It had frosted overnight and everything was coated with this crystal rime...
The frost was so light it melted immediately when hit with sunlight. At left below is a design in frost left by the picnic table and southwest corner of the cabin shading the deck...
Then I was motivated to get the ugly black Naugahyde hide-a-bed out of the cabin. In fact, I felt rather obsessed with getting it accomplished ASAP. I knew I'd better strike while the iron was hot. My energy level is inconsistent.
It was a beautiful day, sunny, not too hot, only a little breeze and this is what I needed because I had to move almost everything out of the cabin onto the deck in order to manipulate the two hide-a-beds around each other and get the black one out the door. I knew it wasn't going to be fun, so I guess that's why I had procrastinated. I'm not sure what time it was when I started. Around 10 a.m. I think.
The first thing that happened was that when I opened the hide-a-bed to remove a piece of foam my sister had deliberately closed into it, the mechanism that is supposed to hook the seat to the back, so that when you push the seat down, the back comes up, would no longer work. So after several attempts, I was able to strong-arm the back and seat together and force the thing into couch mode.
Then I discovered when I tried to scoot the hide-a-bed out the door that it was, of course, too wide...
I don't know how whoever brought it into the cabin did it unless they took the legs off and turned it sideways, but I decided to take the door off ...
...so then I had to remove the wood trim. This was nailed in, so I had to use the pry bar, but had difficulty getting a space started into which to place the pry bar and I ruined another screw driver in the process. I removed the trim on one side, thinking that would be adequate, but no, the couch got stuck again and this time, it was really stuck and I couldn't get all of the nails out of the trim on the north side because they were wedged in by the couch...
So I just broke off the trim and kept raising the couch up and over the remaining piece of trim. I would work from the deck side, then clamber over the couch and work from inside the cabin. Finally, I got enough of it outside that I could raise it up on end. I really wish someone had been around to take a photo of that! I even had myself caught at one point between the upended hide-a-bed and the southwest corner of the cabin, but finally horsed the end around so I could lower it with some control so I didn't drop it on my foot or damage the deck.
Afterward I just collapsed onto the couch and tried to recover. My muscles were quivering. But the sun was starting to go down and the mosquitoes were starting to come out and they are terrible this year. Huge and quiet and poison. One feasted on the side of my face during the night last week and the bites still itch and are slow to heal. I knew I needed to get the door back on. Well, of course, the holes in the hinges wouldn't align with the screw holes and I had to shim up the door to get it the right height and broke a screw off in one hole in the process. I finally got the hinges screwed more or less back in place so at least the door would close. But, with the trim removed, I had to tape around the door last night to keep the mosquitoes out.
Then I decided as long as I had everything out of the cabin I might as well take down these two shelves that had been bugging me because of their placement. In addition, this is where I wanted to put the secretary I had bought at Goodwill last weekend which was still in the car. I was able to get the lower shelf off, although someone had screwed the screws in at an angle and they were hard to remove.
When I tried to remove the top shelf, one of the screws just screwed around and around without coming out. I think you have to put some tension on the screw when this happens, but I couldn't get a screw driver or a pry bar under the shelf and was too exhausted to pursue options.
I was afraid it might rain overnight so I had to bring everything back into the cabin. That probably took another 45 minutes and I was so fatigued I didn't take much care in where I put anything so I can hardly move in here. And this was supposed to make things better!
I had intended to take the couch to Goodwill, but I really did a job on the vinyl and it is torn to shreds along the bottom front.
Talk about Dog Patch! I'll have to figure out how to get it to a landfill I suppose. I don't think they'll take it at the city dump.
At some point during all of this activity yesterday, I got THE CALL from Boulder Housing Authority indicating they had an apartment for me to look at and I made an appointment to see it today at 1 p.m. It's a small one-bedroom, but clean, and the building itself is surrounded by trees and the unit is on the quiet side of the building. I really liked the on-site manager. I said I'd take it. I have to update just a few of my financial documents, which I will take down tomorrow, then I think it's a go. This is really going to make it easier for me to make my own arrangements during the month of July when I think my sister and her husband will expect to be able to use the cabin for vacation...and, ha, ha, I'll have a shower and they won't!
Oh, and did I say I'd also finally put out the hummingbird feeders yesterday because this early bird that had been here last week was dive bombing me yesterday, making it clear in no uncertain terms, that he/she remembered being fed here last year and expected the same this year!
This has been a pretty eventful two days, and I've decided if I can move a hide-a-bed single-handedly, there "ain't" much I can't do! Teddee
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