t trust that garage, every time I take my car to them they maintaint the oil filter”. Tell your friends and spread the word!
The big thing that’s happening tomorrow is J is coming home (woohoo!). Other than that, I need to do my homework (I didn’t do it today (I know, I know (with all the stuff going on I just couldn’t muster the courage/will to go out))) and tidy up the house a bit. Oh, that reminds me – J got some vegetables as a fundraiser for one of her co-worker’s kid’s school. Something musty caught my nose this afternoon while all the weird stuff was going on and I traced it to the bag with the, uh… “liquid potatoes” in it. I’ve never seen potatoes go that bad that quick, so I guess they were already rotten when they were sent out. Too bad, too – that’s five pounds of potatoes that made a dripping, stinky trip to the garbage.
Where was I? Right, tidying up the house a bit before J gets home. Beyond that, I’ll probably be clicking “refresh” on the webpage with her flight information, and holding my cellphone in one hand and the landline in the other until she walks in the door.
I can’t wait to see my sweetie again! 🙂
It’s way past my bedtime and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes pointed in the right direction. If there’s half a sentence wandering around somewhere or some stuff I’ve written doesn’t make any sense, I apologize and will go back over it tomorrow. Just can’t do it right now…
Stay safe.