Week 1 of vacation

Now tonight - Wednesday evening - begins the first day of Succot which commemorates the Jews' trek through the wilderness. Those of us old enough to remember RE classes at school, here as I grab my walking stick LOL, we remember how they would always read the story of the Jews' trek through the wilderness to the Promised Land. Well Jews lives through this story each year through their holidays, from Passover through to Succot, each holiday commemorating an aspect of their epic journey through the wilderness after their escape from Egypt. As part of Succot the Jews build temporary wooden structures known as Sukkahs, to remind them that they were wanderers who dwelt in temporary abodes in the wilderness. Here as I ponder my impending eviction from this house, I have always been a wanderer, a nomad, from apartment to apartment, about to embark on this lifestyle once again........

So much has happened this first week of vacation. Every day it has rained. In fact it has rained every day this September, close to the wettest September on record. I think we will end up with more rain in September than the whole of Winter!! Here I was complaining we never get any rain!!!! Now we getting too much rain!! LOL!!!! The universe has a sense of humor!! LOL!!

Anyway last Thursday the Valuer did pay me a visit, a little earlier than expected but didn't mind that at all, I wanted this out the way so have the rest of the day to myself pondering on the implications of having to move out. So he came, measured the various parts of the property with his tape measure, and taking a wee bit more pixs with his digital than I wanted. I didn't know he'd be taking pixs, many of the pixs were inside the house with my belongings in view, etc. Uh well, such is life, as long as he wasn't working for the FBI or the MIB team investigating my connections with ETs and UFOs!!! LOL!!

Since then I had up to now no more words nor dealings with the landlord nor any other agent, so I went to work on my plans, to spend a couple of hours each day cleaning the house and yard, beginning with the most intense jobs first - cleaning the oven which hasn't been cleaned in over a year. I bought two cans of oven cleaner for this task which did the hard work for me, all I needed to do was to wait a few minutes then simply wipe out the oven, and it is now like a new oven.

Saturday was Yom Kippur, and then Sunday I begin the next task - all those venetian blinds, a total pain in the arse to clean, having to deal with each slat at a time. However this is where my steam cleaner comes in handy. I first run the steamer over the slats which takes the hard work out of removing two years of dust and crap, then I just wipe it with a damp cloth, and about two hours later for each window, it is like a new set of venetian blinds. The steamer doesn't actually save time, it takes just a long to clean them, but it does save the elbow grease, so I don't end up with a sore back!! Anyway the three bedroom windows, the dinning room window and living room window has the venetian blinds. So starting with the dinning room window I do one each day, though the living room window I do over two days as that is a large area, more than twice the size as any of the other windows.

So Sunday morning I finished up the dinning room window within a couple of hours early in the morning, and it turned out to be a sunny morning after the past two days of storms, high winds and heavy rains. So I drove the short distance to Lake Monger and I walked around the lake, a distance of 3.9 kms according to my phone app which tracks my progress using the GPS. Would have done my Mother proud LOL, before she got sick Mother would go for walks every day. Anyway the sunshine didn't last. Soon after I gotten back home around lunchtime the rains returned!! This seems so hard to believe after the near driest Winter, it now rains every day, I am beginning to wonder if it will ever stop raining!!

Monday the weather was relatively clear again, so I took the opportunity to do some much needed yard work, mowing the large expanse of the back yard, mostly of weeds! LOL! The back yard is so large that I usually mow the lawn half at a time, but this time I did the whole yard, followed by a bit of weeding and sweeping the path..... all before the rains returned!!!! That was my work for the day, a little over two hours that day.

Tuesday I did one half of the living room venetian blind, and today Wednesday the other half. Then I went to the shops for a spot of grocery shopping. I also searched online for someone to fix my trailer, the lights and electricals are not working. I think I found someone who will fix the trailer, I understand they come out on site either at home or work to fix the trailer. So will wait until after my birthday this Friday to arrange for trailer repairs, cos I think I may possibly have visitors on that day. I will need the trailer to move my many belongings, moving house will very much be DYI.

Now I have three more windows to do, the three bedroom windows done over three days, but each is smaller than the dinning room or the half living room window, so it shouldn't take me long to clean each one. Next after that will be the kitchen and bathroom cupboards, getting rid of all those cockroach stains but again with the steam cleaner it should be a breeze. Meanwhile I am waiting for the next clear day, or at least a clear morning, so to tackle the front yard, fortunately about half the size of the back yard, and easier to maintain. The lawn just needs cutting again.

Tomorrow - Thursday - is the first day of Succot, and according to the forecast on my weather app on my phone, it should be "mostly cloudy" with just a chance of rain up to 9am, then "mostly clear" for the rest of the day. So just maybe I will be able to go for another walk, I hadn't been on any more walks since Monday due to the weather.

Then Friday is the day this planet completes its 50th circuit around the Sun since the start of my current incarnation - the start of my life on this planet! I had never celebrated my birthday since Mother's death, and also that I was busy dealing with Sally's health issues, too busy being home nurse to Sally. My birthday just reminds me that Mother is no longer here, and it is rather depressing the thought of turning 50. So I am gonna treat it as just another day, either cleaning one of the bedrooms venetians, or mowing the front lawn depending on the weather.

Now to keep things in perspective in regards to birthdays. One's "age" is simply a numerical value being the number of trips one's home  planet has made around its parent star since one's birth. Here on Earth, it is the number of trips the Earth has made around the Sun. Obvious this numerical value will be different for each planet, since the period of time taken for each trip around the star will be different for each planet. So with me being 50 Earth years, here below are the planets of this Solar System and my "age" if I was born on any of these planets.....

Mercury - 208 - sheeze I feel like that some days!!!!
Venus - 80 - where's my walking stick!!!!?

Mars - 26 - I wish!!!!! *sigh*
Jupiter - 4.2 - Just in kindergarten!!!
Saturn - 1.7 (20 mths) - Still in my diapers!!
Uranus - 0.6 (7 mths) - Just crawling
Neptune - 0.3 (3 mths) - Still breast feeding - yummy!! hehe!!
Pluto - 0.2 (2 mths) - Just laying in the cot being a pain!!

So Mars will be my planet of choice since I would be a very young age of 26 years if I was born on Mars. But no I will not be applying to join the Mars One mission!! Oh yes some private enterprise is planning to send humans to Mars in ten years from now with the goal of colonising the planet, their progress being followed on TV in the form of a TV reality show. The catch is, it will be a one way trip, there is no return trip back to Earth!! Now I might be crazy but I am not THAT crazy. But apparently there has been over 200 000 applications for this mission, that means, 200 000 people wanting to make this one way trip to Mars never to return to Earth for the rest of their lives!! Its not that the trip isn't well thought out. The plan is to first use robots to set up the living quarters, each of the initial four people will each have a pod about half the size of my current house, still relatively roomy, and each interconnected by passageways. Then every two years or so, four more people will join them, thus making a sprawling little Martian equivalence of a village. Of course they would have to grow their own food, etc, and you couldn't just go outside for a walk - well you could but would need a space suit which everyone will have. But... nah.... as much as I would enjoy paying Mars a visit and perhaps staying there for a while, I would prefer the option of going back to Earth!!! Anyway you can read all about it here..... http://www.mars-one.com/en/

Speaking of space travel there is the possibility of ET contacts. Many astronauts have had UFO sightings and other contacts with ETs, they're just not allowed to talk about them! Well being a Contactee myself I do know they exist...... and so I finish with this video by Karen Carpenter.....