Workout Room

I've been doing some organizing/cleaning in my workout room. 

I Mean, It's a Possibility

I went through and deleted a bunch of shit from my SD card, so hopefully that was the issue with my camera and now I will be able to do videos again. Then again it may just be that the electronic curse has struck again. Speaking of the electronic curse, one of my clients was kind enough to come check out the issue with my electricity for the camper. He's an electrician and he had some kind of meter that is supposedly designed precisely for finding shorts in wires. Shockingly enough, it didn't work. I mean, it might have worked. From one direction it seemed like the signal stopped in one particular spot, but from the other direction it seemed there was nothing wrong with it at all. Of course, best case scenario, I'm still not getting into the camper; I'll just be getting how water in the pump-house. Still, maybe this will be one less thing to inconvenience the shit out of me. Maybe.

Signs (Video)

Well, I kept saying that once I got into my camper I was going to start doing videos more often. I've decided to just start doing more videos now. If you watch this one, you'll know why. 

Blah Blah Blah (Video)

I've been considering doing some video posts as opposed to written posts, so here is my practice run. Apologies for the terrible thumbnail, I couldn't get the other one to show up, the video does still work though.

You're Kidding Right? Right?...........RIGHT?

You know my electronic curse? That thing that causes every electronic device I ever own to break in weird, inconvenient, and irreparable ways? Well, it appears that it is not confined to electronic devices but electricity in general. You know how I said that my dad and I got electricity run to the pump house last week, and that all we had to do was hook up the panel box and I would have water at the pig barn? Well, it turns out that there is a short somewhere in the (I believe 80ft long) cable that we ran along the ceiling of my dad's shop and then under the ground outside, and there is no way for us to know where it is unless we dig the whole thing up and probably strip the coating off of it to find where the problem is. So yeah, I'd say we're back to square one with the electricity, but we're actually way farther back than that. What the fuck, Powers? Seriously, what the fuck?

Camper Update 2 (Video)

Since my sister and I still haven't managed to procure a reaper (I'm still hoping we have time before the end of the pepper growing season) and, therefore, I was not able to do another pepper review this week, I decided to just do a quick update on the camper. Sorry, I know that's not nearly as interesting as watching me try to burn myself to death from the inside out.

Busy Busy Busy

Sorry there was no post yesterday, it was kind of a crazy day.

First, my dad and I took a trailer full of stuff from the camper to the dump (always fun).

Actually, that wasn't first. While we were trying to finish loading the trailer, I kept hearing a kitten crying. I know I've bitched about the excessive number of cats at my dad's house before, so yeah, we pretty much always have kittens around. But this one sounded like it was coming form the pig field, needless to say that is a terrible place for a kitten to be. So I walked through the pig field trying to figure out where he was. Naturally, Tuni assumed that the only reason I could possibly be in her field was that I wanted to wrestle with her, so she kept grunting at me and trying to push me over. I finally got to the opposite end of the field and realized that the kitten was not, in fact, in the pig field, but in the tiny area between the pig field and the yard where my dad's dogs are. So I had to climb over the fence, crawl under a bunch of shrubbery to get to him, then climb back through the shrubbery while trying to hold onto him. Also, I'm fairly certain this particular kitten was on the porch the previous day, which means he had to go through the dogs' yard to get to where he was, not a good idea!

Anyway, after that we went to the dump.

Then we went to Lowe's to buy (hopefully) most of the rest of the supplies we will need to finish the camper.

Then, as soon as we got back, I turned around and went back to Clarksburg with my sister, to get groceries.

Then we got stuck in a ridiculous thunder storm.

Then it was 10:00 and I really just didn't give enough of a shit to write a blog post. Anyway, I think I will write my animal rightsy post tomorrow.  

P.S. We're doing my Typhoid Mary shoot tonight!

P.P.S. I chose this picture of Mary because I'm pretty sure this is what I looked like climbing through the brush trying to get to that kitten. 

Shocking

Well, surprise surprise, I didn't sell anything at the artist fair. My sister gave out some business cards, but that was it. I pretty much sat there and read Deadpool (and then a novel, after I finished the volume of Deadpool I had) for six hours. Then we went home. Super productive.

My dad and I did get a little but of work done of the camper today. We got the water lines into the well, and got the pump put together (for the most part). Next week, we're going to try to get the electrical lines over to the pump house, so we can make sure the pump works. Then we have about 8000 other things that we still need to do. So yeah, it's still going to be a while.

Speaking of shocking, in this issue, Deadpool did his version of The Aristocrats and I found it pretty hilarious (don't judge me!).

What Is That!?

My dad and I did some more work on the camper today. It turns out that it's not quite as bad off as we thought. It looks like all of the water in my "exercise room" actually came from the water heater which, when we took it out today, we found had obviously been frozen and busted. We initially thought that the roof had been leaking, which would have meant a lot more work and money, but it seems that is not the case. So yay! 

Unfortunately, I also seem to have been exposed to some sort of flesh eating substance. I was working, and I felt this stinging sensation inside my boot. I assumed it was some sort of bug biting or stinging me, but I was in the middle of something and it wasn't terribly painful, so I just ignored it. It just kept stinging though, so finally I stopped and took my boot off to check it out. I found absolutely nothing. I thought "Well that's weird" put my boot back on and kept working. It just kept fucking stinging though! So I took my boot and my sock off. When I looked at my ankle, I had this weird orange (and I mean orange!) mark, that was still burning even though there was obviously no bug. I have no idea what this shit is, but I now have two orange marks which are still burning even now! What is this? How did I possibly get some sort of corrosive substance inside my boot? And why is it so orange? 

It actually got less orange throughout the day. It was much brighter than this when it first happened.

Demolition

I think I told you guys that my dad and I have been working on the camper every weekend. This week, we started working on the pump, but it turned out that we didn't have all the stuff we needed, so we ended up working a little on the interior instead.

We tore out that weird table/bed thing that was in the "kitchen" and some of the stuff in the bedroom. Then, today, I finished taking out the rest of what was in the bedroom. I definitely have a hell of a lot more room than I did. Unfortunately it also turns out that there was a lot more damage in the bedroom than we realized. Along with the rotten floor, it turns out that a good portion of the walls and ceiling are rotten as well. Awesome.

Also, why is it that whenever I do demolition, I end up destroying myself as much as the thing I was trying to demolish?

Camper Update (Video)

This is basically a video of me talking about the fact that I finally finished that fucking ditch. I actually filmed it on Friday, so there has been a little more progress since then. My dad and I did actually finish the pump house over the weekend, and I am nearly halfway done with the second ditch. Anyway, this probably wasn't really worth filming, but I couldn't resist. 

The Most Supernatural Thing

There is this running joke in the Supernatural fandom that the most supernatural thing on the show is the fact that Sam gets wifi wherever he goes. Personally, I think it's actually how easily they dig up graves. Then again, cemetery dirt probably isn't as full of rocks and roots as my yard is, but still.

In case you hadn't guessed what I was getting at here, I worked on my ditch again today. I dug for about an hour, until I was utterly drenched in sweat (since it was upwards of 90 degrees today), and then said "fuck it!" I think I'm about halfway done. The rest of it may go a little quicker because I think I'm almost out of the really rooty/rocky part.....almost. Then there is still the other ditch to dig. Awesome. Anyway, digging is bullshit and Sam and Dean make it look way too fucking easy.

I wanted the image of these two guys digging up a grave and talking about how Supernatural makes it seem so easy, but apparently it doesn't exist. So this one will have to do.

Hell of a Workout

Well, I think I did enough physical labor over the weekend that I should be able to count it as my workout for the rest of the week (of course, I won't ....but I should). On Friday I helped put up hay, yesterday I dug a ditch for the water to my camper, then today my dad and I started work on the pump house.

The hay went pretty smoothly. That is, until a drunk guy decided to park his truck directly in the middle of the road and then get out and walk away! Apparently, this guy and a woman in another vehicle met on the road and, as opposed to  just scooting over so they could pass each other, he just sat there and tried to force her to back up. When she didn't, he started yelling profanities at her, then got out and walked away. It held us up for a good half hour. We did manage to get plenty of hay to last for quite some time though. So I guess it worked out okay.

As for the ditch digging, digging is the one type of physical labor that I absolutely hate. I think the main reason for this is that our property is basically nothing but fucking rocks! Every time I stick the shovel into the ground *thunk*. Then I spend ten minutes trying to pry the rock out, so I can lift the shovel up, plunge it back down and *thunk*. Every fucking time! So yeah, when I said I dug a ditch, what I really meant was that I dug a half-assed ditch that I will now probably spend the rest of the week working on, trying to get it deep enough to be any good.

Today, before we could start on the pump-house, we had to move the world's largest rock out of the way. It was insane. My dad and I each had a bar that we used to try to pry the thing out of the ground. We had to pry it up, then slide blocks under it, then pry it some more, then slide the blocks, then stack blocks on top of each other, then pry some more. It took forever, and I'm fairly certain that I was almost no help at all since, every time I tried to pry the thing, my bar just kept sliding through the dirt. Anyway, we finally managed to just roll the thing over into the ditch (not the one I just dug, but the one with the little stream in it).

So yeah, good times.

Except the digging, the digging sucked!

My New Home (Video)

Here is the video I promised of my new camper. Don't judge it too harshly, it doesn't look great right now but I think it has a lot of potential.

Look What I Got!

Yesterday, my dad and I went to Home Depot to get some stuff for my camper. We got a hot water tank, and some plumbing stuff (not terribly exciting) but I also got something that I am pretty excited about. Try not to laugh, okay? I bought some of those weird puzzle-piece foam tiles, like they put down in classrooms for small children. Here's my reason, I have been thinking forever about putting some kind of mats down in my exercise room and I thought that, since we have to replace the floor in there anyway, I might as well go ahead and do it the way I want to. I've been working out on various rugs my whole life, and it's just awful! They slide, they don't provide nearly enough cushioning, and (here's my favorite part) they give me fucking rug-burn on my shoulder blades and tailbone when I do sit-ups! Now, for the first time in my life, I might actually be able to do my workout without slightly injuring myself every time.

And I don't even give a shit if it looks like I'm living in a kindergarten classroom.

Sigh of Relief

My camper has finally arrived! It was delivered yesterday evening, and we can now start the process of getting it hooked up. I was honestly starting to think that I might never find anyone to haul it, but this last guy was really very easy to deal with and got it here even sooner than he said he would. There are a few issues that I didn't expect, like a saggy floor in the bedroom, but nothing too terribly bad. I'm actually really excited about it! You can expect a video introduction to my new home on Wednesday!

Behold my new camper!

Homeward Bound

My camper is officially on it's way! So it should be here sometime this evening. I'm still trying not to get overly excited until it's actually sitting in my yard, but the fact that the guy did manage to pick it up and get it on the road seems like a pretty good sign. Once it gets here, we will still have a shit-ton of work to do before I can live in it, but I think I really am on my way to having my own home (small and shitty though it may be).

The more I think about how nice it will be to have my own space, where I can do things the way I want to, the more I think that it will make a huge difference in my life. I truly feel like I will be much less angry and on-edge than I am now, if I can just do things my own way in my own "house". Who knows maybe I'll even get to the point where I truly think of it as home.

I guess I'm not so much homeward bound as my home is meward bound, but close enough.

Once More with Feeling

I finally found someone else to move my camper! He is doing it for the same price that I had agreed on with the first guy, which is nice since everyone else seemed to want twice that much. Supposedly he is going to pick it up on Saturday, and I should have it by Sunday. Also, I think my dad and I are going to go buy some stuff for my pump-house tomorrow, so that I can have running water sometime in the near future. Maybe, just maybe, things are starting to come together. Maybe.

No, Buffy. Not until the thing is actually sitting in my yard.....but then? Definitely! 

The Stupidest Thing Ever!

Would you like to hear the stupidest thing ever? Now you guys know how many stupid things happen to me, so you know that when I say this is "the stupidest thing ever" that is really saying something.

Remember how the guy who was supposed to move my camper backed out because the license pate was expired (and also, kind of, because of the bearings)? Well, as it turns out, the license plate is not in fact expired (also, it turns out that the bearings are good too). Apparently, when the guy who sold me the thing asked me what I was going to do about the license plate, he was just wanting to know if I needed him to leave his (still legal) plate on.

So yeah, now that I have already cancelled the deal with the mover, I find out that every single issues that was keeping him from moving the fucking thing is actually not an issues at all! Unfortunately, I now can't find anyone else who is willing to do it for anything remotely resembling a reasonable price. All of the other companies that bid on my shipment originally are now ignoring me, presumably because they don't want to deal with someone who cancels shipments. So, basically, I am now completely fucked for absolutely no reason at all!

Do you guys remember Freaks and Geeks ^ because it was a really good show.

Home

I just thought I would go ahead and explain to all of you why having my own space is so important to me that I'm willing to go through all of this fucking hassle just to get a shitty, thirty year old, camper to live in. The things is, I haven't had a place that feels like home to me since.....well....forever. I mean, I'm sure there was a time when I was a kid that I felt at home in my house, but I don't remember it. As long as I can remember, I have been trying to squeeze myself, and my life, and all my stuff, into someone else's space. I've never had a place where I felt comfortable. I've never had a place where I felt at home. I've never had a place that was mine. I need a retreat, a sanctuary, a place where I can go to feel at ease when I just can't deal with the world anymore. I need to know that there is one single place in the world where I can go where I won't have to pretend, or tip-toe around, or try to work my way around other people's stuff. I just need that feeling of home.