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Originally posted by Brenda:
All done for today and my area is sitting at a balmy 84F at least. Getting my Indian Summer for the week.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
All done for today and my area is sitting at a balmy 84F at least. Getting my Indian Summer for the week.

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Nice. That's right around where we're at too.

I think I've got about one more solid month to wrap up the work I want to get done now. After that it gets iffy. I sometimes can work outside without needing a winter coat into the second week of November, but we can also start getting snow before Halloween on some years too. I know I'm not going to finish what needs to get done outside in time, but I've made a huge dent in what needed to be done over the last few weeks, and if I can mirror that amount over the next month, what's left to do at least for the landscaping will just be incidental compared to what got done this year.


I was going to post something quick anyway, but saw this post from you and responded to it instead. I was reading one of my other posts and for some reason I looked at my avatar picture, which I hardly ever do more than a glance like when seeing anyone else posting here and how I glance at theirs (and I just noticed too that Jaynez has a new avatar... cool to know that the ability to change your avatar still exists today).

I realized how long ago that picture was taken and how different my surroundings were back then. How everything inside and out looked like shit to the point that it didn't really matter how well you kept up the property outside or cleaned up inside, it just always looked like shit. The image is just a small postage stamp sized picture with the wall and window in my livingroom that I spend most of my time indoors facing when lying down on the couch, but it represents so much more than just 1,000 words. I hadn't even started working on that kitchen that I spent a whole 6 months restoring, there was a huge hole in the floor of my back porch, the walls of the porch were gutted and even more of the floor was still rotting away, there were no real windows installed and that's why all the water and ant damage had occurred.

My buddy I hadn't talked to in years just happened to call me out of the blue and came back into my life and probably saved it when he came over and we rebuilt the entire foundation of the room piece by piece with the walls and roof still on top of it. And the chain reaction it caused when he gave me some inertia I hadn't been able to build up for years until he did it for me has been responsible for so many improvements.

This place was such a dump when that pic was snapped. I was still heavily drunk back then. Oh crap... and the HOARD too... I bet that was taken 5 years before my buddy came over and helped me fix that floor. I know I was at least a couple years sober by the time he called me from out of nowhere.

Glad I'm getting back to work like I need to finally. I really should go back through my album of about 3,000 pictures and put together a little "best of" pack for me to look at when I need a boost. I'm really glad I took those pictures. I haven't looked at them in about 2 years now, and it's really easy to just adapt to your new normal, good or bad, and forget how things were before. This house wasn't just ugly. It was dangerous, and it had certain issues that would lead to the eventual collapse if they weren't addressed. But most of that is all fixed now. 85% of the work I have left to do is just cosmetic. And the 15% that isn't cosmetic, though extremely important to do, are emergency prevention and quality of life improvements. God willing, the stuff that had to be done to save the house and make everything safe is all taken care of now.

Maybe my problem now is that I spent too long feeling "safe" for the first time in my life?

I work a lot better under pressure, and I'm not what anyone would call a good self-motivator. I can be when I want to be, but it is not my natural state of being. Maybe being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want isn't as idyllic as it sounds on paper. Idol hands and all of that...



Heh... funny what a tiny little thumbnail picture can bring out of you.

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The Democrats are the party of Murder.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Wow, that's a long conversation!

I've been in tag but I didn't want to stay bc I was sure I'd say something snarky and piss THGR off. BRENDA, it's not right to try to make you take sides. You said "I don't hate anybody". That's an excellent place to be. Maybe I'll get there some day! Altho, at my age, I'm not sure I'm capable of change.

Nice to reminisce about good times, or even not so good times. My sis said something that she's said a hundred times before, but it finally sank in. It turned out, we sisters had kind of assigned family roles, and mine was "the nice one" (believe it or not) and my one sister was "the smart one".

Anyway, SIX, I can see you were a pistol when you were young! That trick that got your brother in so much trouble ... haha! So mean, but still funny! I'm glad I wasn't your mom!

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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It was and it had many a zig and zag to it.

I've been avoiding tag. I don't need THG in my face. Also I don't want take sides my birth sign is Libra, the scales and so I am always looking for balance. And I've found from my point of view that a lot of things are just the flipside of the other. I really don't hate anybody. I can however get angry at either side for being idiots.

One of the best lines from the Bard : There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio. Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

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Hey Brenda... I don't know if I have it in me tonight to write a long one. I've had kind of a rough day with some roller coaster on my glucose levels, and I didn't even get outside to work either. This whole Kirk thing, and seeing how bad it's getting has got me pretty messed up. Even after doing nothing but hanging out with my Dad and relaxing yesterday, I didn't go outside and work today like I had planned to, and I've actually just used most of today to balance out my sugar levels and catch up on some sleep I'd been missing.

I appreciate your understanding, and I wasn't sure how you would take my admission of guilt in what I made Ted do. Part of me thought that you already read what I've said to Ted himself about it several times before last night, but I wasn't sure.

I always thought that Astrology was some new-age hippie dippy bullshit that people before my time were into, but after you mentioned that you were a Libra and what that meant for your perspective and the way you carry yourself, I had to look up both of our signs and now I'm not so sure at all that it really is bullshit...

I asked Google what the characteristics of a Libra were:

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Libras are charming, diplomatic, fair-minded, and sociable individuals who value balance, justice, and harmony, often acting as peacemakers and skilled negotiators. Their strengths include a love for beauty and artistic expression, intellectual curiosity, and a knack for creating harmonious environments. However, they can also be indecisive, people-pleasing, conflict-avoidant, and sometimes superficial, struggling with making difficult choices.

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Well goddamn if that doesn't put my thoughts about you into a neat little paragraph. Even the "weaknesses" or "negative" traits.

Then I asked Google what the characteristics of a Virgo (my sign) were:

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Virgo is characterized by their analytical minds, meticulous attention to detail, and practicality. They are often diligent, organized, and perfectionistic. Known for their deep desire to help others and their grounded, earthy nature, Virgos excel at bringing order, structure, and precision to their work and surroundings.

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Holy shit. Is there really something to this sign thing???

I felt though, that the Google AI was being unfair and didn't really mention any negative traits of a Virgo other than being Perfectionistic, which is really a blessing and a curse depending on the situation. So I asked Google specifically what negative traits are associated with Virgos and here's what I got:

Worst Traits of a Virgo: Judgemental, Overthinking, Perfectionism, Pessimistic, Picky, Easily Annoyed, Stubborn, Overcritical, Emotional Suppression, Harsh self-criticism...

Am I a believer in Astrology now? I can't say for sure, but I find it pretty hard to refute those character traits, both the good and the bad.

I'm probably not going to go back and respond to your long reply tonight, but if I get my ass back outside to work tomorrow and do right, I'll probably be replying to you tomorrow.




Hey Sigs,

Yeah... I was never the "nice" one. As I've gotten older I wonder sometimes if I was even the "smart" one. I was rough on both of my brothers growing up, but a lot of that was taking my own frustrations, mostly from my Mom, and taking it out on them because they were easy targets. But even though I did more than my fair share of bullying them around, especially my middle brother while my youngest didn't get much of that from me because of his brain hemorrhage, I was fiercely protective of them. Not just from anything external, but from my Mom too. At one point I started just doing all the bad things because I was sick of seeing her abuse my middle brother so much. I remember one night getting her so pissed off at me over one thing or another that she just started repeatedly smacking me in the face and I kept saying "Thank you sir, may I have another!" while staring her dead in the eyes. And she'd give me another one, and I'd say it again, and she'd give me another one. This went on until she broke down in tears and fled into her bedroom. I knew both of my brothers were right at the top of the stairs the whole time, hiding mostly and just peeking down to watch the whole thing happen. I just really feel bad about how much of her anger is inside of me, even to this day, and how much I inflicted that anger on my middle brother even though I was absorbing hers and protecting them from it.

That story about me doing the leg slapping thing to my brother was actually still during the "good" times early on after the divorce. It got much worse and darker as the years went on. I couldn't really pinpoint when the huge shift occurred, or if it was just something that slowly changed and got worse and darker over time. By the time I finally left the house and abandoned my brothers to be stuck with them, she was nothing like the Mom I had when I was a little kid anymore.

I feel bad for my Mom too. She screwed everything up for all of us, but she's always been a wreck. I have no idea what her parents did to her growing up, or what kids at school did to her to make her that way. She was a bulimic up until I was 10 years old and she checked into a hospital for 2 whole months. Before that point, I remember being outside the bathroom door crying trying to get her to tell me what was going on because she'd be in that bathroom puking her guts up nearly every day. Her checking into the hospital happened right before my youngest brother had the hemorrhage, so she was actually in the same hospital as he was for months for two different things. They somehow miraculously cured her of her bulimia, but then she became a full-blown workaholic, and any time she wasn't spending working she was either sleeping away, complaining about people she worked with/for, how shitty her job was and how much work they made her do, and beating on us.

It always could have been worse though. She could have turned to alcohol or drugs and really screwed us up. My step-dad was a bit of a drinker and things got really bad a few times, but I don't blame that on the drinking itself. He was fiercely loyal to her to the point he would punch somebody in the face if they were arguing with my mom and she was saying that the sun rises in the West.

It's why I've had to recently take a long hiatus from my youngest brother. I haven't visited him with my Dad for almost an entire year now, and I haven't even talked with him on the phone for almost that long. He is one of the most toxic people in my life, and I am done being his unpaid therapist. The last time we spoke I told him that he is nothing but a constant reminder of how shitty our childhood was, and I can't have that kind of negativity in my life anymore. I believe my exact words were "unless you wake up in the morning with a rainbow shooting out of your ass and something positive to say to me, I don't want to hear from you ever again".

Almost a year later and still no rainbows I guess...

Oh well.

I got my own shit to deal with, and my own life I need to live. I don't sit around dumping my negativity on other people, and the days where I let everybody else do the same to me because "it's the right thing to do" are over. If anybody has mental problems or issues, even people I care about, I'm not listening to any of it anymore. At least until I get this albatross of a house off from around my neck and unburden some of my own crosses from my back. I'm no longer interested in shouldering anybody else's burdens. It's exhausting.

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