A productive weekend

Now, if I could only get to the point where I was making actual forward progress instead of completing things that are long overdue or scrambling to make repairs, that'd really be something.

Friday a best buy repair guy came out to look at my wobbling washer. Upshot: The third-party installers were indeed crap, but so is my laundry room floor. It's not just uneven, it's squishy (unsurprising; house is 1960, laundry room has had water issues), which is why we could feel the washing machine in the kitchen, and why the washing machine took itself for little strolls (either that or it hates the life of a washing machine and wants to see the world).

He suggested reinforcing that section of floor with a bit of super thick (inch plus) subflooring, which is pretty much what dad had suggested, and gave me his direct line so I can call him back to check everything afterwards without spending an hour in customer service hell.

(He also liked cats, which is good, because when Calliope sees a human lying on the floor staring intently at something she assumes it must be interesting, and she gets down there and stares too.)

Spent Saturday at my parents' house printing my New Year's cards, since I broke my printer last week. Desktop printers are awful about odd paper sizes and I made the card using InDesign, which my parents don't have, so I went in armed with two different pdf versions (identical except for placement). Neither of them printed correctly. Thankfully dad had just installed photoshop CS2 (Adobe accidentally gave it away free a few weeks ago), which allows you to print with specific image offsets, and by rasterizing it at a high enough resolution to make smoke come out of dad's machine* I was able to shove things around until I could print 'em right. Then reprint them, because I somehow did the insides upside down. Then fight with mail merge. Then fight with getting printer to eat envelopes.

Dad was working on his shop and making trips back and forth to home depot, so he picked up a sheet of subflooring for me and had it cut to size, and I borrowed his long level and his handtruck (and car) for Sunday's adventure and made another trip to home depot for giant decking screws, so I could fix the laundry room.

Sunday started with cleaning the laundry room and moving the new washer and dryer so I could get at the floor under them. Dryer was easy; washer required both me, madalchemist, the handtruck, and a lot of grunting.

I spent awhile carefully leveling the piece of subfloor based of the high point in the far corner. Naturally I sunk the first screw there, and naturally it sank over an eighth of an inch and I had to relevel everything as I attached it. Seems like some of the floor squish was due to crappy vinyl, and screwing the subfloor over it acted like a clamp. Anyway, it took me waaaay too long fiddling with shims, but I got it securely down and, while not perfectly level, it's a vast improvement. madalchemist jumped on it as a test -- I could feel the floor move when he jumped on the floor, but couldn't feel it when he jumped on the new sheet. We shoved everything back where it went and re-attached all the things that needed attaching. Now I just need to get the nice repair guy out again and maybe the wobble will actually be gone.

My knees are bruised to heck -- I didn't think of getting my gardening knee pads until I was well into the job, and then I thought it'd be over soon, so why bother? (Hint: It wasn't over soon). Now when I kneel my knees touch the floor and then bounce back up almost of their own volition, and I end up doing the crouching tiger yoga pose to get things off the floor. :P

*Dad wants his computer to fail so mom will let him buy a new one, so he was actually hoping I'd abuse it past it limits.

A little bit of gloating

Saturday night while I was dressing for bed I picked something up -- not sure what -- and Erik gave a very startled, happy explanation.

"What?"

"You're CUT!"

My new years exercising plan is paying off -- I have more shoulder definition than I did a month ago! I didn't notice because it's in the back. It's not a huge sign -- I don't carry any weight on my arms, so muscle shows up fast, and my shoulders have always been far, far better than my arms (possibly from all the gardening), but it's still exciting to see results.

The "Tiny Morning Workout" plan is really doing it for me -- I've only missed two days since I started January 2nd. It's all about metagaming myself, really. I tried to do evening exercise multiple times in the past, but it's too easy to put it off, or to say I really, really need to get to bed, and fall off the wagon. They're 'tiny' because if it takes a really significant chunk of time I know I won't make time for them. I'm alternating legs, arms, and core, and nothing takes more than half an hour (I think I do the arm sets in 15 minutes, but it's about time to add another movement and maybe more weight).

The one oddity of my purty new shoulders is that they're asymmetrical. That's not terribly surprising -- we're all asymmetrical, myself more than most -- except that the left side is stronger, and I'm right-hand dominant. E and I tried to think of what could cause that all weekend. Last night I went home and Monkey wanted a cuddle, so I scooped him up, and... sure enough, my fifteen pound cat always goes on my left shoulder.

Mystery solved.