Yeah, I know, I’ve been quiet since October 24th. In my defense I was 1) still recovering from the cancer surgery, 2) cleaning the house for guests (and that took a whole month in itself), then 3) decorating the place for Christmas.

On the upside I’ve managed to keep the house relatively clean and I hope that can continue once I find some contract work. We are in desperate need of a new air handler for downstairs, foundation repair, and a bunch of other expensive repairs, and until I start making more money with the books the only way to do that is for me to pick up contract tech writing/instructional designer work. Meh—it is what it is.

On the plus side I finished a knitting project today (a Doctor Who scarf) and I think I can knock out a second one in the next two days (a coordinating beanie), which is a good way to kick off the year. I also decided to try and put the blinds up again in my office window, which has been a saga in itself. They’re cordless, which means you have to install two or three clips that the blind bar snaps into, and when I tried doing it before my knee surgery I completely screwed up the placement. To make matters worse my then-bad knee started screaming at me so I just left the blinds standing next to the window until, well, today.

So, yeah, guess what I screwed up again? Yup, the clip placement (you have to position them so that they don’t hit the flywheel innards in the blind bar), and now there are a bunch of holes in the top of the window inset. I’ve repaired everything with spackle and I’m going to pick up some plain white paint tomorrow (since the 15-year-old can of paint I used to paint the office is completely dried up) and paint the ceiling of the inset, then try again.

By the way, this burst of DIY may or may not have something to do with the fact that I binge watched Bargain Block and Fixer to Fabulous over the Christmas break. Ahem.