vituperation

Before I forget, my back problems are pretty much resolved. I went to physical therapy for a few weeks, with mixed results. Some days were good, some days were bad. The exercises I learned definitely helped with the pain, but the pain kept coming back. I grew to hate the shock thingy, because I invariably had them set it too high and was in pain by the end of the session because I’m too proud to ring the bell and ask them to dial it back a little.

A couple of weeks ago, a realization dawned on me. My back felt fine on the weekends, but started hurting again on Monday morning when I got to work. It was odd, because sitting at my desk at home never caused me any problems. As I thought about it more and more, I realized that I’d changed chairs at work at just about the same time I starting doing all the work in Smallville.

So flared the lightbulb.

My old chair, from my fat days, had given up the ghost and I just swapped it for another chair in the office. Another broken chair, worn out from overuse. I swapped chairs again almost two weeks ago and within two days was virtually pain-free, despite not doing the physical therapy stretches and exercises. All that time I blamed the work at Smallville it looks like I was wrong.

I haven’t been back to therapy, and remain almost pain free. I have to stretch from time to time after I’ve been sitting slumped at my desk for a while, but I always had to do that.

Life without constant pain is good.

It took almost seven months from beginning to end, but as of Friday I have a new place to call home. The house in Madison sold in eight days, to some people from out of state who made an offer on it just by viewing pictures. Obviously, there was a contingency on the offer (”We’re backing out if we don’t like it in person”), but everything went well on their walkthrough and we got our asking price out of it. There were only a few minor things I had to do after the inspection, because the house was in good shape.

The past three days were a whirlwind of activity. The rest of our stuff was moved in by noon, and I spent the afternoon hooking things up and making them work. Saturday morning I ran the cultivator through the garden to de-weed it. For the record, the cultivator is about the best thing ever invented. I was able to weed the entire garden in about the same time it took me to do two rows with a hoe, and my back didn’t ache from slumping over the whole time.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up for the cultivator.

Saturday afternoon I worked outside (more below) until dinner (steak, woot!), then Robyn and I went to Lowe’s to buy more supplies for the project I was finishing. I slept like a rock.

Yesterday, I spent the morning de-cluttering and running the wires for the surround speakers on the entertainment center. Doing that entailed going under the house at one corner and crawling on my belly to (literally) the furthest possible point, to get the wires up behind the couch. It wasn’t as bad as the last time I went under there, probably because in the intervening time I discovered there are lights in the crawlspace. Lots of little fat-bodied spiders and lots of cave crickets — which the chickens love, by the way — but nothing really scary. I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon finishing up the previously mentioned project (more below), and then we went on a rug-buying spree to home-i-fy the house a little more.

Home sweet home.

We’ll probably end up replacing this rug because the kitties get
their nail caps caught in it.

Still one of my favorite rooms in the house.

The cats seem to prefer the rugs to the cool wood floors.

Front room: sitting area

Front room: TV area.
It’s cool making two rooms out of one.

The computer room still needs more decluttering

The huge laundry room looks tiny now because of all the stuff we put in there.
Getting the washer and dryer hooked up took some work, because one of the washer
hoses leaked and I had to swap the power line on the dryer from a 4-prong to a 3-prong.

I still love the purple master bedroom

My room

The spud’s room…for now.

My old bed goes well in this house.

For dinner last night we had burgers that I grilled on Saturday before I did the steaks. With those burgers, we had salad. That salad, I am pleased to announce, had something extra special in it:

Spinach, grown by yours truly.

I’m far too proud of that spinach, I think.

I’ve mentioned before our ongoing war with the fire ants. Saturday afternoon, they retaliated for the millions I’ve killed:

Right side of my right leg

Left side

Sadly, I did that to myself. I knelt in the garden to look at an onion and planted my knee directly on a small ant pile. I didn’t even feel them swarming until one of them released the ‘attack’ pheromone and they started stinging as a single entity.

The only redeeming thing about a fire ant sting is that it forms a pustule, like a zit, which you can then pop. Audibly.

(yes, mom, I know it can get infected then)

If you’ve been around since the beginning of the Smallville saga, you probably remember that the side door (off the computer room) of our house had no steps to the ground, just a nice neck-breaking drop. Over the last couple of weekends I remedied that situation. It ain’t pretty, and it’s a little out of square, but it’s solid as a rock.

And by solid, I mean SOLID. You can stand anywhere on it and do the twist, trying your damnedest to make it shimmy or wobble, and it doesn’t budge:

Probably I’d do better at these things if I weren’t (a) so lazy, and (b) winging it. Seriously. I read a little bit about basic construction techniques, form a picture in my head, and start digging, sawing, and screwing.

And not the good kind of screwing.

I’m particularly proud of the stairs on the stoop, despite their being off-level a bit because I followed the slope of the ground at the bottom instead of leveling it first (see ‘a’ above). Proud why? Because I made those stringers myself, laying them out with a carpenter’s square and a pencil and cutting them with a circular saw. They might not be perfect, but they’re mine.

It’s nice having finally progressed to the point where I can cut a straight line with my circular saw.