Category: culture

Hot and very humid. Sunny and broiling. This week has been the same, temps around 100F and RH around 85%. Really unpleasant except when the wind blows and you are in the shade. And it will probably continue until we get the edges of Beryl.

I spent the day not working. Oh I did a bit of moving stuff around, but the decorations and flags were already up, and it was crazy hot.

Today I will probably do some small things, but it’s nice to just sit and chat with people.

Stacking some good times, and building community. Worth doing.

Get out and do some of your own.

nick

And I do mean HOT. RH in the mid 80s too, which makes it all miserable. Still gotta keep working though, just need a fan and to stay out of the sun.

I got a bunch of stuff done yesterday. The wall of the garage that I had open to do all the utility work is now closed up. I did an another circuit and a quad box to that wall for the A/C unit.

I built a tall cabinet for the wine/beverage fridge and the “garage” oven. Made mistakes 3 times working on the opening for the oven, so I took that as a sign it was too late and my brain was fried, and called it a day. Long day, but I feel good about getting stuff done.

Today I’ll finish and get the garage back together. I will probably run out of time and leave the shed a mess. Didn’t get to un-stacking the collapsing retaining wall. Probably for the better given the high temps. Still need to clean and blow out the house. Didn’t do any tree work other than moving some previously cut limbs to the burn pile.

I’ll run the mower one more time before I leave, and get the part of the park I missed earlier in the week. I want it to be nice for the holiday crowd. It’s my contribution to our little community.

In my garage cleanup I found two jars of mint jelly. I thought I had brought some up, but I never moved it from the pile of stuff dumped out of the wife’s car to the proper stack. Would never have looked for it in a tool bag, but there it was… If you can’t find it, you don’t have it.

Lots to do today, we’ll see how much I get done. Need to head home tonight to take the kids for their fang cleaning on Tuesday. And I’m sure I’ve got other stuff waiting for my attention too.

Stacks are a good thing. Make sure you go through them occasionally though to refresh your memory of what you have and where it is. And then stack some more.

nick

Hot! With an extra helping of HUMID!! It was still 81F when I went to bed, and that was the coolest it had been all day. It really saps my energy and pace of work. Today promises to be like yesterday, with MOAR!!

More heat, more work, more cowbell…

I did get a bunch of stuff done. I ran some new electric, and some new gas lines in the garage. I’m getting set up to have A/C in the summer and heat in the winter. This house really isn’t that big, for all that it has 4 bedrooms, and the garage is slated to become a party room. It will still have a bunch of stuff stored in it, but it also has the pool table, and I need to find somewhere to set up the dart board.

Of course some of that stored stuff will have to be obscured or hidden, like a safe and fire proof file cabinet… and I don’t really want all the buckets of bulk food readily visible either. The regular food is already in metal cabinets and the freezers are black, which makes a surprising difference- they don’t poke you in the eye and scream “freezers”.

Plenty of work to do today including a trip to town to buy pink insulation. And something to use as exhaust piping for the A/C units. And maybe a plumbing part or two.

———-

While I was cooling down yesterday I had an interesting thought. Interesting to me anyway. I’m getting close to 60 years old, and I’m still finding ways that I’ve been programmed, conditioned, TRAINED, that are entirely unconscious behaviors and beliefs. The one that struck me was about not eating after bedtime. The night before I was hungry so I got out of bed and had a snack. I did it a week or so ago too. I’m a grown man, kids of my own, always had food in the house, and it never occurred to me that if I was hungry in the night, I could just go eat.

It didn’t take much, some crackers and cheese, but eating in the middle of the night (even though I was awake reading) was not something I’d ever done before this month. I’d been conditioned that you ate at meals, or had a snack during the day, and you didn’t get out of bed to eat something. Once you were in bed, it was the end of the day and the time to eat was past. (You’ve already brushed your teeth! never mind that you can brush them again.)

I know there are other things, I can hear my dad’s voice in some of the stuff I say to my kids and my wife. I can feel his expression on my own face sometimes. I’m sure that some of the things, most of them probably, are fine and won’t bite me in the @ss if the world turns upside down, but I can’t help but wonder if there are others, and when I’ll notice them.

It’s a minor thing, but I felt like I woke up somehow. I had something similar with taking showers. I recently realized I can take a shower as many times a day as needed. Somehow, I had the idea that I really shouldn’t take more than one shower a day… unless I was really dirty. Even then, I probably wouldn’t take one the following morning. Showers somehow were ‘a big deal’. They aren’t. Take one, if you need another in half an hour because you cut your hair and feel prickly, take another… or if you cleaned up before dinner, but smelled like smoke later, you can take another…

Weird huh? We’re creatures of habit and conditioning. Take a minute to consider if the things you are doing by rote and habit are GOOD things, and if they meet your needs NOW. Maybe you’ll find something that needs changing.

And stack, because how else are you going to prep?

nick

added- maybe I should start a tag for (not so) deep thoughts…

Hot and humid, but maybe less so at the BOL than in Houston. I’m hoping anyway, as I’ve got plenty of outdoor work to do. It was overcast yesterday, then partly cloudy, then it rained buckets, and then it was clear and beautiful for sunset. “What kind of weather did you have yesterday?” — ” all of it.”

It was very hot as well as humid, as one should expect in Houston as we slump toward July… which just meant everything took a little bit longer and was just that much more miserable. I spent about half the day indoors, and half out. In between putting away auction items, and loading the truck for the week, I cleared out several piles of stuff that had accumulated in parts of the house.

There is still a lot more to do, and my office looks like a hoarder house (sans rotten food, and urine in jars), but I did make progress and it should thrill my wife. I’ve done a lot of domestic bliss so far this week and some deferred maintenance too.

Now I get to do more here at the BOL. It’s a great life if you don’t falter, right?

BTW, I went to HEB mostly for cream, but checked the meat cooler and LO! Prime sirloin on sale for $4.99/pound with no limit, and the cap roast (picanha roast) for $5.99/pound. I bought most of it. That was one of the reasons I was late leaving for the BOL, I had to vac seal and freeze all that meat. I don’t want to fill the chest freezer up and then have no where to put the meat when I eventually switch back to an upright fridge/freezer, but dang, I’m not letting prime sirloin at the same price as hamburger go by.

Keep you eyes open for bargains, they are still out there. And it really helps you stack.

Which you should totally be doing anyway…
———–
Today will be spent poking at various lists, but I think mainly working in the shed and garage. We’re having guests for the 4th, and having the garage as extra “play” space will be nice.

I’ll be doing some work in the dockhouse and possibly on the dock itself too. I’ve got fewer days up here than I first envisioned, but getting some of that stuff done at home was well worth it.

Not that I’m done at home, but a good burst of effort goes a long way. Now to do the same up here…

nick

ps. Stack!