Wednesdaze

Right now I’m in a struggle as to whether to call a window washer or blog. Hold on.

I got up to find a window washer and then my son woke up and handed me our deaf and blind newly adopted Tito dog and he needed to eat. The rest of the dogs already ate and so I had to feed Tito and make sure our obese rescue Max wasn’t able to steal his food. That secured, I contacted a window service and they are now inspecting my home on Google Earth in order to generate an estimate. My guess is 550 but we will see. I used to pay 350 but it’s been awhile (years?) and so I have no idea what they will charge.

I also realized I somehow am still hungry after a surprise morning ceviche so I added my usual yogurt, granola thing and some Baru nuts to the mix and feeling more like I am ready to meet the day.

It’s Wednesday, my “work from home” day. Lately it’s been a day to power through all the missed odds and ends I can’t seem to fit in on the other days. It’s been a day to come up for air. My vision was for Wednesdays was for it to be a sanctuary in the middle of the week but there’s stuff I need to do. Stuff I got behind on. Stuff I can’t put off any longer.

The estimate just came back at $415 for just the outside and $655 for inside and out. If I’m going to do it I need to just bite the bullet and do the whole thing. I should get three estimates and pick the best and I never do that. I always pick the most eager and they have good reviews and were on it in a flash getting me the estimate so here we go. I’m thinking after they do it once maybe I can find a way to keep up with it myself. I have a scrubber on a pole and some garden windex but we are beyond that. Like I said, it’s been years.

I live in a super old house. Built in 1904. Al Jolson lived here. My driveway is narrow because it used to lead to a stable for the horse and buggy. Must have been a small horse and a tiny buggy but that’s the truth. Unfortunately the people who owned the house before me and before that took out most of the old windows and put in aluminum garbage. I got an estimate to put in nice windows years ago and it was between $80,000 and 100,000 dollars. Ha, ha, ha – yeah, no. If I do put in windows it will be one at a time mismatched salvaged old windows, the kind wear the glass is wavy and uneven. I don’t believe in hermetically sealed homes and even if I did I have too many animals to make that practical. I must say that the fires – smoke from the fires – has made my open window air exchange policy less than ideal. I may have to get gas masks or something for smokey days. I’m also so old (sixty, did I tell you?) that I might just breathe the air and hope for the best.

So I am ready to start the day and it’s a compromise day. I did not get up early to go in to the office to chart so I’d be done by my 1pm weekly Nico workout. That was my ambitious plan but instead I stayed in bed a bit late and got up when the furnace repairman showed up. I have an American Home Shield whole house plan. I pay $100 when something breaks and they either fix it or if they can’t they give me a new one of whatever it is. I can’t remember the monthly insurance premium but it’s not much. My old therapist recommended it when I came in crying one day because my washing machine broke and then recounted how once when my kids were little we lived without refrigeration for two months until o a friend got fed up and put an olive green old fridge in the basement. We had another year or so of “fridge in the basement” until I managed to afford another big stainless steel monster. I make okay money but there’s always things that need paying for and I pick and choose in some funny ways sometimes according to what seems more important. So, I do have to thsnk my therapist for the recommrndation.

An example of my approach to money is that I got my kids horses instead of paying my taxes. I eventually paid it all with fees and interest but at the time my kids were only going to be kids once and I wanted them to have horses. That’s a whole other ball of wax and I’ll just leave it there for now but I hold money loosely, if at all.

I’m in this old house and the furnace guy says blah blah, cracked heat compressor this or that, carbon monoxide risk, blah blah – new furnace. He said I need a new furnace and I was not the least bit surprised or shaken by this even though he broke the news like he was trying to prepare me. Now we are waiting for American Home Shield to approve replacing the furnace and I am waiting to feel smug for having a whole house plan until they confirm that the furnace is, indeed, covered on my plan.

A younger me would have immediately called AHS to verify coverage (ASAP !) to determine the degree of financial heating disaster but old me is just going to wait the 24 hours it’s going to take for them to text me back. New me isn’t going to waste any energy when all I need is a little calm and patience to have them sort it out on my behalf. Ah, wisdom. But I am a teeny bit tense about the outcome.

For some reason dealing with things can cause anxiety so I always put off stuff. Our furnace was on the blink all last winter. It would turn itself off and then you’d have to flip the switch back and forth three or four times to get it going again. I dunno I just got used to the whole process and I sort of liked the auto-turnoff because it’s impossible to heat this house anyway. The most you can do is take the chill off then get under blanket.

I only have about fifteen more minutes to blog so what I want to share today is that I have this old house and I never was quite able to restore it properly so I started just living in it and doing weird things like you can’t do with more proper homes. I put stickers on my front door inside and collaged the side facing the street. I have a lot of silly things on the walls and hanging down. Nothing is super valuable and yet it’s all priceless. It’s taken years but my house is homey and funky and vibrant and fluid. It’s working for me.

What I am most pumped about today is fungi. Turns out that decorative mushrooms make me feel like I am living in an enchanted forest and it normalizes my pack of dogs, pig, gecko, tortoise, rats and squirrels and critters in the back, screaming crows, flock of pigeons, dive-bombing hummingbird abode. It creates the right vibe and here are some photos of what I mean.

There’s my Fungi Goddess – a newly acquired work of art that no one is neutral about. I love her. I got some mushroom solar lights I ringed around my redwoods and I also have some ones I stuck on the wall from Temu that were dirt cheap. I don’t know how to explain or justify Temu. It’s my guilty pleasure. I try not to over-consume and have decided not to worry about remodeling my kitchen or home (more on that later, too…). All my furniture is used or salvaged from the trash. So if I buy a few silly items off Temu that might involve unethical sourcing – I don’t know what to say about it.

I have to close up shop now and get on with the productivity part of my day. Hope you enjoyed some of my enchanted magic house and the lesson of the day which is there’s more than one way to have a nice home so if you can’t have a fancy remodeled thing of elegance make what you have your own, make it unique and fun and be damn grateful you have a house. And if you think you need to spend a lot of money redecorating maybe draw a picture or do something cheap and consider giving money to help others meet some basic minimums of food and shelter and healthcare. Fancy stuff doesnt matter unless you say it does.

Just a thought.

We don’t need the things we’ve been taught that we need and most of it won’t make you happy. My little collection of fungi makes me happy and I’m glad I’m sixty so I can just let it go at that.

Namaste and off we go.