Friday, June 12, 2015

Day 14: Working My Fingers to the Bone... It Hurts

I've been doing yard work for about a week now and I'm taking the weekend off. Mike helped me with the weed trimming... finally. I got the yard cut again. Today he came early and we put dirt, a weed barrier, and cedar mulch around the front of the  house. Water backs up against the foundation when it rains and I have always had a concern about that. This is my attempt to prevent some of that by raising the areas directly against the house. Don't know if it will work but it can't hurt.

Besides, it  looks better and will make grass cutting a bit easier here since the mower can't really get close to the house. This is on the west facing part of the house. I want to continue it along the south side, that's the corner nearest you in the photo, and continue along the back (east side) of the house. I just think it will look better and maybe will help keep out mice. 

They've torn the house next door down this week. The large shovel you see is filling in the huge hole where the basement used to be. It has taken three days of shoveling dirt and they're still not done filling it in.  I had no idea it has such a large basement. It was as big as the house as far as I could tell. It must have been very dark down there as I never saw a single window. 

I felt bad for the owner. This was the house she grew up in and her mother, now deceased, left it several years ago to enter a nursing home. It has been empty, although filled with stuff until they knocked it down. She was a hoarder. Even after they removed truckloads of items, it was still stacked to the ceiling in places. 

It will seem strange to not see it there. I suspect they'll sell it and someone will eventually build on it. If I had the funds, I'd buy it but it takes all I can do to manage the property I have now. And it would raise my taxes anyway. It is a lovely tree filled lot. 


I've had a rather good week physically. There has been very little pain and it is one reason I've pushed so hard to get this outside work done. Mike and I stopped at noon today because by then the heat was just unbearable. I came in and showered and we went to lunch. When I got back home I hurt all over. I just piled up in the recliner with a Snuggy and Pandora set to Spa music for three hours. I had to take something for my sciatica and I actually think it eased the pain in my hands just a bit. Not sure about that but it seemed they were better. It is back medicine so maybe not. 

I couldn't go to sleep because I was in pain, but I did doze off and on. Around 5 p.m., I took two extra strength acetaminophen to take care of the rest of my pain. I'm feeling much better now, but I have taken something to help me sleep and will go to bed in about an hour. After I rested a bit, I did a bit of crochet while I watched a movie. Now, I think I'll go back to it and find something else to watch. 

Did I mention it is day 14 of the Facebook fast? I will admit that I've gone on a few times because people keep emailing me or I need to send a message to someone else. I don't like it. I haven't missed it and what is shocking is when I get on I realize how very much I don't like Facebook. I don't look forward to going back to it. I've downloaded a Chrome extension called Block Site and it allows me to block specific sites and I can block said site during specific hours. Yes, I can turn it off and I have twice. I'm being honest about my lapses but despite my sense of failure, I'm doing rather well. My Facebook hours are blocked from 8 a.m. to 7  p.m. at the moment. So, no getting on during working hours. I can change that, but I'm not going to at this point. 

I think this is a good extension. I can block one site or multiple sites. There is a password feature but if you forget your password, you're kind of stuck. So, with my lengthy list of passwords, I'm not taking that chance at this point. However, I think it is a great feature. I know it works because twice earlier this week I clicked on the FB link. I put a redirect command in the blocker and it takes me to my Gmail page. So, it worked. I'm a fairly faithful person and I'm good at keeping my commitments most of the time. I've fallen off the wagon a few times this week, but I'm not going to throw in the towel. 

I've had to tell Mike twice not to use my account to send messages because it is logging my productivity time also. My Rescue Time logs all my computer activity and my productivity is up 62%  since I went off Facebook. That doesn't count my offline activity. I was shocked at the difference. I went from 32% to 62% in two weeks.

I"m signing off for the night, I think. Hope you all have a great weekend. 


8 comments:

  1. I don't understand. I love Facebook. It keeps me connected. Otherwise, it would just be me all alone in my house with my pain. I can deligate my time. I don't want to lose that connection.

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    1. I know what you're saying, Wanda. I understand that perfectly. My problem is that it has begun to dominate my time and the things I needed to be doing, were not getting done. I'm alone, too. I don't want to be one of those women who live alone and have to have cats the television (or Facebook) to keep them occupied to the exclusion of all else. I am still able to move around and get out and do some things. I don't like television, don't have cable, and find only a few movies I really like. Facebook was sucking up more than 40 hours a week at times. When you can't recognized your problems, they call it addiction. Anything that excludes real life, it unhealth in extremes. That isn't living, that's a problem. Nothing was getting done.

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  2. I, too, like portions of FB - just yesterday David's half-brother found us on there. But I love the idea of timing entry to specific areas. I wonder how many companies would use that feature for corporate PCs, don't you? Glad you found some relief. My left thumb has joined the trigger finger crowd - and I'm supposed to get Kamryn's baby blanket back from the long-armer

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  3. Here's a test comment. See:

    https://productforums.google.com/d/topic/blogger/DXtnDCK5jc0/discussion

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    Replies
    1. Well, it worked with your comment. As you can see, several others were able to comment but not my sister. LOL. Back to the drawing board.

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  4. Well, I hope your weekend was a good one and that you are beginning this week in good spirits and pain free. We had a good weekend away in the van. I'll tell you about it soon.

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