Things Put Off

I'm guessing other faculty folks tend to put things off during the final weeks of the semester, and then try to do them once grades are in. I do.

So far: I've painted the ceiling of a bathroom. I try to be minimally competent about basic householding stuff, and I managed to do this without falling off the ladder. And it looks pretty good, too. (Yes, this also involved washing the ceiling with bleach solution to kill off the mildew.)

My friend K and I agreed that there's pretty much nothing that goes wrong with a house that you can actually afford to let go any longer than absolutely necessary. I get over the occasional cold, but my house doesn't clear up a mildew thing in the bathroom on its own. Nor does the washing machine recover from a messed up whatever (I had it checked, and it's not worth fixing, alas).

I got a new washing machine because the old one totally died. Fun, fun. Delivery tomorrow!

More householding stuff: The semester is simply not convenient for gardening. The ground's still frozen during spring break. And now, I'm a good three weeks later than the rest of the Northwoods in putting in annuals and such. But after a long winter, having plants come up and start blooming and such just makes me happy, so I'm going with the feeling.

I moved into the BardiacShack about four years ago now, and put in some trees when I moved in. Last year, I put in shade plants in the shady area in back. So this year, I'm hoping to get the front looking better. So K and I went to the nursery today.

K's a great gardener, and I, well, I am not. I tend to get sort of overwhelmed buying plants because you actually have to buy a ton of them. Fortunately, K is patient and guides me gently. Today, we got some Seedums, Salvia, and a load of other flowering stuffs. And I got a dogwood for a particularly ugly area.

There are two really irritating things about my yard. First, the house is built on nasty rocky stuff. My "soil" is more small gravelly stuff than soil. K was shocked and horrified the first time he helped me get plants, and said it was the worst soil he'd ever seen. Second, the people who did the landscaping really liked that small river rock stuff. But it doesn't actually keep weeds from growing, and it makes planting and weeding a huge pain. The local weeds seem very well adapted to the lousy soil, however. I should really just put up that "prairie restoration project" sign and be done with it.

Were I hugely energetic, I'd just start bagging it up and get rid of it. But rock is heavy! And there's lots of it. And I'm not hugely energetic.

I've also put off getting my eyes checked. Yeah, I haven't been for over a year now, and I probably need some new contacts. I should call and make an appointment.

I also made a blood donation appointment, now that my time's a bit more flexible.

And rode 17 miles with a friend this morning.

To do list, other things put off:

Car Oil Change
Call the local grass company about my dandelion farm
Plant plant plant the plants I got today (it started raining after I got them home, and I was lazy)
Learn a fourth language
Read read READ!
WRITE!!