April 6, 2009

• Domesticity and Yardwork

  DOMESTICITY AND YARDWORK

  Although the square footage occupied by the house I last lived in (with Joel and later Mike) was quite substantial, since I lived in the back two bedrooms, I felt pretty penned in as far as personal space goes. Joel pretty much used the living room, and my reasons for setting up my "media room" in a back bedroom was so I could have "alone time" when watching my beloved movies, away from Joel and the cats. He didn't like the room completely dark like I did. He talked to the cats while I was trying to catch what was happening on screen. Etc. I separated our living spaces because we didn't live well together in the same room after a time.

  After Joel died, when Mike moved in, he pretty much spent most of his time in his bedroom. The living room didn't get used that much at all during the four months Mike rented from me. The back yard had been paved over. The kids in the neighboring house used the front yard for play. (There was no separation in the yard between the two houses in the duplex.) So I pretty much stayed in "my rooms". The place was large, but my place was small.

  I've now been living in "my little house" to which I moved  for a little over a month and a half. But instead of thinking of my place as "smaller" than the house from which I moved, I think of it as much very much larger. It's all mine, for one thing, and what I had stuffed into two bedrooms is now displayed around the whole house. I don't have my bigscreen television in a back bedroom anymore. I can stretch out in the living room. It took almost a month to completely settle in. I pretty much had planned the furniture placement back before I moved, but there was some finessing to do. I decided to keep the 70s style paneled walls and all the interior carpeting after I had it cleaned. I didn't repaint anything. I did put up some shelving, and fixed some of the things around the house which needed it, like loose fixtures, leaky plumbing etc. Now the interior is pretty much "done". I still have some connection of computer peripherals in the back computer room to accomplish, and I have hooked up most of my video display devices except for the old VHS player. I am taking my time, and have not had one "boring" moment since I moved in. In fact, I keep myself so busy I sometimes forget to relax, and there just isn't enough time in a day. This might be an oft used cliche, but it certainly is true right now for me.

  I'm writing this on Monday morning. I'm at work, sitting at my desk. I'll dash off a few paragraphs, answer a few comments from my featured post last week, and then begin my work week. I could have done some blogging over the weekend but I didn't. I was far too busy. Domesticity is taking over my life!

  Not that I'm complaining. I'm really enjoying the fact that I have my own place, and I'm planning improvements and making changes. Now that the interior of the house is pretty much done, I'm concentrating on the landscaping. I'm also using the kitchen in my new house, something which I hardly ever did in the old house.  I didn't cook for myself this last weekend. But I have cooked and prepared my own meals for at least one day each the last couple of weekends. Frankly, I worked so hard this past weekend, I didn't want to have to cook. I wanted to be served. I'm still so used to restaurants, I went to my "usual" haunts on both Saturday (Claim Jumper) and Sunday (Norm's). The next two weekends I intend to cook. If I stock up on food on a Friday, I've found I don't even have to drive over the weekend. I can stay home both days.

  I get great pleasure out of cleaning. I sort of got out of the habit during the 14 years I lived with Joel, I used to wait till he was out of the house, which was seldtom, and then I would undertake great cleaning projects. In my own home, with nobody else around, I just clean up after myself. I haven't even had to completely vacuum the whole house yet, because I spot vac immediately when I need to. I've cleaned some things which didn't look as if they'd been touched for years, like the chain and wire connecting the hanging chandelier in the dining room.

  Since the mobile home is not as long as the lot on which it sits, I have a pretty large back yard, by mobile home standards. It's about 20x20, with a 10x20 area in front of the garden shed. There are flower beds along the back and east side of the house. The west side has the carport, but there is a 36" strip along the carport which spans the length of the lot. In front of the house are four large arborvitae hedges. In front of the mailbox is a large hibiscus, and there's an overgrown bird of paradise behind that. The house was vacant for over a year. The few plants which have survived are overgrown or dying.

  Bear in mind that I can't just go out and do yard work that easily. For one thing, I'm in pain a lot of the time. Sometimes I find it difficult to move around. Especially from standing to sitting. I can't kneel, which is impossible. I have to take pain pills before attempting to do anything which is going to put pressure on my hip or leg, which is pretty much anything when working in the yard.

  I had to purchase all the yard tools I've needed so far, except for the mower, which I already had, and hoses. I completely overlooked the fact I'd need garden implements and tools during the move, some of which I did have at the old house. I believe I left a few tools over there I could have used. I bought a rake, shovel, electric hedge shears and assorted hand tools, along with some weed killer last week at the Home Depot. I still need to get a weed wacker and perhaps a wheel barrow. So far I've been using buckets to haul dirt or rocks around.

  Two weeks ago I planned some of the things I need to do in the garden. The most important thing was to complete the skirting around the home. About six panels had not been reattached when the previous owner had the wheelchair ramp installed by the sliding glass patio door on the east side of the house. I had to climb under the house, through a small square opening under the stairs, bend and attach the panels, and then extricate myself from under the house. It took about an hour and a half, and I was pretty tired and dirty when I emerged. I had heard that varmints like raccoons and possums had been living under the house when it was vacant, and it looked like this area could have served as their "front door". Now it is secured, so I dont' have to worry about animals living under my house.

  The two things I wanted to accomplish this weekend were 1. trim the front hedges, and 2. Remove the remaining decorative rock from the 10x20 area in front of the garden shed so I can kill the weeds growing there, install plastic sheeting, and then recover the area using paving stones bordered by the decorative rock. Nobody had covered the area with plastic before, so there were lots of weeds growing through the rocks.

  Friday evening I began to rake the rocks. On Saturday morning I pretty much completed the task, after about four hours work. It was a nice summery weekend, and in fact got a little warm in the afternoons. Most of the area is now bare dirt. I can't seem to completely remove all the rocks in the soil, but that's okay. I'd rake them into piles, and then shovel them in a large pile which somebody had already started to the side of the shed on a concrete slab. I think somebody had begun the process years ago, but stopped., cause there was already a sizable pile of the decorative rock on the slab. A neighbor told me that the rock pile had been there as long as she could remember. After I removed the rocks from the area, I sprayed Roundup for weeds.

  Next weekend I'll weed the area completely, lay the plastic sheeting, and put down paving stones. There's a couple of rock and tile places nearby. I hope I can find 14" or 16" square green paving stones. I'm going to lay some of them on the strip next to the carport, so when I get out of the car I step down on a flat surface instead of the white decorative rock which is there now. Then I'll lay them down in the area where I just removed the rock.

  This past Sunday I spent a few hours trimming the front hedges. They were so overgrown I cut back into some pretty solid branches. I can't cut them down as much as I wanted because I'd cut all the green off completely. I might end up removing the two center hedges so I can place potted plants on the trailer hitch cover in front of the house. I completely  filled a 57 gallon trash can with the material I trimmed.

  A lot of the decorative edging around the garden has to either be straightened or replaced. I went over to the other side of the house, and did some weeding in the beds separating my house my neighbor to the east. I had a couple of conversations with neighbors. As I suspected, nobody does their yard work by themselves. Most of them use either the gardener who works for the park, or hire their own. I'm going to attempt to do all the yardwork myself.

  More plans include painting the outside of my house, especially the fading green trim, building a deck, and perhaps even adding another room to the house.

  All in good time, however. I do have a major operation coming up in a couple of months. But I'm trying to do what I can to make the place look good right now.

  After a long day of working in the yard, it's just so neat to be able to clean myself up, put on some fresh clothes. (I did a couple of loads of wash while I was working in the yard on Sunday) go to the kitchen, get myself a bowl of Butter Pecan ice cream, and then go into the living room, fire up the home entertainment center, and watch a great show like HBO's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" while enjoying the ice cream. This is the life. Let me tell ya.

  • 10:26 am
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