Category: march to war

Cold this morning? Certainly cool. Then warming. And if the giant ball of nuclear fire is in the sky, then it will feel hot. Like yesterday. While it was cool to chilly in the shade, the sun poking through the clouds was like a heat lamp and I was the entree sitting on the cutting board. I might even have a little tightness to the skin on my neck and shoulders. I’m really glad it wasn’t sunny for longer.

I thought I had a plan in place for yesterday, but I was wrong. On the other hand, I spent a few hours with my lovely wife watching other kids perform, and about 15 minutes watching my kid do her thing. All while sitting comfortably (mostly) outdoors. Took a while to get home after, as traffic leaving the event was poorly managed. I did some quick auction stuff, then read for a while while waiting for kids to get home.

Today I’ll sleep in a bit, then do what I can to get the house back into shape. It’s currently disrupted by the laundry/entry/pantry project, and all the holiday decorations. Just getting all those back into the attic will help. Getting the entry/laundry finished and back together will put even more stuff back where it belongs. Oh, and I should make something nice for dinner.

If I can get anything off the list it will be a bonus.

We’ll also begin to see if there will be widespread or localized madness in the stores or the streets. W says her socials are mostly emphasizing food bank donations to fill any gaps. I wonder how long that will last as people see just who has been spending their tax dollars, and on what. Trump has once again disrupted the status quo and focused attention on something that has been building for a long time without oversight. The ugly truth of the abuse of SNAP will last even if people forget that Orangemanbad was the one who flipped over the rock.

I’ll keep stacking and adding to my stored resources. You should too.
nick

Chilly is probably a good word to start the day, then warming a bit, before ending cold. We’re still supposed to be clear sky and sunny, so it should warm up a bit later in the day. Yesterday was really nice. It was a bit on the cool side, but as I was working outdoors, it felt great. By midnight, it was pretty dang cold and damp though.

I spent the day doing Halloween stuff. My decorations went farther than I thought, and they came out looking good. I like the chance to do some quick and dirty creative work that is physical and fleeting in nature. You can do a lot with very little if it only has to last a few hours.

Today I’ll keep putting stuff away. I’ve got one pickup to do, and D2 has a competition in the early afternoon that I’m going to try very hard to attend. Then it will be back to the list, with finishing out the pantry/laundry room makeover at the top. By the end of the weekend I hope to have that done, and move on to the next thing.

And I really need to go through some of the food stacks and get rid of the breakage/waste while sorting and re-stacking what’s left. Then I will replace the breakage. Although I might not do it in the first couple of days of the month. No need, if the people go nuts. And people do go nuts. I watched people fighting over bottled water while it was still coming out of the tap, and they could get all the water they wanted. So, yeah, nuts.

Stacking and a preparedness lifestyle means not having to take risks for daily needs. Do more!

nick

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