chores – The Big DumpTruck

Working From Home

Posted on June 21, 2013June 21, 2013 by The Jody

I’m working from home today. Most of the year I work from home on Fridays because my son has an out-of-town rehearsal on Friday nights and it’s the only way to make that work. Now it’s just my normal schedule. I work in the office most other days unless I have an appointment of some kind. I’m hoping to have my floors replaced this summer so that will require me to be here to get estimates.

So instead of driving 45-60 minutes to my regular work location, or 60-70 minutes to the RI office, I had the pleasure of spending that extra hour at my house. During my normal commute time (somewhere around 7:10 to 8:10) I was been able to

weed my shoe bin(s) and switch winter for summer
send off my Roomba to do my bidding
replaced a lightbulb
fill the dishwasher, and
start a load of towels (I like to do towels when working from home because they are care-free. If I am in a meeting and can’t get them into the drier right away, it’s not a problem. )

I can wear less expensive clothes when I work from home, and I’ve used no gas, and caused zero wear and tear on my car. And I still wouldn’t be at work yet but here the laptop is fired up and I’m already reading emails and working on a document due later today.

Telecommuting on Fridays improves my work-life balance cause I can enjoy that much more of my Saturday because I won’t have to do any of the things that I did when I would have been sitting in the car getting annoyed at other people who simply do not know how to drive during standard commuting hours. Next step: Write a self-help book called “How to Commute Like a Real Human Being So The Person Behind You Doesn’t Want to Run You Off the Road.” It will be huge.

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Ears to You, Snowstorm

Posted on January 14, 2008February 24, 2010 by The Jody

I am home today because I have an earache and oh, because it’s snowing like crazy outside. This is the 15th or 16th straight Monday that we’ve had a storm of some kind.

Okay, maybe not the 15th or 16th, and certainly not straight, but every storm so far this year, and I count ice storms, too, has happened on a Monday. I know this because we have the “do you think the rubbish guys are going to come today” conversation practically every Sunday night. The one time they did come, I showed you photos of them shooshing all over the street. So far, no trucks today, but I almost didn’t expect them.

The other treat is trying to figure out where to place the barrels so that the plows don’t knock garbage all over the yard. So you need to put them fairly far down (in case the rubbish truck does show up) but not so far that the snow thrown up by the plow doesn’t knock it over. It’s a delicate balance.

Personally, I’m ready for the next storm to be on a day other than Monday. Let some other part of Leominster deal with wondering if they should put out the rubbish.

photos

Catching Up On Other Things

Posted on December 3, 2007February 24, 2010 by The Jody

With NaNoWriMo over, I’m trying to catch up on all the other stuff I’ve been putting off. I have to do Christmas cards (maybe…I’m getting really bad about them) and our annual Christmas calendar (which requires a little more work than I’ve had time for).

I am also still going through all the Disney photos from October…slowly, ever so slowly.

Here’s another one for you, because you’ve been patient. If you like this one, there are a few more like it over in my flickr photostream.

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Two Go In, How Many Come Out?

Posted on November 24, 2007February 24, 2010 by The Jody

Mr Dump and Junior are painting the downstairs bathroom right now. I wonder who will be alive at the end of the day?

The reason for the painting? Well, it’s tied to the living room, if you can believe it. We bought a couch yesterday (what, you didn’t spend black Friday looking for a couch?) and the color they are painting the bathroom is the test for the color we eventually want to paint the living room and this is sort of a test of the color. That room needed painting anyway (the whole house does) so this is a good test. It’s a kind of almond color – I think this means I get to go shopping for new curtains, don’t you think?

We got a couch because the old one is just beat to hell. The arm is broken, the cushions have lost their cush, and the whole thing is just starting to look ratty. It is 9 years old – we bought it when Junior turned one, and we decided to just get something relatively inexpensive given that a toddler would be destroying it. And it lived through Phantom’s puppy years, too. I think we’re lucky it lasted as long as it did, to be honest.

So anyway, we have not put up the tree yet because the guys deliver the couch on Tuesday and that will be one less thing they have to work around. In the meantime, we are trying to clean the hell out of the downstairs, which should take the rest of the weekend given my complete disinterest in cleaning right now. In fact, to avoid having to clean the downstairs, I actually was cleaning upstairs. I have two garbage bags full of clothes to donate the Ginny’s, a garbage bag of clothes to throw away, and I put away all my shorts and summer pants. And that is just my stuff. I will maybe think about doing Junior’s stuff in the next few days or weeks. It’s not like his stuff will fit next summer anyway. I probably need to locate all the shoes he’s outgrown too.

Oh, so as for Black Friday, I was very proud of myself. We did not leave the house until almost noon. We went and grabbed a bite to eat and then went to Target to buy stuff we needed. I got some new socks, replenished my vitamin collection, got mouthwash, and bought a big snowflake to hang on the front door (I need to figure out the best way to plug it in, and then I’ll take a photo for you). I think the only impulse buy, other than the snowflake which wasn’t completely an impulse buy) was a small sewing machine. I have never owned one. I don’t know if that’s because I don’t need one, or if I think I don’t need one because I don’t own one. But this was one of those “hey, if you need to sew a quick hem, you can do it” kind of sewing machine, and it was on sale for $10. I think for ten dollars I will attempt to sew something with it. I am wearing a pair of my new socks right now and they are delightful. For the record, ladies, if you have trouble finding socks that don’t cut off the circulation because your lower legs aren’t stick thin, Target has a whole line of very cool socks that fit wonderfully. I will try to take a photo of those, too, so that you will know what kind of socks I’m talking about. I love them.

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Happy Belated Laundry Day!

Posted on July 30, 2007February 24, 2010 by The Jody

Yesterday was laundry day around Casa Des DumpTrucks. I think I personally did 375 loads of laundry. I know that there were parts of the floor I hadn’t seen in months that are now part of the family again.

We celebrated laundry day by, um, doing laundry. We also took in a showing of The Simpsons (only a couple of iffy words, I was more concerned about the content of the preview for Good Luck Chuck, or whatever it’s called, which seemed to me to be more R than PG-13, given that the entire thing was about sex) and got some shampoo at Target. (Pantene, I got the one that has shampoo and conditioner combined because I’m so damned lazy that I cannot be bothered to do them both if it involves flipping the cap on two different bottles. I haven’t done a 2-in-1 shampoo since Pert was first introduced in the Middle Ages and I hated how greasy it made my hair.)

Oh, okay, we also celebrated laundry day by playing a round of Travel Blokus (tip ‘o the hat to utterwonder.com for bringing Blokus to my attention) and Mario Party 8 on the Wii. And then I ended laundry day by pretending I had enough money to buy a wide angle lens for my camera. (Anyone have an opinion on the Sigma 10-20mm? Is it too slow to use indoors?)

Okay, so I added a script to the page that will automatically turn key terms into Amazon.com links. Let’s see how much of the above ends up sending you all on shopping sprees…