My partner is experiencing having mental clarity for the first time she can remember after starting a trial of meds based on a recent ADHD diagnosis. This is a good thing and I'm very happy for her.
Going to bed now even though I know I probably won't fall asleep until like 11. Bed too comfy looking I been fantasising all day about climbing back in. Will put a solid dent into my current audiobook: 11.22.63, which has been excellent so far
Melbcat didnโt eat her meal and spat out her syringed meds this morning - right down the inside of my sleeve! Thankfully sheโs finished her antibiotics but she still needs her pain meds.
Welcome to the Daily Chair. All the tacks are out now, all approx 200. I've tidied the work area and am ready to attach the linings, the springs then the padding and covers. Yay.
I have also been buying some tapestry fabrics to make some scatter cushions, 2 big cushions for the big chairs, and two smaller ones for the dining captain chairs.
here are some of the components . I have to staple and sew it all into something resembling a functional supporting seat. There's the wood frame, the webbing, springs, lining fabric and the cover . That grey stuff is the original kapok chair stuffing
might be a strange question, but any time I figure out something about myself mental health wise its almost always a "Oh shit. Its THAT easy?" kind of thing. It always seems SO obvious in retrospect! Curious to see if anyone else has the same thing happen to them.
For example: if you're always telling mates to take a deep breath have a sit and let things come to them, then you go and actually do it yourself and you're like "fuck, that was the key all along?!"
Found this Maggie in our front yard just now, and Iโm not sure if thereโs something wrong with it or not. Itโs not at all scared of us, and I got quite close (<1m) with no reaction. Itโs eaten a few salada crumbs and had a drink, but does look a bit bunched, and is just staying in the yard. Is it worth calling wildlife rescue? OH thinks we should leave it and see how it goes.
Far out this post viral fatigue is fucked. Third day in a row I feel like my brain has been cotton wool all day long. The coffees barely touch me. I really didn't feel too comfortable driving, I felt like I was zoning out way too often. Didn't even help that I got extra sleep because I didn't connect my phone charger properly overnight so it went flat and I slept right past my time to leave.
I really need to (a) fall asleep early and (b) stay asleep tonight... I'm already in bed, fed and showered, I think tonight shall involve podcasts.
E: I've got the warmest possible clothes on and the heater on while under the covers in bed and its still too cold to fall asleep โ
So I saw this video of a dumpy house in Footscray (link), and on my first watch I barely even noticed anything wrong. My current place is similar. I'm hesitant to draw an exact comparison, because our place isn't quite that bad (there's nowhere that's rotted through to the outside). Being a government property, they're also very strict on fire safety (probably good, being a wooden house), and put at least 50% effort into making sure the electricity situation is safe.
But they've neglected minor maintenance works for so long, that there's probably some quite large work that needs to be done. On one side of the house particularly, there's a lot of rot. Every year or so, they send someone out to replace them, but they only ever replace the worst panel. They just leave the rest of the rotted out panels there, and never really bother to look at why it's rotting.
Before I moved in, there was some sort of gutter collapse along the outside gutter, and it started funnelling water inside the roof. The old LT reported it and followed up once a week, and they never fixed it. Eventually something in the roof either shifted or collapsed and the water was no longer coming inside. But eventually whatever stopped it shifted and started funnelling water into the eaves along the outside below where the gutter collapsed. Then that section of roof collapsed. Then there was a big hoo hah where they wouldn't fix it because they thought it may have contained asbestos.
The spare YPs toilet floor seems like it's been completely rotted out and is on the verge of collapse. There's major flexing when you step on it, and there used to be signs of rot damage on the outside, but they seem to have replaced the boards that were rotten. I've shown a few people in person, and the general consensus seems to be that the floor has probably rotted or at the very least been severely damaged. But they won't send anyone under the house to fix it until they have photos of the damage, and they won't send someone under the house to check on it or take photos because idk, spiders ig.
I think the very worst of everything though, is that the stairs at the front of the house are at uneven heights. In October, we reported the very bottom stair not being attached to the staircase risking thing (it was resting on the brick pavement slightly wedged into the stairs), and they sent someone out to "fix it". What this dude did was move the bottom stair up a bit, nail some wood into the staircase railing thing, and then screw the stair into those. This sounds fine, but now there's a little gap between the stair and the ground, then a half gap between the bottom stair and the next stair, then a double gap between the 2nd and 3rd stairs. I was in Sydney at time, but was privy to a very angry message in the house group chat from the old LT, because he got home when it was dark, nobody told him anybody was coming to work on the stairs, and having lived here for 4 years, it's pretty obvious what happened next.
I've heard so many people trip on it. The postie tripped on it, food delivery people have tripped on it, almost everybody trips on it. Now, 9 months or whatever later, they're finally planning on fixing it. They're going to have a cknreter come out and install concrete stairs. I think that's going to look ridiculous, with brick pavement leading up to solid concrete stairs, which lead up to a wooden patio, but that's better than the current state. I did ask the obvious - why can't they just put the stair back the way it was, maybe screw it into the stairs, and at least keep things even and safe until they properly fix it, but apparently because how the stairs were was considered unsafe, and they've now "fixed" it, they can't unfix it because that'll make it unsafe again.
I could rant for a long time about the lack of adequate maintenance here (in fact I already did!) but it seems to be pretty standard in Melbourne for older homes. It's probably a little bit more shocking that we have such poor maintenance since the government owns the property, but I don't understand why we don't have better laws. Why are houses like the one in the video even allowed to exist? Why isn't that considered uninhabitable?
Do we have the worst housing condition standards of "rich/developed" countries?
PSA - Hot Chocolate Festival starts tomorrow at the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Great Ocean Road Chocolateries! Usually some pretty fun and zany flavours.
Woke up at bumfuck o'clock and couldn't get back to sleep, but it meant I could get my big daily walk in before work and thus I blew past 10,000 steps before 11am.
I managed to get a trip to Kmart after the doctor today but really didnโt like any of their trackie daks. They all had the wide rigid elastic waistband high and tight on your stomach and I canโt stand even the suggestion of being squeezed. Or it digging in if you bend. Also the rest of the stuff was ugly.
Amazon seem to lose a few parcels lol. They lost a phone case I ordered while I was staying at the AirBNB a month ago, and they lost my favourite rice crackers today. I got a refund last time, but this time I just wanted my crackers so I contacted them. Apparently they're resending it with same day delivery. Excluding uber parcels, and all the knockoff uber style delivery people, I've never had a parcel arrive same day before. I have the option on some things with Amazon, but even with prime, you have to spend 50 bucks to get it for free. Otherwise it's free next day