Category: decline and fall

Raining and wet, cool, and probably nasty out. It was like that when I went to bed, and the forecast was for worse today. Yesterday was overcast most of the day, with occasional light misty drizzle. Until dinner time, then the rain started in earnest. It would be nice if it wasn’t raining all day.

I did a bunch of running around yesterday. I bored everyone to death with it in comments, so I won’t repeat it. Just that I was busy all day, did a bunch of driving, and wouldn’t have liked to do it in an EV.

Today I have a couple of must do pickups in the afternoon. Then I have the kid taxi stuff, only more, because she’s doing extra stuff for a dance recital, as well as her normal Tuesday stuff. Some of the pickup is bulk medical, some hobby stuff. For some reason there has been a fair amount of medical stuff in the auctions lately. I’m a buyer when it’s cheap.

You can improvise many things, but it’s easy enough to have the right stuff in the stacks.

Make your stacks as comprehensive as you can. No one is coming to save you, you are on your own.

nick

National forecast says we might get rain and even thunderstorms for the next couple of days. I’m going with “cool and cloudy” for today at least. Yesterday was so freaking nice I worked outside all afternoon. Got the sunburn on my neck to prove it.

I did get some things done. I bounced around a bit, knowing I needed to be in and out making dinner happen, but I did get things done. Nothing major. But some things have been neglected for a long time. It’s gonna take a while to unscrew this pooch.

So today I’ll be trying to continue that, while also doing some other stuff, like heading to my client’s house to pull some ATT fiber gear. I am going to lose my momentum, whatever I had going, but it does pay cash money. I think I’ve just got too many things going, and I’m not focusing on stuff like I should.

Dunno what to do really, but I’m going to have to make some sort of change to get it done.

Meanwhile, some stuff will continue. Stacking. Learning. Building. Those are good.

nick

Clear and nice today. It was simply gorgeous yesterday. What a nice surprise. We got several inches of rain Friday night, but it was gone and done before I got up. Several inches of water in the back of the truck proved that we got a lot of rain. Hopefully today is nice too. National forecast says we’re in the clear.

Did my pickup in the late morning. Took a bit to get started. Still sore. Had a bit of free time so I hit the estate auction from Friday, and I found more stuff to buy. Good sale, lots of good things.

Got home and did a few domestic bliss things. Then I fell asleep in the chair. Wife and D2 got home, D2 went to bed and crashed. So the evening ended up being sleepy time and not work time.

I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, but I’m happy enough.

Today I’ll be doing a bit more home stuff. I’ve got indoor and outdoor stuff piled up.

Stacks of stuff. Still, there are things to get and stack. Figure out which are which.

nick

Probably raining when I get up. Definitely still wet. Also probably a bit cool. That’s ok with me. It finally did rain yesterday after dinner time. And then it kept raining, and raining, with short pauses. Dunno what we eventually got, but the bayous will be full today.

Hit an estate sale, and spent $150. Got a LOT of good stuff. Camping cookware, water filter, ham radio stuff, art supplies, pipes, a little of everything. Guy was in my nearby neighborhood. Wish we’d have met. Then I did a couple of pickups. The main was was for two more of the 400 watt panels. I also got stuff from several auctions that had piled up at one of the guys. Then it was a flurry of kid taxi until D1 went to camp and I took D2 to her hobby meeting.

Today I have two pickups and a bunch of stuff to do. Mainly household stuff from the list, but also some other “pop up” stuff. And I need to get a bunch of stuff put away.

But first, a little bit of sleeping in.

Then stacking.

nick

Damp, overcast, cool to start, then maybe rain later according to the weather liars on the radio. We went all day yesterday without rain, but it looked like it was minutes away all day. Maybe today will be the same. Maybe. At least it’s not crazy hot.

Slept most of the morning. I fell asleep in the chair. Work up to do a pickup and then start all the kid things. I realized, I have been trying to live on 4 hours of sleep a night, for years, and it doesn’t work anymore. My body is telling me to sleep more. I will work on getting to bed earlier over the course of the next couple of weeks. Somehow my bedtime moved to almost 2am most nights, and later some. With a 6am wakeup alarm to get the kids out the door, I’m wiped out for the rest of the day.

Today I’ve got a big pickup in Sugar Land. My opening bid of $5 won me two pallets of spray sanitizer. It’s 75% ethanol. I use a lot of alcohol based cleaners, and I wanted it as a backup fuel for cooking. IDK if it will substitute for isopropanol when cleaning and curing resin prints on the 3D printer, but I’m going to try it, now that I’ve got alcohol to burn. Literally. I know it will burn in my boat stove and in a penny or hobo stove too. I didn’t really expect to win it, let alone both pallets. They had other pallets too, but they were a brand with glycerin in the sanitizer. I don’t want the gel. The stuff I got should be water thin to go through the sprayer.

After that pickup, I’ve got others. And all my home stuff on the list too. At least with this pickup, I’m adding to the stacks a bit.

Something I always like to do- stacking…

nick

Probably another day that starts in the 70s and ends in the 80s. Like my daughter’s playlist. Might be clear this time. It was mostly overcast yesterday, but there were clear times and places. This close to the Gulf of America, sometimes it be that way.

Did auction stuff in the morning, then did my pickup. After that it was kid stuff until we were done with dinner. And dinner was indian food, late.

Delicious food. Tender goat for me. I don’t have the chance to eat goat very often, so I usually will order it if it’s on the menu.

Today should be more domestic bliss, some auction pickups, and then the T/Th kid shuffling…

There are a lot of things on the list, and I’m not moving things off it very quickly. I really need to work on that.

And stack. We’re down to one last juicebox for lunch…

nick

Cool to start, maybe high 60s, but likely low 70sF, and getting into the 80sF later. It was sweaty hot at the BOL yesterday afternoon. Until late in the day, it was nice in the shade. Humid, but tolerable. I was soaked later when I was out in the sun.

Kids and wife went home early on Sunday, but I stayed at the BOL to work on stuff. Mainly, I needed to figure out why the mower wasn’t running right. Many hours and skinned knuckles later, I put the old belt back on and the problem went away. The belt I got on amazon must not be correct. I’ll order another this week. I mowed my yard, and part of the HOA lot, but didn’t edge.

Noticed some dewberries along the edge of my property so I harvested about a cup. Lots of thorny defenders marked up my hands, but the berries are nice. There were lots of unripe berries so I should get more later.

More of my peaches were destroyed by whatever animal is raiding the tree. At this rate there won’t be any left to mature.

There are several food sources growing on the BOL property– persimmon, wild garlic, dewberries, peaches, and now apples. I noticed a mulberry tree next to my scrap guy’s yard, heavy with fruit. Maybe I can pick some of that too. Free food is the best food. I’ve also noticed several of my neighbors in Houston that don’t harvest their citrus trees. Hmm. Maybe I should up my foraging game.

Threw a charger on the trolling motor battery, and it’s dead. I’ll put the battery on my charger here and see if I can recover it. Otherwise I’ll explore options for replacing that as it’s not covered by the deal for the boat. Got the GPS/sonar working but the text is so small I don’t think I’ll be able to use it. I’ve got one from an auction that I can take a look at. Maybe it’s bigger and easier to read.

Did general clean up and putting away, and then headed home. Relatively easy drive, only a few crazies, and only a few cops out. I’m glad we didn’t end up farther from Houston as the current drive is about all I want to do on a regular basis.

Today I’ve got domestic bliss to do, some more moving stuff to and from storage, and I’ve got to plan my week. I have pickups, a visit to my client, and other stuff to do. Some of it will be time sensitive, so I should get done what I can to open time for the other stuff later.

And stacking– I’ve got to restack canned goods. Make sure you do your best to keep your stacks, cool, dark, and dry.

nick