Longer days, projects, and procurement specialist

Monday, 7:12 pm

By Kate

Jan

26

2009

I realized today that it was still daylight at 5:10 PM. The days are growing noticeably longer. Since the winter solstice on December 21, we have gained 42 minutes of daylight. Today our sunrise occurred at 7:03 AM and sunset at 4:49 PM. Twilight was at 6:33 AM and again at 5:20 PM. I’m loving this extra daylight! I’ve also noticed that the sun is growing stronger and warmer (colorwise, too). The anemic (lack of) color of deep winter seems to be waning. Not a moment too soon. I can’t wait until Daylight Saving time on March 8.
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I have quite a list of projects for the rest of the winter. Some are definitely carry overs from autumn. I need to get busy. One such project is a carpet ripping project. I have lived with carpeting on my stairs for the last 15 years. And I don’t know why. Cleaning stairs with carpeting on them is a time consuming and lousy job. There is no vacuum cleaner on the market that makes the job any easier, I swear. And whoever built my house evidently never gave that job any consideration because there isn’t an electrical outlet anywhere in the stairwell.

For the first 18 years of my life, there was no carpeting on my stairs. And it was my job to clean them every weekend. It was pretty easy, too. A little dust mopping and, twice a month, a swipe with a damp rag. They always looked shiny and clean.

I don’t know why I didn’t dispense with the stair carpeting the day after I moved into this house or why I had them recovered when I had new carpeting put down. What was I thinking?

So...I’m now thinking loving thoughts about ripping out the carpeting on the stairs. That means I’ll have to refinish them, but that’s not a big deal. It’s tacking down the carpeting at the top of the stairs neatly (and professionally) that presents the challenge. If I screw that up, then I’ve just grown my project by magnitudes.

J...help?
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In the last two days, I’ve received two emails asking me for products that I’d never heard of before. One was for a book published by Cider Mill Press. The fellow wondered if I had any spares in my office. Well, no, not even one. But I can understand the error, and, in fact, I helped the fellow find the book he wanted. I located a good price for him, too. But the other email asks if I carry Toter Half Round Lockable Security Containers. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why anyone would think I might. I mean, they both used the mail form on my blog...does this look like a commercial operation to anyone else? Still kind of scratching my head over that. Perhaps people got new computers this Christmas and haven’t learned the finer points of Google yet?