Month: October 2025

Cool and damp, warming later. Still a cooling trend overall, although it was well into the 90sF yesterday afternoon, and the sun was beating down like a laser.

Despite my plans, I didn’t get done what I wanted to get done. It took a while to get to the point I could do some of the finishing touches, and then I figured out that they just wouldn’t work the way I thought they would. Specifically, you can’t put drawers behind doors in the system I got. The doors don’t open far enough for the drawers to move past. I’ll be looking for alternatives today.

And W didn’t like the door style, or color. Oh well. Details to be refined.

Today I’ll try again. More sleep at night should equate to more awake time during the day, and more energy to do what needs to be done. I’ve got a pickup to do too, as I blew off yesterday’s pickup.

Two steps forward, and one back is still progress forward.

And stacks of stuff will be good, no matter what happens.

Get some!
nick

Cool. Damp bordering on wet. And then warming to a nice day. That was yesterday, and hopefully today. I love Fall. We don’t get much of the changing foliage, but we do get some. And we get a bit of jacket and sweater weather, but not enough for someone raised in the Midwest. Fortunately, we also don’t get several feet of snow, or icy drizzle, or a month of grey dirty days.

Didn’t get much done yesterday, as my wife was in painting mode in the laundry area. That kept me mostly out of there and off that project. I did some auction stuff instead. It turned into a mostly ‘off’ day.

Today will be different. I should be able to wrap up the new pantry project. I’ll put the laundry room back together and progress as far as I can anyway. I’ve got one pickup close by, and I’ll do some auction stuff in the morning too. But I should be able to get some more work done around the house.

Should. I’m beginning to think about adding some more bulk buckets to the stacks too. What’s cheap now might be dear later. Well, relatively cheap… it’s still much more than it was a couple of years ago and there is less selection. War leads to a number of things, shortages and displaced people being among the most prevalent. One I can do something about. The other, all I can do is try to prevent it from being me, and prepare to offer what help I can.

Stacks will help.

nick

(why are the king’s horses involved?)

And it’s cool and wet today. Forecast shows clearing, and it is almost guaranteed to warm up, which will make it pretty humid. Still, we needed the rain. We need more actually, but now I can wait until after Halloween.

I spent part of yesterday working on the laundry room pantry project. W decided she needed to repaint before I put the cabinets in place. Cue the removal of all the OTHER stuff, coat rack, shelving, laundry supplies, hurricane preps, keys, backpacks, hats… Big mess. But she should finish today, and then I can get my part done.

The rest of the day I moved from small thing to small thing, with some auction stuff in between. No big thing got off the list though.

Today I need to make some more progress on a few of the smaller things that will enable bigger things later. And probably not things that need me to be outdoors. I am glad I didn’t get more decor set up, as it’s not super sturdy and would likely have been damaged by the rain and wind. I don’t know how much we actually got but it was pouring down and the wind was howling.

Anyway, there is a pile of work in front of me. I’ll do some of it, and count it as working to improve. I’ll stack something too, just because I always do.

nick

Today should be cooler to start, then warm. We might finally get some of the rain that has been threatening. Yesterday got hot and humid before the front moved in and stirred everything up. That helped with the temps, but the humidity stayed high.

I did auction stuff in the morning, although I blew off my pickup. He’ll wait and I didn’t feel like doing the round trip for two items, even if one was a solar panel. When I finally got out of the house I took a load to my shop, did a minimal amount of sorting there, and then hit Costco.

Charmin is not on sale this period. Paper towels were, so I grabbed one bale of them, and only one bale of TP. The Charmin blue is slightly less than $1/mega roll when it’s not on sale. It’s over $1 at the HEB store. I bought a three pack of LED headlamps. I’m using them all the time while working on projects or in the attic. Having the extra light where I am looking helps a lot. Since they were on sale and very bright, I grabbed the pack.

The rest of my basket was normal shopping- and Halloween candy. Our store has adopted a new (relatively new) checkout where you leave as much as possible in the cart and they scan it with handheld readers. I’ve gotten pretty good at stacking the cart with all the UPC labels visible and it really speeds up checkout. You do have to grab a few empty boxes so that when you unload into your car, it’s not all one big pile instead of having the items stacked in boxes at checkout.

I’m sure it reduces the physical strain on the checkers. When I asked if they liked it and if it was faster, the checker waffled a bit, saying it mostly depended on the cart. I can see that. I stack and orient everything to help with the process, but if you didn’t, they have to dig around in the cart and move stuff.

It’s good that they are still trying new things.

Today I’m sleeping in a bit, then working the list. I’ll also do some more Halloween decorating. I’ve got some blacklight stuff I’d like to use, but don’t have a good idea or plan for how, or what I really want to do with it. I’ve also got some fog effects I’d like to try if I have time to modify the machine. There is a guy on youtube that uses ultrasonic mist generators to turn the smoke machine fog into low lying fog. If I can get that to work, it would look great. The traditional methods of chilling the smoke don’t work particularly well outdoor.

Kids have Homecoming stuff to do later today. It’s a fun time in the school year.

It’s important when prepping to take your joy where and when you can. And stacking. That’s important too.

nick

Cool, warm, humid, but less so than a week ago. Still trending downwards. Hooray. And we got a little rain yesterday in various parts of town. Not my house, but downtown got a bit. Several times I used my windshield wipers for a few seconds. We need some more too.

I did a couple of pickups, and made two trips to the shop to drop stuff off. Ended up not having time for Costco, so that will move to today. I made a potroast in the slow cooker, but I’m the only one who needed dinner. Oh well, it’ll be good tonight.

Today I’ve got one pickup, more solar, and one I will try to do close to home. Costco is high on my list as I don’t want to go on the weekend. I need gas in the Ranger too. And I need to work the list, at least one or two items… it’ll be disjointed, like this post.

But it should result in adding to the stacks, which is a good thing. Get you some of that too.

nick

Cool getting warmer later. A bit more cool and a bit less warm. And the seasons slowly turn. It was really nice yesterday. Even in the sun it wasn’t crazy hot, although it was 90F at one point. I like Fall. It’s not the sweater and jacket weather I grew up with, but it’s nice when it finally gets here.

I did stuff around the house yesterday. That puts a pickup or two off to today or tomorrow, but it meant getting some stuff done, which is a good thing. I did some rearranging of laundry machines, redid the dryer exhaust, and sanded and primed my drywall repairs. Then I did some cleaning. LOTS of thick dust under my bed. I noticed I was coughing in my bedroom, and the dust has certainly been contributing. Some I vacuumed, some I used the leaf blower and chased it out the door.

Hairballs as big as softballs are no joke, yo.

It’s little stuff but it feels like I’m holding on to a little of the momentum.

Then in the late afternoon, I put out some Halloween decorations. I actually threw away 4 inflatables that weren’t working. I’ve had them for years, they were pretty rough looking, and they had been through at least one round of repairs, so it was time. Still goes against my grain…

Now I need to continue making progress and even accelerate what I’m doing. I think I can crank out a high impact, medium effort task or two and get an emotional reward for doing it. We’ll see.

Today I’ll do a pickup or two, then work the list. Maybe some paperwork first. And I really need to go to Costco.

This stuff isn’t gonna stack itself.

nick