I feel that nearly everything that could go wrong with house has gone wrong with this house. That's not exactly a valid statement, I can think of at least a dozen things that could have gone wrong with this house in addition to the things that have gone wrong with the house. Those dozen things don't lessen the frustration with the giant list of everything that has gone wrong with this house.

The house had termite damage so extensive the contractors didn't really understand why it was still standing. Everything was delayed in the reconstruction. The floors were uneven, the foundation had sunk in one corner. The beams over the beautiful large doors have sagged. The original duct work was in the slab foundation (did I mention the house had a slab foundation IN THE MIDWEST, which guarantees freaking cold floors in the winter, but delightfully cool floors in the humid summer), and had to be moved to the attic. The attic isn't insulated, so that winter snow? Doesn't stick to THIS roof. The pipes backed up my first night here. The shower curtains fell despite being tightened beyond my usual strength. The wood floors warped. There are sounds in the house that are terrifying alone at night.

The kicker in my mind is THE KITCHEN CABINET DOORS WARPED. I have seriously never heard about kitchen cabinet doors warping. Ever. Not even in my grandparent's farm house did the kitchen cabinet doors warp.

And, of course, there was the f'ing fireball in the face last November.

So, of course, we joke the house is haunted.

Diana had a sensitive friend visit her house, and asked the friend if she felt anything in Diana's house. The friend said no, she didn't feel anything. They came over to my house and unprompted, the friend commented, "Now here, I feel something."

Always something.

The last of the big fixes were done today. The sliding glass doors were replaced.

The last thing.

The drafts are gone. The flue closes. The doors lock without a two by four in the door.

At this point, I want to make peace with the ghost of the house.

Or at least have a talisman that stops the craziness with this house.

So.

Since my plastic spoons seem unable to scoop out the chocolate chip batter from the tub, I went to the local Goodwill and, for the first time in my life, bought something from the retail shop there. I bought a set of utensils and two mugs. The mugs match, and, once I scrubbed the heck out of them to remove all the black marks and coffee stains out of them, are exactly what I was looking for in mugs. I can now have someone over to the house, make tea for her, and have a mug to hand her.

Also, I have decided these are the talismans I was looking for.

I dub these mugs, the Skyline Talismans:

If I have a ghost, I can freakin' have a talisman that minimizes that ghost's effectiveness.

Yeah.

While the sliding glass doors were being delivered for the house, Clive, Chris (Clive's son), and I talked for a while as they relaxed. I talked a bit about the work I still need to do on the house, and commented on how I was really unsure how to handle some of the water issues. The water is definitely well water. It doesn't seem to have the amount of iron in it that Dad's well has, but it smells of water minerals and the like.

As I commented about this, Clive turned to me and told me about his experiences growing up in Jamaica. They dug a hole about half the size of my garage, lined it with concrete and used it to hold the water that was collected from rain. They drank this water, not boiled, not filtered, just drank it. They bathed with it. The artificial pond had green algae at the top, and tiny, 2cm long fish in it. They avoided drinking the fish, but drank the water.

When the pond ran dry, they went to the parish pond, which was about half an acre in size, filled their 5 gallon jug full of water, put the jug on their head and walked back home.

The water coming out of my faucet is fine. There's nothing wrong with it.

I'm debating about the water from the snowball.

I have an item in my TODO list that reads, "create N belt (direction indication)."

I have no idea, at this point, what it means or why I wrote it down.

Usually with my notebooks, I have the correct one on hand and will write down notes in it, instead of in my TODO list. I suspect if I had my work notebook, I could piece together from the surrounding context, what the heck I'm supposed to create with the N belt.

...

...

...

And I think I just figured out what this item was in reference to.

The Comcast installation guy was here last night, rewiring up the house for cable. I have a bunch of notes around in reference to his calls to his mothership. This must be one that I both overheard and misheard. Other than the directional indication, I have no idea what the rest of it meant.

Regardless, at this point, crossed off.

I have too many notebooks.

Rather, I use too many notebooks on a regular basis, such that I don't feel I can discard or remove any from the rotation. I also feel this is a problem, given how much paper I carry around with me pretty much everywhere.

Of those nine journals in the picture above, I use a minimum of six daily, usually all of them.

They are, left to right, top row:

• My day summary journal, where I keep a daily record of the day, limited to a sentence or two.
• My memorization journal, where I keep the current work I am memorizing written down, and copy it frequently to memorize it.
• My long term journal, where I track my progress on long term goals. This one is a day planner, and is new, a gift from Carol.
• My Scalzi Story brainstorming journal, where I write down 5 plot ideas for each of the Band Names
• My health journal, where I write everything I consume, spend, make, and exert, along with other health related notes.

Bottom row:

• My daily TODO list, where I write down my morning-triage items to complete for the day. This book makes focussing on the day easier than the 6" of yellow index cards I have.
• My 11:11 / 20:14 journal, where I write down what I'm doing at 11:11 am and 8:14 pm every day. Last year, it was 8:13pm, for the obvious reason.
• My three questions journal, where I answer three of my personal-reflections questions each night, to see how I feel about the day, how I feel about what I've done, and my progress.
• My everything journal, where I write down notes, ideas, lists, sketches, plans, schedules, recipes, and anything else that comes to mind that I might want to keep around. Nothing work related in this journal.

Not show is a green notebook that is my work journal.

I'm unsure how to merge these into fewer books. The longterm, reflections, 11:11 and day summary books aren't used nominally until the end of the day. The TODO and work journals are used constantly during the day. They are used up in different rates. I blow through the work journals and health-tracking journals rapidly.

I like paper, so switching to an Evernote or digital solution isn't in the foreseeable future for me.

I should reconsider this. Each one fulfills a need I have. Maybe I don't really have too many notebooks.