4th of July
Thursday, July 4th, 2024 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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75F and rainy this morning.
I didn't sleep great, but I did sleep... four solid hours, between 4AM and 8AM.
Then I kinda halfway slept for two more, before getting up.
The matress itself is fine, but I have to get used to the size.
When I turn to one side and the other, I have to scoot my back to the far left or far right of the bed, so my hand has proper clearance to dangle.
These white plastic blinds also have to go!
They let the morning sunlight right through.
I think with good blinds, and some practice, I'll be sleeping fine in here.
Okay, all the bills were paid... all credit cards, the car payment, ATT, home insurance, and car insurance.
Most were paid early, but the car was only a day late.
I still have $794.00 in the bank!
Finally seeing the full Potawatomi paycheck!
So if the house closes next week as planned, and I do get the 3K, I should be good to go for a while.
Okay, well I should sleep a little better tonight with the bills paid.
I've been trying to call Colleen, but it keeps going straight to voicemail, like her phone's dead.
I want to try and buy some blinds today, and I need groceries.
I should also go to the house and leave Prowly more food, at some point.
And I think I want to get my old pillows and blanket over here too.
I uploaded 5 videos to TikTok yesterday, and none of them are visible to viewers, not even followers who go to my profile.
So I deleted them, and am attempting to re-upload, and see if it makes a difference.
I also vacuumed the flat, and am currently strategizing ways to get airflow in this place!
There's a vent in the bathroom that's closed, and paited over and rusty, but I'm gonna try to get it to open for me... probably goes up to the roof.
And I'm gonna grab some foam board from home and see if I can't engineer a little port next to the AC here, for a little exhaust fan to blow smoke out the window.
We're also gonna to shopping in search of either blinds or a shade, whatever we can find.
And I ordered red twin bed sheets on Amazon to make my bed look more like the old one and match the decor better.
I feel like the closer I can get to my old bed, the better, psychologically, for sleeping.
It was another pretty big day.
Colleen & I returned to Melody Manor, where I got my blanket and pillows, and suctioned them down into a vacuum bag.
I also saw that Prowly had come in last night and eaten all of the moist food, and much of the dry food I'd left for him on yesterday's visit, so I repleneshed both for him.
I also grabbed the foam board, and a few other last things.
From there, we went out to Target where Colleen bought a hoody... I bought a vinyl roller shade that would just barely cover the window... but together we bought me an air fryer convection oven.
It was $200.00, but Colleen paid for $100.00 of it, as my housewarming/birthday present.
After Target, we went to Home Depot to see if they had any proper room darkening blinds in the size I needed and it turned out that they DID!
$70.00, but I paid for it with my Home Depot card, which I'd just made a payment on this mornining!
Back at the tower, Colleen parked the rental car in the loading zone.
And after I ran to the parking garage to get the dolly out of my van, I wheeled the oven and blinds, with the vacuum package onto the elevator, as she carried the foam board... and we got it all into the flat.
I unboxed the oven, and it fits directly over the footprint of the useless electric rangetop on the kitchenette counter... level!
This was a huge win!.. because it means I can continue to eat as I had been at Melody Manor, with the gas oven... baking frozen pizzas, burritos, pot pies, and so forth, that can't be microwaved.
It's 1/4 of an inch too tall to fit in the microwave nook above the counter, but... I can modify that nook without much trouble, down the road.
I took my vacuum sealed blanket and pillows down to the launry room and started washing both of them... blanket in one washer, pillows in another.
Then back upstairs, it was an easy thing to swap out the stock window blinds with my new blinds.
A couple of minutes up on the step stool with the impact driver, quickly swapping the three brackets, using the same screws and holes.
The new blinds are a huge improvement!
A little light still shines through the cracks, but when I put up that vinyl shade behind them... it's gonna be plenty dark in here, even on the sunniest morning.
We went out on foot to find a place to get a beer and some food, thinking we'd go to Bally Doyle on New York Street, but it, and every other bar and shop were closed for the holiday... except a little bolivian restaurant called Alice's Corner.
When we went in, the place was empty, but the owner was eager to seat and serve us.
They didn't have beer, but they did serve wine, and we enjoyed the food.
Another couple, looking in vain for a place that was open, spotted us inside Alice's Corner, and decided to give it a try... then another... then another!
The place was nearly full when we left.
Back at the flat, I put the blanket and pillows into the dryers, and we hung out in the flat again for a while, waiting for the sun to get low.
Over that hour, I created my little window exhaust fan, with the foam board, and a small clip-on desk fan.
I removed the clip from the little fan, and the front grill... which I used as the template to scribe a circle in the foam board... which was cut to fit in the space to the right of the AC unit, right in front of my desk.
Through the magic of duct tape, I mounted the little fan onto the foam board, and the board into place next to the AC... and it works!
As the sun was setting, and amateaur fireworks were filling the skies all over town, we went to Randall Liquors so I could grab some smokes, and then drove around looking for anything that was open, and found a Buffalo Wild Wings out on Orchard Road.
There, we had appetizers and drinks, and hung out for a few hours.
Finally, Colleen dropped me off outside the tower, and we hugged our goodbyes.
She'll be leaving around 10AM.
And if my efforts today, to improve my sleep here, pay off... then I'll still be sleeping when she leaves.
My old comforter and pillows, in their old shams, are now clean and dry on the little twin bed, here next to the desk.
It does feel more inviting than last night.
It's still a narrower bed, in the same room, but the feel of that old blanket, and those old pillows is very important... as is the look of them.
And this twin bed should be more inviting still, when it has the burgundy sheets I ordered on Amazon today.
I'm also thinking of saving the queen matress in the storage unit.
It can fit in there against the back wall standing up, if I empty out all the boxes... then put them back in, after it's in place.
And since it was on two twin-bed platforms, all I need to save is one, fold-up platform, because I'm using another here!
This way, if I can upgrade to a 1BR... I don't have to buy a new queen matress!
The exhaust fan also seems to be working like a charm!
The studio doesn't feel stale and smokey anymore.
It's a six-inch diameter hole to the outside, in an otherwise sealed compartment, with a fan the same size with just enough power to work the stale air out.
The AC is, effectively, a supply air fan.
But supply fans don't work very well without exhaust fans.
It's a primitive setup, having both in the same window, with no ductwork... but it's also a very small space.
So it is working out.
It could be better if I get that bathroom vent duct to open.
But I'll need some spray lubricant to tackle that.
My second night here is feeling more natural than last night.
And now I'll have three days; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, to just vibe here by myself before returning to work.
It was a little stressful having Colleen come to town on moving day, and during the struggle just to get settled in.
But I'm glad she was here.
It would've been pretty sad to go through this with zero moral support in the flesh, in real time!
And we did have a fair good bit of adventure together every night she was here... with the 4th of July providing a colorful background theme.
Still, I do need the next three days to just process everything that's happened... and get into the hang of this new life... by myself.
It's a lot!.. I'm still having flashbacks to walking Yvette, with Prowly and Snoop tagging along... and even to hanging out in the kitchen with Dad... like it was all yesterday.
Flashbacks to Cloud too!
So I need time to imprint new memories of this!..
This new life that I've finally gotten together after two months of dismantling the other one!
Time to bond with the ZZ plant!
This really is... just a bedroom in a much larger house.
And that house is on the larger campus of the island.
Tonight, I just ran the dolly back to the parking garage, a block away, in my slip-on shoes, real quick, and then grabbed my stuff from the laundry room on the way back in, before ducking back into... my room.
It's a room in a dorm, on a quirky campus, in the river... of the downtown.
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