I was done last night but decided to stay off the dark and cold road. so I'm heading home this morning.

I'm glad I stayed because not long after I stopped moving I started getting back spasms from all the ladder work over my head. It wasn't as much as I would like to have bother my back, but I'm getting old, I'm too sedentary, and don't do the right stretches or whatever before I do anything too much or too long. A bit of Icy Hot and sitting in a chair did the trick.

While I sat in the overstuffed chair, I started thinking about what it would take to stay here all the time. A little in reflection for what it must have been like for the father-in-law, but also to make these maintenance trips a lot less "bring everything with" and a bit more "that's already there."

Thinking of the father-in-law, he was a bit of a hermit, and when he lived here, he had all of his stuff. Most of his stuff is not here anymore, as we were moving him to a house closer to ours when he passed before we got him settled. Having all your stuff would make it easier, because you could change gears and do different things with stuff at hand. I'm a bit of a loner, so I could probably do OK with occasional interactions at shops and restaurants, maybe with occasional visitors.

After washing dishes yesterday, I thought to put my new bowl and coffee cup in the cupboard, to keep them away from critters. Of course, there's a small set of plates, bowls, and cups in there. I didn't need to buy one. There was some two-year-old food in there, too, a can of soup and a few cups of fruit, but I'll discard those. Having a few dishes makes it easier to have some food. But this sent me on a "what do I need" trail of thought.

I bring some electronics with me to tinker during my downtime. Usually just listen to music, since there are no televisions and the Internet has been slow. With the cellular connection, even with its dips and drops, it's been much quicker and useful than the DSL, which did serve its purpose allowing the cameras an avenue for data. At home I do still tinker with software creation, which I can't do on my tablet. I thought I'd try with the big monitor, which does screen mirror the iPad screen, but it's just a bigger, mirrored version of the same thing, and not as dual screen as I'd like. The little PC I brought, and am using right now, does a "fine" job, but it's a pretty low-powered device really only meant to test software in a "does it run" not a "does it perform" way. I use Orb to test the connectivity of my servers and workstations. My iPad is solidly in the 80s here (and 90s at home), with an occasional tick in the reliability reading. This little min PC is consistently in the 40s or 50s, with dips in the teens, and more in the "fair" than "good" category, so I'm willing to blame the computer and not the connection. Anyway, having a workable compute station would give more to do. Even just having a nicer set-up to do some reading and writing would work.

There are a ton of books here. And the chairs and sofa are comfortable overstuffed leather. I could see picking out a few paper tomes and flipping through them on the regular. There are books on pretty much every topic except math and computers here. I have enough of those to bridge that gap, though. A ton of fiction and non-fiction. Things about country and world history, notable people, less notable people, culture, flowers, other plants, rocks and geology, chemistry, dogs, olive oil, tea and peppers, guns and other weapons, farming, home maintenance, beer and liquor history and production, and so many about music and musicians. One could become learned here.

I prefer a bed a lot firmer than the one that's here. There is a firmer mattress on the other bed, so I could sleep there instead, or move the mattress, in a pinch. The chairs are fine, but I'm a bit taller than he was, so everything's a touch shorter than I'd like. Sitting in anything but the overstuffed chair puts a hitch in my knees and hips, and that only works because I kick my feet out. The office has a nice, old-style wood desk, with all the drawers, but it's a bit low so my legs feel cramped underneath it. The office chair is a nice wood swiveling rocker deal, so I'd want to bring a modern chair with cushions and support to sit there longer. As it is, the desk is covered with stuff that needs to be sorted and dealt with, so I'm set up on the dining room table, like I was in my college days (when I didn't have a desk). There's a nice loft here which is where I'd probably move the office, so one can sit and look out at the river instead of the back porch, where you can see the one other visible house and propane tank. Or maybe move a minimal setup to the four-season porch, perhaps adding some window shades, for a view on three sides. But that would really only be if I was setting up permanently.

As I run through this enough to write it down, I realize that except for prepping the house for sale, there isn't much missing except a few post-work distractions. Now that the Internet is fast, maybe connecting the Amazon FireTV to a television would allow a little escape after working all day. There are a few old and small televisions here, but I haven't tried to clean one up to see if they'd work well enough. They need a good wiping down and probably batteries in their remotes, and who has time for that?

A quick checklist before I quit with this distraction and get to the activities to get out of here. The pilot lights in both the furnace and stove stayed lit overnight. The fireplace burst into action at the flip of the switch this morning, bringing a bit of warmth instantly to the room. I'm going to leave the stove alone, solidly convinced the stovepipe is blocked, and that's why the flame fails in less than a minute. I banged hard on it yesterday, and dust fell from the joints near where I smacked it, and a grumble of detritus tinkled down the pipe. I can probably pull it apart and clean it out, but that seems a daunting task, and I'm limited in what I could do to clear the high points and secure the outside to reduce or prevent future invasion. A professional will be called to fix this soon, though.

A quick run through the house showed the freshly replaced smoke detectors (and the few CO2 combos) are still all working. The green indicator was more noticeable in the bedroom at night than I recall the old one was, but no more than any other I've experienced. An unmistakable dot in the darkness, though. I checked in with the smart detector on my phone, and it still reports "all good."

And the thermostats are all reporting the set temperature, so the furnace is working fine. Now that I get that and why there are two, I can accept a little face-palm and head shaking from my critics. The concern that set this as a two-visit event could have been nearly immediately mitigated had I simply tapped a couple extra buttons and looked up some instructions on the gas appliances. No terminal CO2 build-up, so I could have stayed Monday night, as planned, and replaced the detectors and even cleared the drive. I hadn't brought the snowblower, though, so that would have been a lot of manual effort. I need to remember to put that back in the Jeep to take home again. It's only 15F right now, and still very windy, so I'm not sure there's much chance the snowblower will dig through the snow that's out there. That's another thing I'd do if I stayed here permanently; a nice ride-in snow moving machine.

I need to pack up my electronics and clothes, tear down the bed, collect the trash, check the lights and shades, and head out. I might dig out the Hoover and give a quick vacuum over the dust and bugs that have collected even since I ran the Swiffer over the floor on arrival. I hadn't seen any flies flying, but there's a juicy dead one on the floor here, next to a couple Asian beetles, which I have seen crawling around. I'll reset the thermostats to be in the 50s again, and that should help curb some of the bug activity, too.

My major tasks are complete. It's time to stop dallying and start leaving.