a week of reclamation

I'm not even going to pretend like the last 2 weeks has been a cakewalk.  Despite our growing excitement over being ready to skin the interior of the bus, the biggest frustrations we've had (vehicles, weeds, house...) are only now beginning to be resolved.  We're therefore declaring the first official week of Summer 2014 "Reclamation Week."

Since the last blog entry, life has been one big frustrating jumble and it wasn't until Friday night when we met the friendliest Polak ever who traded our sick Mazda for his working PT Cruiser, and we finally felt like we could breath again.  I would never have picked a PT Cruiser for myself, but I honestly feel like I lost my ability to be picky.  Major downsides to the Cruiser: it was previously owned by a seriously heavy smoker and it gives me asthma, it's an automatic not stick, and it was decorated by either a) a billiards junkie or b) a coke junkie since it was covered with 8-balls - window decals (removed), baby- and regular-sized fuzzy 8-balls (like fuzzy dice) which have now become as much fun as Steve to plant... even the door locks are 8-balls...

Anyhow.  Now Bill has a truck that he can haul crap with (it's currently loaded up with the last of the concrete pile we've been tripping over for a month) and I have a little compact car that isn't a road pig to park.  For almost 2 weeks we had only one working, insured vehicle (Clementine) and she seats ONE.  By Friday we had one working insured vehicle, one working uninsured vehicle, and one insured but not working vehicle.  Saturday afternoon when we managed to fix what was going to be a $1500+ repair by simply tightening contacts on Bill's truck battery, we had 3 working, 2 insured vehicles, and as of Monday morning, we have 3 working, insured vehicles.  The only shitty thing about the vehicle situation now is that ATCO is blocking our alley off for the next 3-4 weeks while they replace the gas lines and that means no Clemmy outings.  It also means that all of our garbage will have to be set in front for pick up.  It's going to be such an ugly 3 weeks...  ~sigh~

Bill finally conceded that hand-weeding the grassy knoll of dirt we need to use for regrading is not a viable solution given our time constraints.  I grabbed some non-selective herbicide and tried 2 heavy doses but to no avail.  A friend of ours said she would bring us the industrial strength stuff they have access to, but I think before pouring more chemicals I'd like to try the torch method.  I'm sure I'll have an impossibly difficult time convincing him to go shopping for a fire toy...

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North Country Fair obviously didn't happen, so we decided to make use of our weekend off and dive into yard and house-work.  Clemmy got a good airing out and we started setting her up for our "garage sale slash bus warming" party next weekend, and I tackled the nightmare of a living room where everything from the studio got dumped.  I'm close to being done but here's the before - I especially like all the random body parts laying around since Bob, Lucille, and Maria had most of their limbs removed for easy transport.

Saturday night we took a much-deserved beergarita break in the nice shady bus to ring in the summer with my BFF in Toronto.  Sad as I am that we have had to miss every single one of her legendary Solstice parties, and sad as we were to miss out on NCF, I think we had if nothing else a whole lot of much-needed progress.  Tonight I'll detail the Cruiser (who still needs a name - suggestions?) and finish reclaiming the living room and kitchen, then have big plans to move onto the basement cupboards with a vengeance while Bill finishes up reclaiming the yard...

Onward, onward!