the deep moans round with many voices

Today I repotted a bunch of plants. Tomorrow I need to buy some more potting soil because I still have four to go.

I also need to buy a bit of chain for hanging one of my newly potted plants from the ceiling, but that's a less immediately pressing concern.

Some of the plants in question are houseplants, but others are from the Wine & Herb fest and need to go outside once potted.

I actually was going to take one out this afternoon, but when I did I discovered that I REALLY do not trust the structural integrity of my back porch/deck thingy. I must text Landlord Dude and let him know he needs to replace that this summer.

(For context, the deck is untreated wood and I have lived in this apartment since June of 2009. I do my best to keep the deck clean and clear, but there comes a time when decay cannot be staved off any further.)

Today was a good day with abundant spoons! (...I should go to bed early more often, huh.)

I managed to:

1. Attend a virtual tax prep CE class from 10am to 12pm, during which I learned stuff, participated in class discussion, and also cooked scrambled eggs and a toasted English muffin for breakfast, made tea in my new teapot, washed all my dishes, changed my sheets and towels, and made decent progress on a cross stitch project.

2. Wash laundry, dry laundry and/or hang items to air dry, and put away my linens. (Clothing can wait for tomorrow.)

3. Have a productive conversation with Downstairs Neighbor S, during which I returned a mason jar (she used it to give me a sunflower bouquet a while back in thanks for bringing in her mail); gave her an empty canning jar (I have no use for it and I know she cans fruits/veggies/etc.); and gave her $25 for candy purchases, a wicker basket, and my laminated "Take 2 Items" sign in preparation for Halloween. I also managed to end the conversation within 15 minutes without being rude! \o/

4. Attend a different virtual tax prep CE class from 3pm to 5pm, during which I learned stuff, participated in class discussions, and made more progress on my cross stitch project.

5. Buy groceries, and return a bunch of Coke cans for bottle refund credit now that I have figured out where the store moved their can/bottle return machines after their newest remodel. (They have added a tiny bank branch beside the customer service counter.)

6. Rearrange my dresser drawers to remove some items I don't use anymore and to create space for some new items I have recently purchased. This involved using some shoeboxes and USPS flat rate mailing boxes to make little designated sections, and I was therefore able to partially consolidate my collection of empty boxes.

7. Whack off the top of my schefflera, because it had gotten ridiculously leggy. I stuck the cutting in a vase to root, and might whack off another portion of the parent plant to see if I can encourage it to bush out a bit more.

8. Write and post my November rent check super early, and also pay off the rest of my October Visa bill. (I'd made a partial payment last week because I didn't have cash on hand to cover the entirety of my December airplane tickets. But! Last Friday was payday, so I can now cover the balance and not owe any interest.)

And now I think I shall mosey along in the general direction of my bed, because the older I get, the more I realize that sufficient sleep is a necessity rather than an optional bonus. *wry*

Things done recently:

1) Yesterday I realized I'd gotten so caught up in my job at the rental company that I'd forgotten to reapply for my seasonal job as a tax preparer at Not the IRS. I couldn't find the reapplication link on the relevant site, so I emailed the guy who coordinates that stuff and he told me the (completely non-intuitive) way to search for it. So this evening I updated my "resume" on file (basically tweaking the years at various jobs and adding my brand new experience creating video tours, so help me) and submitted my application.

2) I staged three apartments yesterday and three more today. One of today's apartments was very nearly a complete disaster, due to a glitch in how our computer system creates work orders. Basically, we needed to move furniture into a mostly unfurnished apartment, but the listing of the items already present created a phantom work order. When we deleted that, nobody (in either the rental office OR the maintenance office) realized we'd need to create a new work order for bringing in all the other furniture. So I went to stage the apartment and found it empty except for a bed and dresser. And the tenant was scheduled to arrive at 4:30pm.

This was, shall we say, less than ideal. Anyway, we were able to get in touch with Maintenance Dude directly, who corralled some Maintenance staff into fixing the problem -- and actually, I was able to streamline the issue slightly because I knew that, coincidentally, the tenant in the apartment literally next door wanted some furniture removed, and that included two pieces we needed to furnished the empty apartment. So that was helpful.

In the event, I got the photos and videos, and the tenant hadn't turned up to get their keys by the time I left at ~5:15pm, so who even knows what was going on there. *hands*

3) Tomorrow I have three more apartments to stage, one of which is a 3-bed 3-bath unit which is going to be a pain in my ass. The really annoying part, though, is that I couldn't have knocked off one of the other apartments back in July -- I just overlooked the fact that the previous tenant vacated early, so I exacerbated this time crunch myself in a way that could easily have been avoided. Gnrgh. Ah well. After tomorrow, I have only two more units to handle, and one may turn out to be unnecessary -- it only needs staging if the furniture has changed from last year.

4) I've been working on this whole "going to bed at a reasonable hour" thing, and I have to say, it produces really nice results! Yes, even after days when I have run myself into the ground. *wry* I will be continuing that streak tonight, because I need to get to work early tomorrow in order to have any hope of knocking off all three apartments.

5) My parents have 90% completed their move to Minnesota as of this past weekend. They still have some stuff in their NJ shed which they will collect in September (when they will be back on the east coast for some doctor/dentist appointments, and I think also for Nick to see a specialist at Johns Hopkins), but the real estate agent has taken pictures of the house and I think they will open for showings and offers next week. Everything is moving so fast...

6) My peppers and zucchini are doing well on the back porch. :)

And now I will go eat a light dinner and websurf a bit before I fall into bed in a timely fashion. *wry*

So today I spent 11am to 3pm staging apartments, taking photos and videos, and unstaging apartments. I also reviewed a bunch of packages lying around the mail room of one building in order to weed out items sent to tenants who have already moved out.

The heat was not quite as horrendous as yesterday, but very draining nonetheless, and my feet are still screaming bloody murder at me nearly five hours later. :(

Still, victory is sweet!

Tonight I have unboxed my newest tiny citrus tree, which will get a couple weeks to recover from shipment before I move it into a more permanent pot.

I have also received my NFE assignment, which is delicious and full of fascinating possibilities! >:D

...And I am still drained as hell, and will probably collapse into bed around 9pm, because holy FUCK I am tired and out of spoons.

(My peppers and zucchini, incidentally, should no longer be wilting because I watered the hell out of them when I got home from work. In theory Ithaca will get rain Sunday night, but it's been weirdly dry for the past few weeks, and I am not holding my breath.)

Things done today:

1. More inquiries.

2. More spreadsheets.

3. Our office phone system went down for a few hours in the middle of the day. That was fun, especially when Lawyer Man received a copy of an email that said, essentially, "I tried to call but your phones are down so I am emailing my question instead" and panicked a bit at me like three hours after I'd already answered the email and also the phones had been fixed. *headdesk*

4. Rented two apartments.

5. Scheduled a tour and an apartment inspection.

6. And in non-work news, I trimmed the interior of the lilac bush and installed my air conditioner! \o/ (These tasks are related because the lilac bush grows directly outside the window where I place my AC, so every year I have to hack away the new growth to create vacant space for the machine. I will do the main pruning job in a couple weeks, once the lilac has finished flowering for the year.)

Now I am going to nurse my new collection of mosquito bites in my slowly cooling apartment. *wry*