I've been busy this week and finally landed on a slack afternoon.

Yesterday my friend Rachael came over and we excavated my nerdhole. Took about 4 hours and it's a small room so that gives some sense of the pile up in there.

It's in good shape now and we have achieved Step 1 to reclaiming it as a working office, though I do have the very Buffista problem of Too Many Books.

It's so much easier doing shit like this when you've got a fun friend to plow through it with.

Cleaning the nerdhole is consistent with this year's plan of Making Things Less Janky which also included fixing the garage door and putting in a new door to the garden. My downstairs neighbor, Jamille, said we were Beautifying the house. I said that was a bar too high and Less Janky was an achievable goal.

Matilda and I cleaned out the Guinea Pig cage this morning too so I really just need a whack at the dishes and vacuum to get the house in order.

Been a busy week here too. DH trying to do a month's worth of house projects in his week here. Prepping to build a new shed because we had to get rid of the old one when we built the back porch. Prepped for the tree guy to come and take out some trees that need to go. We also had to move the carport canopies, which was super easy with 6 of my neighbors lending a hand. What 8 can do in a few minutes it would have taken 2 all day.

But I did manage to go and get my nails done! Bye to my cute Pride nails and now I have hot pink toes and matching french tips.

Nail tech was born and raised up here, and being about 78% red here I always figured probably Republican. Part of our chatting was the insane immigration policies. She knows lots of people who have had issues. Last summer she encountered a road block checking people (near Canadian border) and she had to have her mother bring her birth certificate because they wouldn't accept her social security card and driver license as proof. They held her until mom came. She is Italian and thinks maybe her dark summer tan and black hair made them target her, or they just were being asses to everyone. At any rate, she was very upset about all of it including the TPS situation while pointing out we all are immigrants. Anyway, since this is a solidly red area it was nice to hear.

I loved Costa Rica the one time we went and would love to go back!!

I’m going to visit a local hospital and get a new knee tomorrow which is good in its own way but not as nice as Costa Rica.

I’m going to visit a local hospital and get a new knee tomorrow which is good in its own way but not as nice as Costa Rica.

Lisa, do you have an ice/cold therapy machine for recovery at home? Apparently they're way better than using ice packs. Also, hooray new knee!

two-day guided tour of Tortuguero National Park, where I will get to see GREEN SEA TURTLES and SLOTHS.

That sounds so incredible!

I’m supposed to get an ice machine delivered tomorrow! (Fingers crossed)

I’m supposed to get an ice machine delivered tomorrow! (Fingers crossed)

Excellent! Let us know how everything goes -- knee~ma sent your way!

I’m going to visit a local hospital and get a new knee tomorrow which is good in its own way but not as nice as Costa Rica.

I hope it comes with the sound effects from the Six Million Dollar Man when he jumped in slow motion on his cybernetic legs: [link]

Sloths and turtles sound awesome! New knee sounds awful but hopefully eventually awesome??

I am so tired today. Work is involving more and more things where someone says “I need to know what documents are required for X” or “I need to know how long Y takes on average” and expects me to know and I don’t and I don’t even know where to get the answers and it is driving me nuts. (My job changed a year ago to include a new part of the process, and I’m just now hitting where I need to actually do it, but we did not get good training on it, we used to have specialists in that part of the process and now I’m supposed to be the specialist? Ugh)

Tortuguero and Turtles and Sloths, oh my! Sounds delightful. I'm looking forward to the reports.

Yay new knee! Sending smooth recovery ~ma. My sister got one last year and had the icing machine, which was super cool. Literally.

DH heads back to Florida tonight so I am coffeeing up and will start a bonfire with the piles of stuff he has accumulated for me. It rained a bit this morning, which is good because it wasn't enough to keep the fire from happening, but the surrounding grounds and trees are wet. I always have my hose at hand and spray the surrounding area regularly when burning so part of my job is done.

New knee sounds awful but hopefully eventually awesome??

That is the hope!! I will ask my surgeon to be sure to add the sound affects! I wonder if my insurance will cover it? (They don’t even cover the freakin ice machine so I doubt it.)