Category: personal

Should be nice in Houston today.   Clear, moderately warm…   it was actually hot at the BOL yesterday.  Started mild and cool, ended up 85F in the shade.   In the sun, my pale kids got sunburned, and even I got some additional color on my arms and neck.  It was sweaty in the sun.   If not for the breeze, it would have been unpleasant.   As it was, it was gorgeous.

Wrapped up birthday week for the kid.   Returned all the extra children.   A good time was had by all, but there were definitely fraying edges after the second night of staying up late.   I didn’t do any real work at all, except the lawn care.   It was nice.

Today I’ve got estate stuff to process, and a couple of pickups to do.   I’ve got to get some of the pure aloe gel from the health food store for the kids.   It’s been on my list for a couple of weeks, and I kept putting it off.   Today they’ll use the last of what I have in stock.   I have a backup of course, but it’s a watery product that isn’t as comfortable or effective as the gel.   The main difficulty is storage.   The pure stuff needs to be refrigerated, and I don’t have the room for extras.  Plus, we are VERY slow to use up a bottle, literal years.  Nothing I’ve ever used since I first found the pure aloe when I was rock climbing regularly in Arizona has worked as well to heal a sunburn.

So I’ve got stuff to do today, and I’ll be doing a client site visit tomorrow, and all the normal stuff, as I drop back into my normal life.   I guess that short vacation will have to do for a while…

All those buckets of food aren’t gonna stack themselves, get to it.

nick

Huh,can’t do italics in the headline…

Cool and clear, warming later.    Spent pretty much all day yesterday indoors.   Only went out to cut stuff, and then back the the grindstone…

But a lot of stuff got done.  Closed in walls that were open for plumbing.   Disconnected the old copper- finally.  We are fully on the new pex everywhere that is connected.   I’ve still got 2 hose bibs to connect, but that’s it.

I’ve got some cleanup to do, and I’d like to get the berry bushes in the ground, even if I end up moving them later, but at least the plumbing made progress.

So I’ll do what I can this morning and then head home.  School function tonight that I can’t miss, and an auction pickup on the way home (!not a collectible computer!…) so I can’t extend my mini-break another night.

Skipped the fire and radio last night in lieu of home cooked dinner and conversation.  Meatspace, it’s what’s for dinner…

Stack what you can, especially relationships.

nick

Cool and damp, not impossible that we’ll get rain, but I hope not.  Pretty nice yesterday for all my driving around.   Got a bit overcast in the late afternoon, and we had a tiny bit of moisture from the sky.

I did get almost all my pickups done.   I had one company that I thought was 9-5 pickup, but had closed at 3pm.  So I’ll get that pickup done later.  Got stuff for D2’s birthday, got stuff for my BOL, got some logging stuff, including a cant hook.  Who orders a cant hook from amazon, and then returns it? I even had time to stop at Microcenter and pick up some photoresin, and my free microSD card… and I popped into a nearby store to buy a couple things, and they were blowing them out.  Online from the maker, $8 each, marked $5 in the store, but discounted to $2 last visit, offered to me at $1 each.   I bought them all.  $70 for a lifetime supply or use them as gifts… score!

Got the kids to school for their show, and dressed up a bit to attend later.   It was about what you’d expect from 6-8th graders.   They did show noticeable improvement over the year.   Still, I was glad I had my ear pro when it got screeching loud.   I’m happy to support the school’s drama program and the kids.   Everyone starts someplace.   I just wish someone (with more actual knowledge of the subject than me) would work with them on audio reinforcement.   I can play the tune and march with the band doing audio, but if I was going to TEACH it, I’d want more actual training and theory than I have.  What I know I learned from necessity first hand, on my own, or in class 30 years ago, before there was much actual instruction in the subject.

Anyhow, got home, and now it’s time to face the weekend.

I’ll be going up to the BOL.  I just don’t know when, or for how long, or what will go with me.  If it’s pouring down rain, that will seriously limit me in what I can take up, and there is always a lot to take.   There is plenty to do when I get there too.   Hopefully,  I can get the hose bibs installed.   There are other things, like getting some seeds in the ground and making some progress on the sprinkler system, or doing more sorting and clean up, or breaking more concrete, that I can do too.  Who am I kidding?  There are ALWAYS more things that need doing than time to do them.

It would be nice to get the base for my 10″ dob assembled and get a look through it… or drop  a line in the water and catch some fish, or get the crawdad traps set…. But I think I’ll be doing trees, water lines, sprinklers, and putting the walls back together where I had to open stuff up.

Whatever it ends up being, progress is progress.

And that’s true with prepping too.   It’s very difficult to go from unaware to ready for the zombies in a short time.   It’s a journey, not a destination.  AND the path varies, and the destination keeps moving too…

Do what you can with what you have, and keep working to improve your position.   Stacking stuff doesn’t hurt and it’s easy.

nick

Cooler, and damp, but should be clear.   It might even warm up a bit later.    It was pretty nice until about 4 pm yesterday, when some moisture from the sky started hitting me in the face.   I think today will be even nicer.

I did get to storage yesterday and did move some stuff out of the house.   Spent some time sorting there.   When the rain started, I wrapped that up and went to get the kids.   Their rehearsal went longer than previous days, so it didn’t limit my afternoon much.

Today will be more of the same.  I’ll try to get some stuff done around the house, and then head to storage to do more sorting.   Stuff I can pull out for the “collectibles” auction will make room in the unit, and provide some cash flow.

Bigger picture I need to get serious about the garden, and really soon.  I’ve got some trees to buy and plant too.   Here I’d like to plant two more apple trees, to replace the citrus I lost in the freeze.  Needs to be two, because I can’t remember which variety I still have, and they need to be different for pollination.   If I get one from each group, I’ll have the pair set, and one or the other is bound to be the complement to the surviving one.   I’m done with trying to keep citrus alive, unless it’s in pots and can move indoors.

I’ve also got to do some landscaping and yard work, to include repairs to the freeze damaged sprinklers here.   Then I need to do sprinklers at the BOL.  And gardening.  And trees.  Oh, and having the dead trees cut down…    It’s a big list.

About this time, I’m sure my rental house will need some work or repair too.  Because that’s how it works…

No complaints though, it’s a good life.   It can take it out of you though.

Hard to stack up time, but using money to have someone else do the work effectively increases your time.   The trick is having the money, and FINDING the someone else.   When you find good someone elses, you stack them high!

So stack some good helpers.  They are literally a force multiplier.

nick