The end is still in sight

I was hoping that tonight I'd be able to come home, turn on the heating and unpack a lot of stuff. Part of that would be setting up my desktop PC again and generally setting up my office the way I wanted it. It's the only recently-decorated room that I have all the furniture for, so it's the only room I can complete.

Of course, the heating still isn't working either. The previous issue appears to be fixed, but I'm still not generating hot water or heat through the radiators.

And the room that is to be my office is still unfinished. Again, I feel guilty for feeling angry about it as it's my dad who's doing the work, but it's been in the same unfinished state since Thursday. If I were handy enough to be able to do the work, it would have been done weeks ago, but I'm useless at DIY.

I'm sure I'm slightly over-reacting as I've been awake since 3AM, but it feels like I've been just waiting for the finishing touches for weeks and to arrive back into the house and be unable to do the things I've wanted to do for the past week or so is frustrating.

The end is in sight.

Hopefully the end is in sight with regards to the housing thing. The last room will be finished tomorrow and, with any luck, the heating will be sorted on Monday. That means I can do three things - the first is give the house a good clean. It's not been touched in the past three or four weeks due to the ongoing works. The second is to unpack a lot of things that were put away to do the decorating plus some stuff that's not yet made it out of storage since I moved in and finally, I get back into a routine that includes the fitness stuff that I've had planned for a while.

More than anything else, I'm looking forward to getting heat into the house.

Not quite the end of the road.

The decorating is practically done. There are some bits that are still rough around the edges, literally, but I'll finish them off over the next few days. I only have one room to do - lay a floor, and that should be everything done by the weekend.

Except for one thing... the heating is not working and as we speak, the plumber I've called is bamboozled. He's just left and will return tomorrow, but I have sneaking suspicion that this is going to be an expensive fix which will really eat into my new cooker and new TV budget.

It might not - there's been no mention of cost as yet, but I'm finding it difficult to be positive at the moment after being tired and stressed over the past few weeks with the decorating.

There's also a work thing that's raising its head again - I've been trying to get this resolved for most of this year with no luck so far. I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall... like all the things I'm trying to argue for and against are completely different to what other people are doing.  But they can't or won't tell me what I should be doing.

Sigh.

Sigh. Part 2.

Another sleepless night in a bare, cold bedroom and I was awake at six thirty. Again. That's three days in a row.

My parents arrived on time and we set to work. There was a lot to do, but I had a plan that seemed to fill the time economically with little wasted effort. That's the kind of day that I needed - lots had to be crossed off and couldn't be put off.

My Dad asks what he's to do and I tell him. He disappears. Forty five minutes later, he arrives back in the room with lots of cut wood and proceeds to attach the skirting board to the walls. What I actually asked him to do was paint it so we  could attach it to the walls after all the painting and wallpapering had been done. It completely threw off the rest of the day.

It's this kind of thing that's meant that we won't be finished by the time the carpets are fitted tomorrow, nor will it be done to a particularly good standard, seeing as the past two days have been a rush job.

My sister called at lunchtime with advice about colour schemes. The paint was bought yesterday and half of it was already on the walls. My brother-in-law was due to call in to help me move my bed this evening. He's nowhere to be seen and it's unlikely he's going to call in at this time.

Again, I don't want to sound ungrateful that I've been getting help from my parents, especially the DIY stuff that I can't do or my Dad can do better, but the frustration at the difficulty in getting anyone to do me a favour hasn't gone away since yesterday.

Roll on tomorrow though, when all this is done. Well, apart from the bit where I need to move all my furniture back into its respective rooms.

Sigh.

Part of the reason that I'm still decorating rather than being finished weeks ago a I'd hoped is the fact that I've been relying on help from my Dad and my sister. My Dad for actually helping out with decorating and my sister for advice on colour schemes and all the design-y things.

But it feels likes I have to drag everything out of both of them. I know this might sound a little ungrateful, but when people ask me for a favour, if it's something I can help out with, then I'll do it.

So, rather than help out where I need it, my Dad goes off and does his own thing. I ask him to paint some woodwork and he'll strip wallpaper instead. My plans are then in need of readjustment because I come home from work expecting to be able to do one thing, only to have to do something else.

The same goes with my sister. I ask her for advice and she simply never replies to text messages. I'm capable of making my own decisions, so in reality, I'm only really looking for a sanity check, but it's annoying that her expectations of me are never mirrored in the same circumstances.

Today, I was meant to have a real go at getting a lot of painting done with my Dad. Except my Mum and Dad are away to my sis's for Sunday dinner. I was invited as well, but I've been painting all afternoon.

I feel guilty typing this out, but at the same time I'm on a deadline. Tuesday, in fact.

Secrets.

"So..." whispered KfW2 conspiratorially as she sat beside me earlier.
"So?" I whispered back. "Why are we whispering?"
"I have a personal question. Do you like Ideas Girl?"
"Not in the way that you're thinking. She's a nice girl."
"How come you reacted the way you did on Monday?"
"I genuinely don't know."

For the record, when KfW2 and Stalky Guy were quizzing me on Monday about Ideas Girl, for some reason, I went beetroot red. There was no reason for me to get embarrassed. It's not like I got found out doing something wrong or something I wanted to keep secret.

I sensed that she wanted to talk further about Ideas Girl, but in the middle of work was not the place. We didn't get a chance to talk about it further today, but I'll ask KfW2 if she wants to chat further about it.

Cheeky.

"Did you ever check out any gyms?" asked CC.

The fucking cheek! Going to a gym was her idea. Me accompanying her was her idea, though I did come round somewhat.

I explained that I hadn't and that I wasn't going to consider it until after Christmas as I had other things on my plate... plus once the decorating is done after the weekend, I'm getting back into the yoga and doing some walking.

If that fails to deliver results (and why should it, I lost 10lb in 10 weeks previously doing it) then I'll consider the gym.

Talky.

A somewhat last minute early evening out saw me in the pub with a girl from work - no-one who's been mentioned here before. Let's call her Ideas Girl. We were introduced at the end of last year by Stalky Guy. Since then, we've gone through phases of chatting.

While I wouldn't say that we were close friends, we have been opening up a little to each other. When IG was looking for some company for a last-minute thing, I was one of the people she contacted. As it happens,  no-one else was available, so we did our own thing.

In the middle of the evening, completely out of the blue, I got a text message from DSC. I'm paraphrasing, but she claims to miss me, apologised for being flaky and unreliable and states that she's not like that any more. I don't know what to think. She was always flaky and unreliable when we were in regular contact - I don't know if a non-flaky version of her exists.

IG and myself also covered plenty of ground, conversationally, and it turned out to be a really pleasant evening. I surprised myself by being quite open with IG. I talked about FA2, online dating, my general happiness and lots of other, small talk things.

Oh dear.

On the bus on the way home tonight, for the first time that I've seen, the cute foreign girl that I mention in this post got on. I know that she now (perhaps always) lives near me,  but our paths never crossed. I always thought she was cute, but as we never interacted, getting anything going was nigh on impossible,

And it turns out that even if our paths had crossed, nothing would have come of it. She's married, according to the ring on her finger.

No other details, but I have to admit that I am a little disappointed.

Trimming the fat.

After a bit of a funk last weekend (lots of reasons), I've decided to cut down my presence on online dating sites/apps.

eHarmony has already bitten the dust earlier this week through not actually sending me any new matches (and you have to pay to see other members' photos).

I'm shutting down my OKCupid account this weekend. The only interest I got in a year or so of membership was the recent girl who messaged, then went quiet, then "liked" me, then went quiet after I messaged. She's on PoF, so if she wants to chat, she can find me there.

I'm also getting rid of Badoo. I simply don't understand it, and I'm getting nothing in the way of messages, visitors or anything resembling activity.

That still leaves me on Once, Bumble, Tinder, PoF and happn. None of these are providing any potential really... but it does no harm in keeping the accounts open if not semi-active.

Digest

I know I've been a little quiet of late, so here's a bit of a digest post.

The talks that I wanted to have in work have been complicated by some organisational changes. I won't know how this is going to impact me for at least another week, but I'll be trying to get answers as soon as I possibly can. Other than that, work is going well. I've got a couple of work events coming up in the next few weeks that should be fun (they usually are) and drunken too.

KfW2 has mentioned a Halloween party. S usually goes out on Halloween too and next weekend marks the anniversary that SG admitted that she liked me (that ultimately led to nothing). But... I have options for Halloween. I'm not that concerned. Halloween is something I can take or leave, though everyone else seems to enjoy it. I have nothing against being in a bar surrounded by attractive women in sexy outfits. That doesn't help with my current frustration though.

Online dating has been a little weird. The OKC girl that I referred to in this post has made contact again. Well, she "liked" me on OKC but never replied to my outstanding message. I pondered about whether to message her - my thoughts on this particular girl haven't changed. I don't see it developing into anything serious, but we're both open to meeting people for friends, so let's see hoe it plays out. It might even solve the problem of my previously stated frustration. I don't need to elaborate, do I?

The stuff I am doing around the house is still incomplete, though there's finally an end date - the end of next week. It's been slower than I would have liked, but it's always been moving forward and next week should see it all done. Then I'll take a break from house stuff over the winter. It also means that I can turn the heating on again and then start thinking about the fitness stuff. With CC not following up on the gym stuff (and that's not a bad thing) I can follow my own path - yoga, some light weights and some other stuff as well should all add up to some decent results once I get going.

In addition, there should be some KfW2-centric nights. We're long overdue a night out on the town, just the two of us. It's been in a constant state of postponement since August, so it's about time that gets done. She's talked about a night at hers, with her husband and one of her husband's friends. I don't know if she likes this friend. Despite being a god-parent, he only seems to call round/be invited when I've been invited, so I kinda think that KfW2 uses that to fulfil her requirement to socialise with him.

That then paves the way into the Xmas period, which is something else to think about (including another day/night out with KfW2), and especially New Year's Eve, which is the holiday where I really don't want to spend on my own.