Cranky and unmotivated

Nothing much to report after this last weekend.

Saturday started off alright. Trevor flushed the blackwater tank more thoroughly that morning. I think he's finally satisfied that it's about as "clean" as it's going to get.

I, feeling particularly unmotivated, decided not to do much at all. The heat making it a bit on the stifling side - and the general malaise we were feeling about the passing of our bunny, Trouble, on Friday - did not make for good productivity.

We called it a day after lunch and went home where I proceeded to lie around not knowing what to do with myself.

I don't do well with unplanned laziness. Sure, if I PLAN on not doing anything, I can be great at it! Sleep in, lie around, read, nap, watch tv. I'm great at it!

But if I was planning on getting things done, and then failed? I lie around staring at the ceiling apparently.

No seriously. This is what I ended up doing.

On the carpet, staring into space.

So stricken with the intention of getting things done, but feeling so unmotivated and dejected about the whole idea that all I could think to do is lie in a sort of confused paralysis. A bit of a productivity limbo if you will.

I stayed like this until Trevor got so disgusted with my pathetic attitude and ordered me into the shower to get cleaned up for a date.

And he took me out on the town for a delicious dinner at California Fat's and then we saw Walk the Line.

Such a good husband.

By the time Sunday came around I decided to just take the day off altogether from the Coach considering that we had things going on in the morning and were going to drive back to the Bay Area to see Michele and John for dinner.

Cuz they're ENGAGED.

And I HAD to see them.

So that's it. No real project developments this last weekend.

But this weekend should be more exciting. We'll be moving the Coach over to her new yard where we are within stumbling distance of the house.

Cheers to that!

And I'll finish the tiling in the bathroom and maybe we'll start building the vanity.

So yea. Like everything we were planning on doing this last weekend.

Go us!

Oh my aching back

So Saturday was probably one of the most filthy, disgusting, gross, and hopefully soon-forgettable days I have ever had.

We flushed out the black water tank.

With a drain hose that was too short to reach the actual drain hole.

Do you get the gravity of the situation yet?

We had to just let the hose drain into the basin.

To be more specific, we had to WATCH what came out of the tank.

I’m not going to bother with much detail as I’m sure anyone who’s reading this can imagine the fowl sludge that poured from within the tanks.

But what I will tell you is that it involved an awful smell, multitudes of tiny maggots, and a desire to NEVER EVER EVER go into a career involving plumbing.

Once that was done…shudder…I tackled the tiling of the bathroom floor and Trevor, apparently having not had enough of the sewer, rummaged around in the Tank Underbay and worked on disconnecting the sewer lines so he could pull out the black water tank and address the issue of the malfunctioning tank gauge.

Here’s a pic of him getting a little too friendly with the black water tank:

And here’s a pic of where the tank gauge used to be:

Can you see why, maybe, kinda, sort of, why it’s not working? Yea. We’ll be putting in a new one.

That pretty much sums up Saturday. Sunday I worked on tiling the walls in the bathroom. I was pretty determined to finish ALL of the tiling this weekend. But there was a lot of precision cutting for around the shower and I started making a lot of mistakes. As much as I can be fiercely determined in a very bratty way to complete tasks, I also know that I’m fiercely a perfectionist in an EXTREMELY bratty way and there was NO WAY I was going to be satisfied with the caliber of work I was doing by the end of day two of cramped neck-hands-back-thighs fest 2006.

He-ya some pics:

Pretty no?

More pics can be found, as always, here.

Yes, I’m quite pleased. And…AND! It smells NICE in there. Kind of a new-car smell sort of nice. Quite honestly I would have been satisfied with a no-longer-smelling-of-shit smell.

See in the pic? See the hole in the ground? There is NO sewer attached to that right now. Which means there is no longer a collection of stewing, steaming, festering glop hanging out right below that hole. And by the time there IS a sewer tank attached to it we’ll have a nice fancy schmancy toilet that actually seals shut. Yes, unlike the old toilet, that kind of sort of closed, but sure-as-hell did not SEAL shut.

And because of this lack of a giant cesspool, The Stink is gone. For those of you who have never set foot on the Coach you will not know of what I speak. But for those of you who have? Yes, THE Stink – the perpetual constant undertone of sewer Stink. The Stink that got really bad when the tanks were full, but was ALWAYS there stink Stink.

Apparently there was a leak under the toilet which, combined with the never properly sealing toilet, created quite a delightful ode-to-crap smell. So we’re glad we pulled out all the sewer lines after all because now we can get rid of that pesky leak and everything will smell like roses. Well, at least new vinyl tile flooring.

So The Stink is gone, the bathroom is tiled (mostly) and we are just about ready to rebuild the sewer lines back up and put the sewer project to bed.

Trevor took a break from the sewer stuff on Sunday and spent most of the time rooting around in the dashboard. He kind of took it apart actually. Apparently crazy wiring nutjobs were let loose behind the Coach’s walls and there is some KUH-RAZY wiring done. For example, he found an amplifier that wasn’t in use, it was just taking up space behind the dash with all its wires cut.

This is, like, a MAJOR no-no. Seriously? Leaving stuff to take up space on an RV? Space! Space which is at a premium in such a tiny living area!

Between that, and the rats nest of wiring that is actually not connected to anything, Trevor should have his hands full. But he did find that the headlights do in fact work, that the switch just needs replacing. Yea for not having to spend a lot of money on that!

Blah blah blah.

I’ve blabbed long enough.

So for next week!

- finish the tiling in the bathroom

- put in the baseboards and chair molding in bathroom (if I can get my ass to Home Depot and actually find something I like)

- Drink

- install new toilet flange to floor

- attempt re-build of sewer lines

- Drink some more

- laugh at our attempt to start rebuilding sewer lines because something is bound to creep up and throw us off course. That and we’ll hopefully have been drinking in copious amounts by now which always makes things funnier.

- attempt to start building the bathroom vanity. Wee carpentry!

- Oh yea, and somewhere in there we should probably move the Coach to it’s new home at Laguna RV storage – a mere 5 minute drive away from home!

- Marvel at our really smart idea at moving the Coach within walking distance so we can now drink while working on it and then walk home.

Is that all?

So I dug up the inventory we conducted of all the things that we felt needed to be done to the Coach in order to make it habitable and then some. This was something we did the first month we had it - maybe a year and a half ago or so.

Here is what we thought we wanted to do to the bathroom at that time:
- replace faucet
- replace toilet
- clean floor

If you haven't caught up on our recent bathroom escapades, please do so now.

Now read on.

I would like to take this moment to pick apart what it is like to be Mary and Trevor.

The insane DIY couple.

Apparently, to us, replacing the faucet means not only take the faucet out but also the counter it's attached to. And while we're at it? Why not the whole vanity? I mean, they're all inter-connected right? People, we have a perfectly good table saw and biscuit joiner just LYING around going to NO good use. Why not build one from scratch?

Clean the floor? Hell, wouldn't it just be easier to pull out the whole floor altogether? I mean, then it really WILL be clean. And you know what? Some of the wall is kind of near the floor and by mere association it seems like it should come out too.

About the only thing that we got right was "replace the toilet". Oh, but yes, we're going to tear out the sewer lines and power wash the black water tank it's attached to. So even that was a pathetic attempt at predicting what we would end up doing.

What I'm getting at here is that we are crazy. Totally insane crazy peeps that should be locked up. Or, at the very least, not given projects to do.