We’re putting a room on our house – cos you know… the place is a bit on the small side for the three of us. And besides there’s NO such thing as having too much space and one can ALWAYS use more closets to store ‘stuff’ and of course there’s the truth that is universally accepted that one can NEVER have enough wall space for bookcases.

Problem is the whole thing is making me twitch. I am useless… utterly useless in the ill advised fantastically rewarding field of renovating Owner Builder style… as fucking useless as tits on a bull !!!

or as useless as a one armed juggler
or a screendoor on a submarine
or a one legged man in an ass kicking contest
or a snooze button on a smoke alarm
or an ashtray on a motorbike
or a chocolate teapot
or a men’s room at a Lillith fair
or rubber lips on a woodpecker
or a bucket without a bottom
or a glow in the dark sundial
or a a condom machine in a convent !!!

What’s your problem? 😀
It meets the requirements*
 

Fekkin’ useless all round really. And I have discovered I am 100% my parent’s daughter and sitting around watching other people work is about as frustrating as all shit. Oh yeah… I make a halfway decent Girl Friday and can play the "Coffee Bitch", the "Call the Tool Hire Company Bitch", the "Suck Up to the Council Inspector Bitch" and the "Ordering-Pizza-Like Nobody’s-Business Bitch". But that’s about where my contributions end. I’ve rarely felt so absolutely unnecessary and impotent in my entire life.

So for the physically challenged I most certainly do NOT recommend the Owner Builder Experience… but perhaps some variant of the Backyard Blitz Experience where you could go away and let some crazy arsed TV presenter walk around babbling about some over ambitious, semi-covert plan in a rather unwarranted over the top enthusiastic tone, only to be eventually and predictably seen waving his arms around ineffectually in mock distress half way through the show about running out of time before the owner is expected to return by which point all the work will have been done just in the nick of time…. and with a bit of luck… professionally executed without any hint of the almost obligatory outdoor Balinese day bed.

This option would very neatly negate having to watch from the cheap seats while everyone else is getting stuck into working on YOUR house while you sat inside calling concrete suppliers and muttering swear words under your breath about how narrow your damn driveway is.

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I’ve had an EXTREMELY frustrating day.

We’ve started work on building the extension on the house and I’ve spent most of the day WATCHING other people do the work.  Does anyone have any idea of how FRUSTRATING this can be?

It’s like WATCHING people set up tents at festival…
or like WATCHING people trying to cook a big dinner party by themselves…
or like WATCHING someone clean your house when you should do it yourself
or like WATCHING your 50- something Mom clean your gutters!!!!!!!

IT DRIVES ME NUTS NOT TO BE ABLE TO DO THIS SHIT FOR MYSELF!!!!

It’s ridiculously strange how much it fills me with anxiety….  the sitting around watching people do the work and not being able to contribute.    🙁    

Not happy.

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Yesterday there was loads of rain going on up here.  I stopped out to take some photos of Bulimba Creek which had totally blown it’s banks.  The water was up about 12-15 feet on it’s normal height and the creek instead of being a polite 5-6m wide was effectively a fast flowing lake about 40m across the lower lying areas nearby.

Meadowlands Rd bridge over Bulimba Creek from the east side

Meadowlands Rd bridge over Bulimba Creek from the west side
 

But we’re pretty lucky here being on the south side and a relatively inner suburb.  Most of the developments around here were put in by people who still remembered and were affected by the 1974 floods Brisbane had and the floodplain areas weren’t ever built out…. which many unlucky bastards on the northside can’t say unfortunately.  I guess that’s one of the big problems with drought.  The city is constantly expanding and developers are buying up spaces that weren’t previously residential and they’re building suburbs in stupidly low lying areas (Brookfield for example).  Drought breaks… and ‘oh quelle surprise!’  Our houses are flooded, the roads rendered impassable and our cars swept away!!!   🙁    Sucks to be them.

My only drama yesterday was the driveway of my house building up with about 6-8 inches in water against our garage doors.  We’ve been moving things around and gettnig ready to build and there was a pile of stuff in the way of where the water normally flows away after it starts running down the cul de sac and subsequently down our driveway.  So I was out there in the pouring rain (with a dodgy umbrella that constantly blew inside out) trying to dig a channel/trench to redirect the water without any tools because if I opened the garage all that water would have flooded inside instead.  So I had to try and shift a huge hardwood beam (not very successfully) and then dig the trench so it could go under the fence. 

Result?  The water drained away in about 20mins flat but I ended up with fucking freezing feet, sopping wet clothes and a night of very poor sleep, took me over ten minutes to just physically get out of bed (breathe… gotta remember to breathe) and hardly able to walk this morning after having done something that was absolutely unavoidable but also absolutely guaranteed to exacerbate my back pain. 

But what do you do?  Can’t just let the water keep rising?
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