AETW: 142
exercise: scrubbing, mopping, hauling boxes, ripping baseboards off the wall…

It’s just not fair to get a rejection on a holiday. “Souls of Glass” is back on my desk. But it hasn’t been out to many places yet, so it won’t be too hard to choose the next victim—er, magazine.

We got everything accomplished today except for stripping the ceiling and walls. We spent more time than expected on the garage, but it’s much neater and I can get to the boxes I want to start unpacking soon. After we moved all the stuff out of the library (two metal bookshelves worth of books and magazines and SCA stuff, coffee table, sofabed, and closet full of SCA stuff), we attacked things like the carpet in the closet (truly ugly and old and dirty), the baseboards, and the mouldings around the doors and windows and closet. We’re going to replace all of those with oak ones. As the shelves will be oak, too, the whole room should tie together nicely. Just before 7 p.m., we ran back to Home Depot because yesterday, we put down the scraper we were going to buy while we were looking at something else, and forgot to pick it back up and actually buy it. We got that, and a mouse sander (they are just the cutest toys!), and bolts so Ken can install the garage door opener. Back at home, Ken cleaned the plaster and crap out of the library while I made dinner (a Chinese chicken salad mix—just open all the packets, combine, and add lettuce!).

Meanwhile, the new Baron and Baroness of Gyldenholt called and invited us to go to the fabric district with them tomorrow. Although we missed their investiture (same day as Teresa and Jeff’s handfasting), we had put in a promissory for a set of garb for each of them, in the barony’s presentation. So it’s partly to discuss garb, and partly just to hang out, which is cool. We’ve decided that I’ll go, and Ken will stay home and scrape the walls and ceiling, and deal with the pool people. Hopefully it won’t last all day so I’ll be home early enough to help out.

After dinner, we were watching the end of a “Friends” rerun when I announced that I wanted to sit in the hot tub—now. We were stripped and sitting in record time, and it felt sooooo good. My back was really starting to hurt, and it helped immensely. We turned on the bubbles (which sound like a small jet plane taking off) because we figured the neighbours were at the block party—and there were fireworks going off all around, so our noise was small in comparison.

We got dressed, then took a walk down the street and met some of our neighbours. The block party was winding down, but we had a pleasant chat with a few folks. We came back home, unpacked some boxes (I’ve finally found the bulk of my altar stuff—huzzah!), and have been relaxing since.