(Other) French apartment renovations, Day 217: Feast, fast, & finally AC

15,923 steps

I woke up early, feeling a bit lethargic from yesterday's feast. Instead of lying in bed and pretending I was asleep, I decided to go for an early run. It was nice to go out with the sun lower in the sky. Everyone was still asleep when I got back, and one of the heat pump guys, The Russian, was waiting at the front door.

The heat pump crew brought in a new guy to do a lot of the wall channels. He's from Russia and hardly speaks any French, so we call him "The Russian." He managed to embed the lines in our living room and bedrooms, for which I was very grateful.

However, The Russian is also not very good at finishing work and he makes a mess everywhere he goes. He cut through some electrical cables in the back room and just clipped them together with wire connectors. He was going to embed them in the wall as-is, which is totally against code over here. I insisted that he re-run the wires between the 2 outlets. The outlets were close together so it was an easy job. But still...I shouldn't have to be the one catching these errors! I also had to fix some of his plastering jobs because several areas were sticking out way too far.

Good news, though...even though we're still plastering the last lines, all of the heat pump units are installed. And even better--they all work! We stood in silent celebration as cool air wafted over us. Honestly I can live with the heat here. I have done so for 7 years. But it was SO nice to be able to cool our apartment down!

I keep the rooms at 26 C at the coldest (79 F). Any lower and I'm too cold! We won't cool any of the bedrooms during the day, since we're all in the living room during our waking hours.

After yesterday's feast, I felt simultaneously full and hungry much of the day. I gave my body a break and didn't eat until 4 pm. It felt good to eat reasonably small portions today. Now I'm feeling much more energized.

In the morning Eric took the kids out to play soccer and run around, allowing me to finish the painting in the living room. This evening we put the fridge and dining room furniture back. It's so nice to have our living space again. Tomorrow we'll wallpaper and paint our bedroom. I finished the final mudding this evening at 11 pm. The Russian's plastering job definitely needed a final topcoat.

Zari and Dio are packing for a 4-day youth camp. They leave tomorrow morning. Should be fun! Dio really wants to sleep with Zari, but I'm pretty sure they'll be separating the boys' and girls' dormitories. Despite the uptick in Covid cases, they are proceeding with the camp, albeit with a lot of precautions.

We had time for a short late afternoon swim. It was just me, Eric, and Ivy this time.

I had a Zoom meeting this evening (breech peer review). Eric was busy making crepes and forgot about piano lessons! Oops. My mom was able to do them later.