A little breathing room

Things are finally slowing down a bit. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel, and am beginning to see a decrease in my workload and stress level. Not that either is anywhere near manageable yet, but there has been an improvement. There are fewer things on my to-do list and they are smaller and less complex in scope. My deadlines are easier to meet and all the critical things are done or in the pipeline.

This week and last week have been good weeks because we've had a lot of visible progress which is quite satisfying. Today I let one of the contractor's guys in at 8, and then took off at 8:30 to do some other chores. At 11:30, I went back and had to wait for the plumber to come and install a heat duct in the bathroom. It's the last one and they had to wait for the bathroom ceiling framing to be done in order to do it. While I was waiting, I was digging up the mystery pipe in the back yard. See

April 4, 2006

http://mandcremodel.blogspot.com/2006/04/days-fly-by-and-more-rain.html

and

April 11, 2006

http://mandcremodel.blogspot.com/2006/04/another-slab-mishap.html

for an explanation of the mystery pipe. I worked for about 40 minutes, and then the plumber called to say he was running late so I stopped and went to get lunch. I went back and dug some more while he worked.

The digging wasn't so bad, even thought the yard is firmly packed. It's the darn ficus tree roots that make it really hard. It reminds me of the song from The Music Man "Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little" except for me it was "dig a little, cut a little, dig a little, cut a little." I was using a really small shovel (easier to work with in small spaces) and managed to scrape or shovel about 3 times before I had to stop and cut the roots. The landscaper architect assured us we could cut the roots without damaging the trees. Plus, ficus roots are notorious for spreading like weeds. Most of the ones I cut were between 1/8th and 1/2 inch thick. It was fun for a while. The exertion feels really good when you work on your own place. The mental tedium and slow progress are more difficult than the physical challenge of the job. I think the trick is to do about an hour a day and quit when it stops being fun. Fortunately, I can take my time with this task.

After the plumber left, I actually took a few hours to do much needed personal chores such as food shopping, post office, bank, laundry, etc. It was so nice to be able to do that.