Distracted!

Sometimes I need a distraction, and other times I need a distraction from the distraction. Sometimes I just procrastinate. When the dishwasher decided to no longer drain effectively, I was able to set my concerns aside by busying myself with getting read to travel last weekend. Plus, I ran a rinse cycle and was pretty certain that the water was gone. Upon returning home, despite my best efforts to will the dishwasher to work, I found that things were most likely terminal. I did not have it in me to try to nurse a twelve year old kitchen appliance back to health. I also remembered that I do not mind washing dishes by hand, but drying them is completely unacceptable, and I was running out of room to effectively place items to air dry. Yes, I considered going to buy a dishrack, but then stopped to consider all of the things around the house that I was not giving the appropriate attention to.

Once I set my sights on a new dishwasher, I felt compelled to consider some of the other issues that have been present for far longer. Do you ever manage to put things off for such a crazy amount of time, but then need them done immediately when you finally do spend five seconds pondering them? I think part of the urgency for me, is the fear of knowing how easily I can be distracted and not being sure when my next burst of interest, let alone energy, might come.

Here is a little run down of what needed to be done, and by that, I guess what I basically mean is that these are items for which I needed to make phonecalls to find other people to complete the task. I am pretty sure it is the involvement of other people that hinders my progress, or more specifically the lack of any idea just how much money these folks will all want. Of course, I will also include a few notes that I am pretending excuse my delay.

My van - tire pressure light seemingly has a mind of its own (easy to ignore when it decides to go out), weird noise possibly related to steering that comes and goes (making it easier to ignore), and a shimmy when braking (that I was trying to ignore until someone else drove the van and questioned it)

Washing machine - my selection of a washing temperature seems irrelevant to what temperature water the machine uses (the clothes were clean, and does anything around here do as I say?)

Refrigerator - making more noise than usual (food is cold...for now)

Driveway - after having the bottom of the driveway saw cut to make repairs, we need to have another topcoat put on. Noticing more cracking starting, uh-oh. (not a fan of calling for estimates, also thought the great outdoors fell out of my jurisdiction)

House - needs to be power washed (tendency to pretend that I am qualified for this job, plus I just got the porch looking so nice and would have to move everything)

Okay, so you get the idea of how my beautiful mind works. I temporarily appreciated the fact that these items distracted me from the fact that my son will be turning sixteen in six weeks (and should have a safe van to drive...aaaaaaack!), and that I need to remember to order that book about paying for college that my friend told me about (I hope it's on sale?), and just the rest of what parades through my mind at reckless speeds. Then the distractions just morphed into actual concerns, which I already had enough of, so I took action!

Let's see how some of that turned out...

On the way to drop my van off at the car place last night, my husband pushed the button to put his van window down and it slammed down into the door as if someone dropped it. Suffice to say, it would not "roll" back up. He stopped in at the car place this morning, and that will be $300 to fix. My van is suffering from some brake needs and has one worn tire. Odd, especially since all tires were replaced less than one year ago. Apparently they were replaced with three different styles of tire. (Remind me again why I hate having estimates or work done.) Last I knew we were up to $800 for that van, but I don't think all issues had been addressed yet. I stopped getting text updates after informing the husband that I wanted to vomit. His last text simply said "Please do."

Since I had two appliances ailing, I figured it was worth a service call. (Yes, I almost put the dishwasher on that list, but the other two appliances are only five years old.) I am stranded at the house today with no van and waiting for a dishwasher to be delivered, so the guy might be able to fit me in.

When I was looking at the unreachable spot on the front of the house that really needs to be cleaned, I noticed that this was going on over the porch...

Not sure if he is a tenant or a visitor, but then pondered whether I should have the house sprayed for bees (if it isn't too late), and realized that would need to be done after the power washing, which makes little sense as then the bee stuff will be all over the place. I once again stomped my feet a bit claiming this news story was certainly not supposed to land on my desk. I suppose I could find some big girl underwear and go get some sort of spray...if I had a van!!!!! 

The barn swallows are back to heckle me, by flinging mud at my front door. I cleaned the mess, and they repeated the violation, and that IS personal (see here, here and here for that recap) so I responded by replacing some of the beautiful tin foil deterrent system.

Yes, I do see now what a shoddy job I did. However, there was no mud on the front door today. Oh geeze, I just looked outside though, and it appears they mustered up some bravery and lifted an edge of the tin foil. 

I would tell you the point of all of this, but I am too distracted now! (And yes, there is a chance that there was no point.)