Another Week Slips By

I'm not sure what we did last week. My entire to-do list is still sitting here with all the same stuff on it. I spent some of the week at work digging out from the mess of tax season. There is a ton of work to do, and I could work pretty much as many hours as I want to, but I think the boss-man doesn't want to pay me to do it. When I left Friday, he just said he would "call me and let me know." I hope he doesn't think I'm just going to be sitting here in my office clothes waiting by the phone five days a week for him to call and tell me someone wants a tax return done. (I've already had several such calls since the 15th. Sorry dude; I have a life.) He mentioned something to me about working for a percentage of the returns I do in the off-season. Sounds good as long as when I'm there, he isn't expecting me to stick around all day doing his filing and dealing with pissed-off customers. Anyway; it will probably all come to a big nothing like most other things. Everyone is very excited to have you work for them. Their enthusiasm noticeably wanes when you make it clear you expect to get paid. Which would be fine; I could use the time to keep working on the Money Pit we live in.

I did manage to get all the stud work scabbed in on Thursday. At this point, there isn't anything that needs to be done before the siding goes up. Other than hitting the Lotto so we can pay for it; that whole people-expect-to-be-paid-for-the-work-they-do thing again. So it's only financial roadblocks at this point rather than logistical roadblocks. And our bathroom carpet sporting a permanent wet spot for the last three or four days probably isn't going to help rid us of that financial roadblock. The bright spot is that I've been looking for an excuse to rip the carpet out of the bathroom since we moved here. I hate carpet in a bathroom. That has to be the most disgusting thing a person can do in a house. Understand, I lived for several years with a composting toilet; I know disgusting. That isn't even in the same ballpark as carpet on a bathroom floor. So first thing tomorrow, out goes the carpet so I can a) find where the water is coming from and b) stop getting sick to my stomach every time I walk in there.

I should probably take some photos of the planting bed out front. The herbs all seem to be doing well so far. We'll see how much Florida heat it takes to burn them down to the ground. It ain't helping that we're in the middle of a Phase III Extreme Water Shortage. So far, the "wet" season has produced a single rain storm while the temps are spiking up to 90 every day. We're only allowed to water with the hose on Friday's before 8am or after 6pm. Other days, we have to use a watering can, which takes over an hour. We added a single tomato plant last weekend to see if I can make fresh tomatoes for Debbie. It's still alive and has a half-dozen-plus green tomatoes hanging on it. We'll see if they ripen up, if animals/bugs will leave 'em alone, if they taste like something other than cardboard, etc.  If I can get some yard work done this summer, we may try tomatoes again at a somewhat larger scale in the fall.

Well, Debbie wants to go for a bike ride now that the heat's died down a bit.