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Three Steps Forward, and a Few Back
Oct. 29th, 2021 09:50 pmA week ago Wednesday was a golden day for getting things done, but as always there's some steps backward too.
Return of the Office. I am back in my office! My dad helped me cut up and place trim a few weeks ago, I painted it, he helped me move the heavier furniture back in a week ago Tuesday, and then that Tuesday night I got much of my current references (and my computer and stuff) moved back in, in advance of the workday Wednesday.
I am surprised how happy I am to be back in my office. I mean, the back corner of our family room, where I was setup, is actually quite large. (Something we really need to account for when we get shelving, so we don't waste all the open space.) I had my full desk/shelf/filing-cabinet/printer-stand setup out there. But it's one of the darker corners of the house (because it's on the front wall of our house, where the first story is mostly under ground), and there's just a different feeling being in borrowed space.
So, thrilled to be back in my office, though I did learn I'd been wrong about one thing: my office is actually hotter than my borrowed space was, especially in the morning, because it has a huge south-facing window (which is why I needed to get the window tinted, just to make the room usable as an office, without having the drapes shut 100% of the time). It just feels cooler because there's an overhead fan, and the back corner of the family room is one of the very few nooks in the office that doesn't have a fan of its own.
My office isn't done. I need to floor my closet, work with my dad on transitions for the family room and the closet, and then put a last bit of trim down around the door (which we couldn't do until the transition was done) and in the closet. We've got a full iteration of the family-room transition out to the hallway done ... but it was too tall for Hal so we need to rout it down. But after that the rest will probably wait until next year, because my goal was to get enough of the office refloored that we could put shelving down, even if some of the shelving comes down to the floor, which may or may not be the case.
After my dad and I finish that transition, the next major task will be to fix the tiling in the family room. Renters did a lot of flooring in the house on their own over the years: some nice tiling in the family room and wood laminate throughout the upstairs. Unfortunately, they did an awful job. (To be fair, I suspect it was all harder work than the lego-like planking I've been working with.) In the family room, the problem is that some of the tiling has popped up. So we need to clean those off, reseat them, and hope that solves the problem, again before the shelves go in.
But given my dad is going to be away for the next few weeks (more on that momentarily) I have other tasks planned: rescreening some windows, hanging some curtains, and using tubs to sort out and clean some of our boxes in the family room (for stuff meant to go on shelves). (I haven't gotten any of it done yet, but hope springs eternal!)
Kimberly's Office. I should note that Kimberly's office is totally done at this point, after I finally decided I was done with the spray painting of her final closet doors (the second set of which never ended up as good as I would have liked, but good enough). That's going to allow her to get that office into final shape (minus any shelving she wants), and will also helpfully drain more material out of the family room.
Here Comes the Sun. A week ago Wednesday we also got our solar power fixed with the installation of a new inverter. It took a few hours, and then a few days before the battery was topping out at 100% again.
Hawaii Taxes. But the most pleasant surprise that Wednesday was when our tax guys let us know that Hawaii has FINALLY accepted our tax return, after half-a-year of illegally trying to force us to pay taxes that we'd already paid to California for the sale of our house. Our tax guy also had to kick them to get our refund started, and a week and a half later it's still not here, but progress. (And that all means that I can hopefully get started on paying the excise tax that I owe THEM for the privilege of doing contract work in Hawaii. To date the state has been totally non-helpful in getting me a TAX ID number for that, but now that our return has finally settled, I'm hoping I can get that through an automated process.)
The Many Trips to the Airport. Last week was a busy week, because after all of that good progress on Wednesday, I then spent Thursday and Friday going back and forth to the airport. On Thursday, I took Kimberly to the airport for her second post-surgery followup on her foot ... and then picked her up several hours later. Instead of going home in between, as I did last time, this time I went up to the bike path on Kapaa and had my usual day out, with a Safeway sandwich for lunch and some writing at a pavilion before I walked about five miles up and down the path. (Hawaii sun was hot! I was exhausted! But I enjoyed seeing stuff by foot, including some walking on one of the beaches.) Overall, I'm pretty sure I got more work done than last time I drove Kimberly to and fro the airport (not a high bar), and had a nice day out too.
The trip on Friday was to take my Dad and Mary to the airport, to go to San Jose. Obviously, I did not pick them up the same day. They're gone for three weeks again, to see their new granddaughter and tour California and Oregon. So we're alone again (naturally) on the island. Which mainly means our time is less structured because there's no Sunday gettogether, no early evening walks, and no joint work on projects.
I am Kimberly's Foot. Well I'm not. And I'm not even Joe's. But anyway. Kimberly's second followup appointment told her foot was healing fine. And she got the referral for physical therapy that she'd been waiting for, and so we're now struggling to fit twice a week physical therapy into our schedule, plus the request for her to get out to a swimming pool. Fortunately, the physical therapy is just down the hill a few blocks. Of course the concern here is that Kimberly has to be really careful to not hurt her foot after years of not using it (much) ... and she says it's been hurting since her last physical therapy ... like it did when she broke it, setting off this whole string of problems. Hopefully not what's going on.
Two Steps Back. Of course, it's three steps forward, two back. Kimberly broke a tooth last weekend. It's these silver fillings that they used in the '80s. They expand and crack teeth over time, and Kimberly and I both had them. When my dentist learned I was moving, she said she wanted to replace my last ones (I think my last ones! Definitely the last ones she had flagged as problems) before I moved. So she did, and two years later, I'm all good. But Kimberly still had one they were keeping an eye on, and one of those silver-filled teeth was what broke. So she got an emergency temporary crown on Monday, and a permanent crown is being made on the mainland.
Meanwhile, I got another annoying notice regarding my health coverage. A few weeks ago, it was my doctor jumping ship. This time, it's my insurance plan doing the same. To be precise, my HMO is being replaced with a PPO. They're happily telling me that I get to choose my own specialists without a referral now. Yay. Which is pretty grossly dishonest, because if I fail to pick the doctors in network, I pay out the nose, and that now falls on me. Boo. I've been fighting to keep an HMO for 20 years now, which resulted into higher fees for a while, but now PPOs are right up there and not as good. (There will probably be higher copays too.) So, boo. I'll see if I have any options, but I actually have very few options on-island, so I'll probably just go over to a sucky PPO at the same cost as my better HMO.
American healthcare sucks the big one.
Return of the Office. I am back in my office! My dad helped me cut up and place trim a few weeks ago, I painted it, he helped me move the heavier furniture back in a week ago Tuesday, and then that Tuesday night I got much of my current references (and my computer and stuff) moved back in, in advance of the workday Wednesday.
I am surprised how happy I am to be back in my office. I mean, the back corner of our family room, where I was setup, is actually quite large. (Something we really need to account for when we get shelving, so we don't waste all the open space.) I had my full desk/shelf/filing-cabinet/printer-stand setup out there. But it's one of the darker corners of the house (because it's on the front wall of our house, where the first story is mostly under ground), and there's just a different feeling being in borrowed space.
So, thrilled to be back in my office, though I did learn I'd been wrong about one thing: my office is actually hotter than my borrowed space was, especially in the morning, because it has a huge south-facing window (which is why I needed to get the window tinted, just to make the room usable as an office, without having the drapes shut 100% of the time). It just feels cooler because there's an overhead fan, and the back corner of the family room is one of the very few nooks in the office that doesn't have a fan of its own.
My office isn't done. I need to floor my closet, work with my dad on transitions for the family room and the closet, and then put a last bit of trim down around the door (which we couldn't do until the transition was done) and in the closet. We've got a full iteration of the family-room transition out to the hallway done ... but it was too tall for Hal so we need to rout it down. But after that the rest will probably wait until next year, because my goal was to get enough of the office refloored that we could put shelving down, even if some of the shelving comes down to the floor, which may or may not be the case.
After my dad and I finish that transition, the next major task will be to fix the tiling in the family room. Renters did a lot of flooring in the house on their own over the years: some nice tiling in the family room and wood laminate throughout the upstairs. Unfortunately, they did an awful job. (To be fair, I suspect it was all harder work than the lego-like planking I've been working with.) In the family room, the problem is that some of the tiling has popped up. So we need to clean those off, reseat them, and hope that solves the problem, again before the shelves go in.
But given my dad is going to be away for the next few weeks (more on that momentarily) I have other tasks planned: rescreening some windows, hanging some curtains, and using tubs to sort out and clean some of our boxes in the family room (for stuff meant to go on shelves). (I haven't gotten any of it done yet, but hope springs eternal!)
Kimberly's Office. I should note that Kimberly's office is totally done at this point, after I finally decided I was done with the spray painting of her final closet doors (the second set of which never ended up as good as I would have liked, but good enough). That's going to allow her to get that office into final shape (minus any shelving she wants), and will also helpfully drain more material out of the family room.
Here Comes the Sun. A week ago Wednesday we also got our solar power fixed with the installation of a new inverter. It took a few hours, and then a few days before the battery was topping out at 100% again.
Hawaii Taxes. But the most pleasant surprise that Wednesday was when our tax guys let us know that Hawaii has FINALLY accepted our tax return, after half-a-year of illegally trying to force us to pay taxes that we'd already paid to California for the sale of our house. Our tax guy also had to kick them to get our refund started, and a week and a half later it's still not here, but progress. (And that all means that I can hopefully get started on paying the excise tax that I owe THEM for the privilege of doing contract work in Hawaii. To date the state has been totally non-helpful in getting me a TAX ID number for that, but now that our return has finally settled, I'm hoping I can get that through an automated process.)
The Many Trips to the Airport. Last week was a busy week, because after all of that good progress on Wednesday, I then spent Thursday and Friday going back and forth to the airport. On Thursday, I took Kimberly to the airport for her second post-surgery followup on her foot ... and then picked her up several hours later. Instead of going home in between, as I did last time, this time I went up to the bike path on Kapaa and had my usual day out, with a Safeway sandwich for lunch and some writing at a pavilion before I walked about five miles up and down the path. (Hawaii sun was hot! I was exhausted! But I enjoyed seeing stuff by foot, including some walking on one of the beaches.) Overall, I'm pretty sure I got more work done than last time I drove Kimberly to and fro the airport (not a high bar), and had a nice day out too.
The trip on Friday was to take my Dad and Mary to the airport, to go to San Jose. Obviously, I did not pick them up the same day. They're gone for three weeks again, to see their new granddaughter and tour California and Oregon. So we're alone again (naturally) on the island. Which mainly means our time is less structured because there's no Sunday gettogether, no early evening walks, and no joint work on projects.
I am Kimberly's Foot. Well I'm not. And I'm not even Joe's. But anyway. Kimberly's second followup appointment told her foot was healing fine. And she got the referral for physical therapy that she'd been waiting for, and so we're now struggling to fit twice a week physical therapy into our schedule, plus the request for her to get out to a swimming pool. Fortunately, the physical therapy is just down the hill a few blocks. Of course the concern here is that Kimberly has to be really careful to not hurt her foot after years of not using it (much) ... and she says it's been hurting since her last physical therapy ... like it did when she broke it, setting off this whole string of problems. Hopefully not what's going on.
Two Steps Back. Of course, it's three steps forward, two back. Kimberly broke a tooth last weekend. It's these silver fillings that they used in the '80s. They expand and crack teeth over time, and Kimberly and I both had them. When my dentist learned I was moving, she said she wanted to replace my last ones (I think my last ones! Definitely the last ones she had flagged as problems) before I moved. So she did, and two years later, I'm all good. But Kimberly still had one they were keeping an eye on, and one of those silver-filled teeth was what broke. So she got an emergency temporary crown on Monday, and a permanent crown is being made on the mainland.
Meanwhile, I got another annoying notice regarding my health coverage. A few weeks ago, it was my doctor jumping ship. This time, it's my insurance plan doing the same. To be precise, my HMO is being replaced with a PPO. They're happily telling me that I get to choose my own specialists without a referral now. Yay. Which is pretty grossly dishonest, because if I fail to pick the doctors in network, I pay out the nose, and that now falls on me. Boo. I've been fighting to keep an HMO for 20 years now, which resulted into higher fees for a while, but now PPOs are right up there and not as good. (There will probably be higher copays too.) So, boo. I'll see if I have any options, but I actually have very few options on-island, so I'll probably just go over to a sucky PPO at the same cost as my better HMO.
American healthcare sucks the big one.