I took a couple of days off of work this week since I had some holidays to burn (which I'd been saving in the event I needed time off to go to a Saints Playoff game--but luckily the home games have been on my weekends off, so I didn't need to use my holidays for that.) So I took Tuesday and Friday off this week, and since I already had Wednesday and Thursday off, this has given me a nice stretch of time to get a bunch of stuff done.

I have finally finished all of the painting in Phase One of Home Improvement. (Phase One is the living room, hallway, kitchen, and bathroom. Phase Two will be the bedrooms and the dining room. The office really doesn't need a Phase of its own, since the walls are wood-paneled, and really the only improvement it needs is a tetch more organization.) I am ridiculously pleased with how well my paint scheme turned out--especially when you consider that my decorating skills are pretty darn close to nil. (Helps to judiciously seek advice, I found.) All that is left to do in Phase One is to put up the border wallpaper in the living room, bathroom and kitchen, and then find some sort of curtain or window treatment or some such thing to go around my new windows. Blinds alone are just too... boring.

I finally got out and picked up all the various trash that has been accumulating in my yard since... oh... summer.

I finally cleaned out my garage, uncovering approximately 40 years worth of roach shit, and ruthlessly throwing away an enormous amount of crap. If I didn't immediatley recognize a gizmo or fastener or whatzit as being something I would soon need or belonging to a tool or appliance I was certain I owned, I pitched it. I'm sure that any Guy watching me clean would have been having conniptions as I did not bother to sort through all the various nails and screws and washers that were piled in cobwebs and roach shit, and instead swept them all into the garbage bag. My shop vac was working overtime as I eliminated nests of god-only-knows-what bugs, and I'm sure about 3,000 spiders ended up in the bowels of the shop vac as well. Yeah, I know, spiders are our friends and they kill other bugs... yeah yeah yeah... But they also make a huge mess with cobwebs, and I don't want a spider crawling on me any more than I want a roach crawling on me. So into the vac it goes.

But the delightful thing is that now I have a garage that I could actually do something in. I have room to put things--and know that they will not be covered in spiderwebs and roach shit. I have a wide counter that stretches from one side of the garage to the other, that is actually completely free of clutter. Oh, I'm not fooling myself. I know that it will eventually regain a patina of crap and clutter, but at least I have a good headstart on it now.

And seriously, I don't think anyone has cleaned the bugs and dirt out of that place for forty years. Ick.

Tomorrow is hopefully going to be warm enough that I can finally wash the dog. It has been well over two months since he has last had a bath, and he is getting.. Stinky.

I also made it into the gym this morning to continue my Quest For A Butt You Can Bounce A Quarter Off Of. The gym was empty when I got there, and the tanning bed was free, so since my membership includes unlimited tanning I decided to do a session before I started working out. There's something utterly relaxing about tanning in a bed. For twenty minutes (or so) all you can do is lie there. You can't occupy yourself with anything else, you can't read a book, you can't watch tv. You lie there and let your thoughts drift as your body soaks up those UV rays (which are, of course, vital for avoiding seasonal depression!) And it's warm and there's the white noise of the bulbs and the fans...

Except that I was the first one in the bed for the day. And it was about 25 degrees outside, and the gym itself was still warming up... and the glass in that tanning bed was cold as I very gingerly splayed my flesh upon its surface. I kept thinking of those kids who get their tongues stuck to light poles in really cold weather... how was I going to explain having my butt stuck to a tanning bed?

(I'm sure the reader of this journal will be relieved to know that not only did I not end up stuck to the glass in the tanning bed, but that the guys in the gym later informed me of the trick that everyone else has been using: turn the bed on for ten minutes, and then get in.)