Caitlin woke up to the insistent beeping of a kitchen timer. There was a programmable alarm clock standing next to it that she’d purchased as a birthday gift to herself three years earlier, but she’d never gotten around to learning how to set it. Still, it wasn’t without its uses. It kept the correct time using some sort of radio controller or something, so she didn’t have to bother with changing it for daylight saving time. And it had a thermometer function, so she could see how hot her room was. That wasn’t nothing! She shut off the kitchen timer and rolled lazily off the mattress onto the floor. She had originally intended to get a proper bed-frame for it, but she’d gotten used to rolling out of bed in the morning, and that would hurt if the floor was further away. Grabbing a dress from the pile of clean laundry she hadn’t gotten around to folding and putting away, she got dressed and sat down in front of the computer. The breeze from the computer fans circulated through the room, blowing through the mess of cables that exploded out of the open side of the computer tower. One of these days she was going to do some proper cable management so she could actually fit everything in the tower and close it up. She just hadn’t gotten around to it. After checking her email and responding to as many of them as she had the energy to deal with, she stepped out of her bedroom to make her way to the kitchen. On the way there, she passed through the area that was supposed to be the living room, but it wasn’t furnished. She’d gotten rid of the old furniture to refurbish the room, and she’d put in a new floor and stripped the walls to prepare for new wallpaper. But the wallpaper she’d planned on using had gone out of print, and she just couldn’t find anything that quite fit her vision. Still, it didn’t matter so much. She didn’t really need a living room, after all. She got to the kitchen and went to make herself some bacon, eggs and toast. She had to kind of dig around to find the bacon, though, because it was right at the back of the fridge behind a bunch of plastic containers full of old leftovers she’d just never gotten around to throwing out. It was fine, though, the bacon was only a little bit expired. It should taste all right once it was fried up. It was at this point that she realized she didn’t have any white bread left. She had intended to go shopping last night, but there wasn’t enough gas in the car to get to the supermarket, and she hated the smell of gas stations, so she just hadn’t been in the mood to fill up the tank. And the corner store didn’t have any plain white bread left that day, so she just ended up buying some rye bread. Having eaten a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, toasted rye bread and water, because the orange juice had expired and didn’t smell particularly potable, Caitlin made her way outside into the lovely September sunshine. She stopped to grab an apple from the weird, twisty little tree that grew right outside the wall of her house, its roots having long since burst through the little plastic pot she purchased the sapling in. She originally wanted the tree in the middle of the garden, but she just hadn’t gotten around to planting it, and the tree had taken matters into its own hands. She munched on the apple as she sat on the slightly warped, cracked wood of the deck. She built the deck herself years ago, she just never got around to properly treating the wood. Still, it wasn’t so bad. It had sort of a rustic feel to it. And if it started to rot, she could just tear it up and build a new deck. She kind of wanted one with room for a hot tub, anyway. Looking around the garden, she spotted the huge stacks of stone tiles sitting in a slightly overgrown corner. One of these days, she really should get on with actually tiling her driveway like she wanted. But part of her was worried that if she started working on it she’d just end up getting pulled away from the project halfway through, and having half of a tiled driveway would be very inconvenient. With a shrug, she tossed the apple core onto the pile of rotting fruit rinds and vegetable stalks she had planned to use to make a home compost this summer. Standing up and stretching a little, she decided to get on with her big project for the day, repainting the house. She wasn’t completely sure the single pot of paint she had left would be enough for the whole house, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. If she ran out, she could just drive over to the hardware store and buy some more. The important part was getting started. After all, well begun is half done.