kareina

 On Thursday we took down the two windows in the west wall of the living room and covered the opening with thick plastic so the cats can't get out.  The workflow we have fallen into for painting the windows is that we take them down together (he stands outside on a ladder and holds the window, I stand inside and use the crowbar to provide lift to get them off the hinge, then I put down the crowbar while he holds the window, I take the window from him and bring it into the house. Then he comes around and carries it downstairs, where I remove the various hooks and interior blinds and attachments for the blinds. Then we take it out the garage door, where Keldor and uses a rondel to remove most of the paint. That part usually takes around half an hour to 45 minutes, depending on how difficult the removal step was this time. 

Then our assistant, H. takes the nicer power sanding tools and finishes up the sanding--smoothing out any gouges the roundel may have made, and getting the inner bits of wood (these are double pane windows that are original to the house, which was built in 1956) next to the glass itself with the little triangle sanding tool. He normally spends 1.75 to 2 hours on this step. Then I paint them in several coats over the next two days (more coats for those places where the old paint didn't come off in that much sanding, as the windows were white, but we are painting them black, as it looks better to my eye on the yellow brick house). A day later I put the blinds and hooks etc back on the window, and we can put it up. 

In order to make the process more efficient, every other set of windows (there are two narrow windows per set, save for the big living room window, which has two narrow surrounding one bigger one) instead of putting up new plastic we just take the new painted windows and put them up in the next location so we can take down the next pair and get them painted (the inner parts of the windows seem to have never been repainted, and thus have peeled and cracked to bare wood on most of the windows, so it is seriously time for this project).

So Thursday Keldor got the preliminary rondel sanding both of the new windows done in the morning, then resumed his work on knife handles leather projects, and in the evening he even did the preliminary roundel sanding on the window sill/frame, since that window opening is covered with plastic, so the dust (mostly) doesn't come into the house. That evening H. came over and sanded one of the two windows, which I started painting, and he did the next on Friday evening.

Friday morning after work I thought I would do the finishing sanding on the windowsill etc, but the ladder was in long mode. So I carefully moved it to laying on the ground (without hitting anything, including Keldor's old car, which will be given to H when the job is done), and pulled the release lever to let it fold in half, as I would rather have it standing as a more stable triangle as I stand on it to use power sanding tools.  I the started folding it in half. It must not have liked it, because it bit me! I am not certain how it happened, but suddenly my left forearm was clamped in the top of the fold of the ladder. I cannot recommend this experience. I managed to open the ladder back up, and looked at my arm, which had a pronounced dent in it from the pressure, and the thinnest, top layer of skin had been scraped up. It wasn't bleeding, and while it hurt, it didn't hurt much, so I left the ladder laying on the ground, went in the house, wrapped a clean paper towel (the industrial sort that are super strong) around it, got an ice clamp from the freezer applied it to the dented area, and took an alvadon. Then I went to wake Keldor and let him know that I had hurt myself.

He was appropriately sympathetic, looked at it (it still looked dented and gross, but it wasn't bleeding), and we confirmed that while the affected muscle didn't really appreciate being asked to do so, I could move all of my fingers and still have good grip, so it was probably only soft tissue damage.  So we carefully used a q-tip to spread bruise ointment on the damaged area, I took a second alvadon, I lay down in bed nestled the arm into a pillow with the damaged area up, added a washcloth over the paper towel, and then put the ice clamp over it, and another over that. Then, after feeling sorry for myself for a little while, I managed to fall asleep, and slept for three hours.

By the time I woke up the dent in my arm had vanished, and the area was slightly swollen instead, but not looking very bruised, so the treatment must have helped. But the area hurt a little if I did anything with my hand that used that muscle, and I was afraid to let anything touch it. So I wrapped a bit of foam around my wrist below the problem area, and another around my forearm above the problem area, and then took an old bit of padded forearm armour that Keldor had in the loaner pile and wrapped it over the foam, so that nothing was in contact with the damaged area, but if anything should bump my arm, nothing would come in contact with the damaged area.

Since I wasn't feeling my best (the arm didn't actually hurt if I didn't try to use it, but it felt wrong, and I really didn't want to use it at all) I spent the day listening to the recorded lectures for my Forntid i Norden summer course, and managed to get pretty caught up on that, and Keldor went to town and ran lots of errands. Soon after he was home H said that he was done with the window, and could he come over tomorrow to work again, and, by the way, we are out of the triangle sandpaper for that machine. If only he'd mentioned that while Keldor was still in town, or before he left! But he didn't, and neither Keldor nor I thought to check on those supplies, as we aren't the ones using that tool. Keldor was much too tired after running errands to take down another window, and while my arm was feeling better after resting all day, I didn't really want to be helping lift a window with it. Therefore, we let H. know that we probably wouldn't manage to get another window ready for him to work on for tomorrow, but hopefully by Sunday.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling much better, and started the day finishing the painting on the window that was still in progress, and put the blinds etc. back on the one that had gotten its last coat of paint Friday morning before I hurt myself. I then ate breakfast, while Keldor drank his morning tea, and mentioned that I was feeling good enough that I was considering cutting back the plants growing in front of the office window so that it would be possible to put the ladder there, so we can take those windows down next. Keldor really didn't want to go back to town again so soon, but he is only on vacation till the end of the month, and the process goes much faster if he can help, so better to do the 100 km round trip directly, so that the window can be sanded, so they can be painted, and we can get this project done before the snow flies. I (thought I) volunteered to go with him and keep him company if he was going. (it turns out that he heard "Om du vill kan jag åker i med dig", and not "Om du åker idag skulle jag gärna följa med och håller dig sällskap", which is what I tried, to communicate, but didn't actually say--I blame not having Swedish as my native language). but he pointed out that it would be more time efficient if I stayed home and cut back those plants, so I just kept him company via telephone as he drove.

My arm didn't once complain as I worked cutting back those plants, which I have never liked, and we don't even want growing up against the house--I had managed to dig out by the roots all of the ones in front of the living room winter last autumn, but ran out of time for that project before the snow fell, and we hadn't had time this spring to uproot the ones by the office. Hopefully, we will have time/energy this autumn to dig them out, so they don't grow back again next year, and before he got home I also managed to reassemble the two windows, so they are ready to put up in the office and we can start the sanding and painting of the office windows. 

Saturday evening I took a the little triangle sander (since it once again has paper) to the living room window sill/frame in progress, and used a chisel to get the paint off of areas where even that can't reach. It was getting kinda late (the sun was down, but, of course it still doesn't actually get dark yet, we are still too far from autumn equinox to achieve full dark after sunset), and I asked Keldor (through the plastic, which is opaque enough that I couldn't see him) if it was going to rain anytime soon, and did I need to do the painting too, or could I get that in the morning? He looked at the weather app and I thought I heard him reply that it wouldn't rain again till Thursday, and, happy with the answer I promptly forgot about weather, finished up what I was doing and came in and worked on a sewing project instead before doing yoga a bit after midnight and going to sleep around 01:00.

When I woke just before 08:00 I saw that it had rained in the night. Oops. I must have heard wrong. So I put on clothes and went out to look. The window sill was still dry, even though a very light, misty rain was falling (house eaves work!), but the phone app said that it would rain off and on all day, so, since the rain wasn't the sort to make one wet, I started painting. It started raining a bit more. I switched to painting from the bottom up, instead my normal top-down approach. It started raining enough to really call it rain. I managed to get the entire sill and bottom of the frame done to a height of about 30 cm before the thunder started and the rain really started coming down enough that I started to get wet.

So I went in and had breakfast, then went back downstairs and did another coat of paint on the window in progress. Then I looked outside, and the rain was back to the barely noticeable fine mist that it had been when I started painting, so I went out and used the paint brush to brush away the water drops from the windowsill and make that layer of paint look uniform again, then I painted the rest of the frame before coming in and typing up this report. As I was typing Keldor woke up, and we talked. He tells me that I had, in fact, misheard him yesterday, but not much. He had said that it would not rain again till tisdag, not torsdag, so it wouldn't have made a difference if I had checked the app myself, I still wouldn't have expected this morning's rain. Hopefully it will be fine.

We still have the two office windows to take down and paint, and then the big living room window, which is two small and one so big that I wonder if we will just paint it in place, rather than trying to lift it down. We need to finish the windowsill/frame in progress, and we will need to do the windowsill/frame from the music room window (those windows are done), and the windowsill/frame for the office and big living room window. But if we can at least get the windows themselves done before winter, that will be good.

...but also too busy to post much since returning from Durham. Therefore I will take a quick moment to check in and say that I am alive and well.

Ellinor and I met for acroyoga during lunch break today, and we are both pleased with how much we have leveled up lately--things that used to be hard are easy, and we are learning new things and challenging ourselves. So much fun!

Then, after work I went to Phire practice, were I did some acroyoga with the newer people. It is much harder working with someone inexperienced. However, one of the new guys, Carlos, is only 50 kg--it was such a delight to have him fly to my base. While I am strong enough to, just support Ellinor's 75 kg on my feet as I lay on my back, I can't do with her the challenging things she does with me as the flyer. Carlos, on the other hand, is so easy to support on my feet, and I think that if he is interested, I could learn to be the base with him flying for everything that Ellinor and I do (though it would, of course, take time and work to get my strength up for it).

Cajsa and I worked together for a bit with her as the base--it worked well for airplane and throne, but when we tried the cartwheel in from the side stuff that is so easy when I do it with Ellinor it just didn't work. We tried several times in a row, and either had to abort, or I gently fell to the floor, as she eased me down. Then there was a slightly more abrupt fall, which, despite her slowing me down, somehow I managed to land with my right arm on the floor, and my right knee on my upper arm, just above the elbow, in such a way that I was effectively kneeling all of my weight on the poor muscles of my arm. (I do not recommend this).

Undaunted we got up, laughed (I rubbed the bit of the arm that had been slightly squished a bit to help not notice that it hurt a little), and we tried again. This time we twisted a different direction, and I pulled much harder with the right arm than I should have, putting too much strain on the brachialis (little muscle under the bicep that is really useful for pulling and rotating the arm), so that it hurt a bit (which may or may not be related to having knelt on that arm just before then). So I took the hint and we quit for the day, and I even had the sense to take a plastic bag outside to get some snow to put on the afflicted area. I also learned that one should NOT try to open the heavy uni doors with the slightly injured arm, as that muscle plays a vital role in pulling a door.

Given that my arm was having issues I decided that I wouldn't stay for choir (which I haven't done yet since getting back, so they don't know I have considered it, and thus don't miss me), but instead took the bus home, and then spent an hour shoveling snow. I am pleased to report that there is no problem pushing the shovel with that arm, but I had to be very, very careful emptying the shovel each time, doing that part only left handed. But we have had enough snow that at least one driveway needed clearing, especially as it it predicted to warm above zero, which would make the snow hard to move later, and if it then freezes again (and it will), it would be all bad.

But after shoveling I decided to take it easy. I put some tigerbalm on the sore muscle, then curled up on the couch with a book (re-reading the third book in the Alpennia books before the short story about one of my favourite characters from the books is released tomorrow. I only read till my phone complained about a low battery, did yoga (somewhat modified and shorter than normal) and then decided to check in here before taking a hot shower and heading to bead kinda early for a change. I hope the arm is back to normal before the next time Ellinor has time in her schedule for practice!