All the assorted things we’ve been planning and scheduling since mid-Marsh are still going according to plan, so I’m just waiting for one of the delicately aligned process pieces to crash and crater.

It should all get better once there’s only ONE project going (Operation: Fancify Floor 2, the only original project) mainly because O:FF2 has a production manager in charge of wrangling all the trades and dealing with scheduling and so on.

Meanwhile, the basement demo is done, and that puts us where we should be for sump installation, which is all confirmed for tomorrow at 8 AM. Fingers crossed things keep going well.

8AM start would probably feel a lot earlier except that I’ve been waking up at 6:53 AM on the dot for days and days now. Why? Because my wake-up brain reset itself to that time from my usual 7:58 wakeup after the fourth morning of street trenching and heavy equipment noise starting at 7 AM.

ANYway. Matt, our floor installer & wall painter & carpenter & general all-around excellent handyman, thinks he should be able to have at least half the basement ready for furniture movers to move Spouseman’s gaming TV setup and some of the 3rd floor stuff down there on the 21st.

That gives us another week to get the TV-watching TV moved out of the construction zone into the living room and the rest of the basement fully put back together before O:FF2 swings into action the Tuesday after Memorial Day.

Fingers crossed that all this comes to pass in order, so Spouseman can get back to gaming in his gameroom. Otherwise I’ll end up working behind him while he games in the living room. and the construction’s going on overhead. Which would be distracting for both of us, although I’m sure it would thrill Mister Pips to pieces to have us all in one space all day long.

My office is well on its way to being packed up thanks to a great chore-hang session with my friend Taia on Friday. Storage closet and fragile stuff are next on the pack-up list, after I collect more moving boxes. (together because the winter clothes and spare towels/linens make great packing material for the fragile things. Efficiency!)

And that will be followed by packing “Paperwork & office stuff I always forget exists because it’s in the closet & inside drawers." That shouldn’t take long since most of it is in boxes already. But if I don’t keep reminding myself about it, I WILL forget until the movers are here. Also, this is a great excuse to clean all the accumulated junk out of those drawers.

Gotta admit, the cleanup part of this whole process is the best part so far. I already have filled 3 big bags with too-old-and-ratty-donate clothes and other textiles set aside for the fabric recyclers. And I’ve rediscovered some stuff I thought long since disappeared forever.

The second best part? I had an excuse to buy myself a whole batch of Clicky-Sharpie markers in various colors.

Lessee, other things going on in my life:

Relics From A Traveling Show copyedits are DONE. First round, anyway. I need to get in touch with my fab editor Jamie Garner to discuss what comes next.

I'm 3 months into an experiment of scheduling Friend Contacts so I don't lose track of people I care about, and I am very much enjoying feeling like I'm sorta staying n touch with other humans. Which means I should expand the experiment to see if the results scale.

I’m watching Three-Body Problem and Dead Boy Detectives, and I’m on book 15 of the Foreigner series by C. J. Cherryh. I’d be further along in the reading, but I got sidetracked by Sarah J. Hoodlet’s fantasy novel The Way of the Wielder, which I can recommend to anyone who enjoys second-world fantasy with tons of heart and some really original spins on comfortable, familiar elements.

And I’m trying to eat right, so I’m keeping a food log for May. Pizza is nutritious, right? That seems to be a disproportionate percentage of my diet. Pizza and apples. I also drink a lot more water than I realized. Still nowhere near 64 oz in addition to all other liquids tho. Pffft to the eight 8oz glasses myth anyhow.

AAAAaaand now I’m rambling. That’s a good sign to wrap up.

That’s all until later! (Note: this is cross-posted to my Patreon, as it is the weekly report, but that version has 100% more Pippin.)

One last thing: a yard update pic!