(no subject)

Bashed my elbow on the door on my way out of the office to get coffee. There's irony there if you look for it.

Did vapour barrier on the weekend. (Probably not enough.) Jen and pariah_ink told me cheerful things like "Holmes on Homes is always finding houses with giant holes in the vapour barrier, and he gets really angry about it!" (is there anything Holmes on Homes doesn't get angry about? He's the Incredible Hulk of home renovation) and "Apparently having no vapour barrier isn't ideal but it's OK, because the vapour kind of spreads out, and having perfect vapour barrier is good, but having some holes in the vapour barrier is bad because drafts and things concentrate in the holes."

The problem is that we're trying to vapour-barrier an old house and there are things in the way of a perfect moisture-proof membrane between out and in. Like rafters. And walls. And floors. (Windows are a different story -- the idea is you get nice new vinyl windows that are moisture-proof all on their own.) I started on Jen's bedroom yesterday, which is an addition on the back of the first floor -- you could think of it as a cube with five sides exposed to the elements -- and as I gazed meditatively at the floorboards beneath my feet, I thought "Hmm. There's insulation under there, but where are we going to put the vapour barrier? Oh, shit." Because really our only options are (a) take up the floorboards, vapour barrier, put 'em down again, or (b) vapour barrier on top, new flooring above it (laminate flooring is nice...).

But in other news my mum and I have perfected our technique for applying the black goo (which does not stick well to the pink spray-foam insulation, although it likes vapour barrier and clean wood just fine). We have a highly sophisticated method involving the index finger of whatever glove we happen to have on at the time.

[Edit: Looks like my paid account has run out on me as I'm down to 3 userpics. That's what I get for not checking my Hotmail for months on end...]

(no subject)

Other things I did on the weekend (and today), in no particular order:

- Found my winter coats. (Actually, that was something my mother did for me. All I did was provide the box numbers. Miraculously, box #44 [long black cloth coat, pea jacket, scarves & hats & gloves] was out in plain sight.)
- Paid my bills.
- Made another attempt to understand Jen's Spreadsheets of Doom, a.k.a. the house accounts.
- Went (briefly) to a party.
- Slept over at my aunt & uncle's.
- Returned some of my overdue library books and returned as many of the others as I could.
- Bought single-use facial cleansing cloths (it's weird, but I'm noticing I don't like washing my face at night -- partly because it's cold, partly because I don't want to splash and wake people up).
- Attempted to meet stilldeepwater at the Swedish Craft Fair at Harbourfront, but got there too late. Nevertheless, enjoyed the Swedish Craft and Design Displays.
- Picked up crankygrrl's mail ('tis the season for catalogues, apparently).
- Changed the address on my driver's licence over the Web. (I'd have changed my health card at the same time, but they wanted the last 4 digits of the citizenship document I used to get it, and honestly? How on earth am I supposed to remember? It'll have to be a ServiceOntario kiosk after all.)
- Read Emma Lathen by the bushel. I heart John Putnam Thatcher.
- Snuggled little miss Tilde.
- Ate dinner at my parents'.

At least 3 of those represent a conscious effort to Take Control and thus break out of the anxiety death spiral I noticed I was in. Hopefully it's worked. Anxiety death spirals suck, although in my defence I think I had my reasons for being in one this past couple of weeks.

Going to try and track down a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird and read it for tomorrow's book club, because that was one part of Taking Control that I didn't get to. Ah well.