Well…damn, what a crappy night of sleep…up and down all night and finally woke up for good at 4:25…laid in bed for almost another hour, though, and none of it was sleeping…ick…had a skin tag that I removed with clippers and it bled for over 3 hours but that is normal since it does that every time I clip the damn thing off…might have to get something to remove it permanently…this old body is getting weirder by the day…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but I need to get cleaning and packing today and that will continue until I leave…don’t think I ate enough again yesterday with just a bagel, bowl of soup, and a chicken wrap for the day and I really don’t know how I can do better than that….so I will start today with a bagel again just to keep my legs from going flat but they don’t hurt so no ibuprofen…but I may have some more electrolytes at the ride break when I get my coffee for the 2nd ride…need to get going on drinking coffee since I’m still only on my first cup and I do need the jolt from the caffeine…it’s still in the 50’s right now and I hope the humidity is still down like yesterday…that makes it much more comfortable…so, coffee, coffee, coffee and a bagel before I get on the weight work…more later…

Well….after the dead legs and huge amounts of pain I had in them yesterday, I was expecting that to continue today so I took an ibuprofen before I got on the bike this morning and the rides weren’t bad…I also made up a quart of electrolyte water to drink after the first ride and I think that may have helped since I had energy through the 2nd ride and could still go pretty hard right to the end….and my legs weren’t stiff or puffy so I think I may be past that…I did get a little work done today with sweeping out the garage and vacuuming, washing and waxing the car…and I even read half a book as I was watching the drag races that were on all day…so while I didn’t get a lot done, I did get more done than yesterday and that’s not bad…I have been reading a lot about the new trend where people are getting tired of always having to accomplish something more that just living and I laughed that it describes me perfectly…I do not ever remember allowing myself to just live and do what I want with no guilt for it…that’s going to take a lot of work on my part and I’m not sure I’ll ever get there…I did see a couple of huge puffballs along the trail this morning and they were almost 18 inches across…the biggest ones I have ever seen…pretty cool…okay, back to reading…

Well…damn, running really late this morning with not getting out of bed til 5:45 but it wasn’t from good sleep but from being in pain and just trying to find a way to get comfortable all night…now my frickin ribs hurt and I have no clue what the hell is going on…so I took an ibuprofen a few minutes ago to see if that helps…don’t feel bad about that since I haven’t taken one in over a month and sometimes you just need it…it’s only 57 here right now and that’s okay after the low being around 70 for the past week…the humidity went away yesterday and it was so clear here I could easily see all the day down to GH 12 miles away…things just looked sharp and after all the humidity haze, it just didn’t look real…didn’t get anything done yesterday but today I’ll start cleaning this place up and start getting ready for Italy…have to make a list of everything I need to take and start getting it packed…it is kind of cool that I have a roller suitcase that can fit two weeks of clothes but I hope my daughter has found a hotel with a laundry like the UK trip…so today is going to be winging it a bit and watching the US Nationals drag racing that is on all day starting at noon…good background noise for reading….more later…

Well…damn, I can’t figure out what the heck it was with my legs this morning but they were completely dead on the bike and have since hurt all day…and they just didn’t feel right…like they were really stiff and looked like I just sprinted 20 miles with how pumped they looked…just the weirdest damn thing…so, of course I didn’t get much done today but make guac and read a lot…all of the races today were boring and the one that’s on right now is boring, too…maybe I’m just bored with life right now…that could be it…so I’ll keep this one short since nothing happened today so I really don’t have anything to say…

Well…running a bit late this morning with not getting up til 5:25 but I can’t get out on the bike til 6:30 or so and that gives me 45 minutes to do this and anything else I need to…no bagel this morning with making a batch of popcorn last night and I still feel full from it…much cooler this morning at 58 when it was over 70 yesterday and that’s okay with me…I’m ready for fall to come and go out for some color touring with the top down on the car…didn’t get a lot done yesterday and today looks the same but I do need to make some guac with the avocados I got Wed finally ripening enough…haven’t made that in a long tome and I may replace a meal with it later today but we’ll see…don’t really have to cook today with leftover soup and chicken I made yesterday and the breasts were so big I can make meals for 4 days from them…and I have 2 more in the fridge to be cooked…I’m glad I got the lawn mowed yesterday so today will be nothing but races and soccer and reading and that’s what Sundays should be…but I need to get moving soon…need to get the weight work done before I get out on the bike so I don’t have to think about it later….more later…

Well…for the past week or so I’ve been fighting a frickin mouse who had found his way into my house…and overnight he got on my last nerve by getting into the moldy bread I put out for the squirrels…so, this morning, I started to think and came up with a trap I thought would work and it did…a slice of bread wadded up and placed in the center of 4 sticky traps…and a few hours later he came out and tried to get to the bread…not successfully and was stuck fast to the sticky traps…so I mercifully put him out of his misery with my billy club and now his corpse resides in the outdoor trash bin…then I turned the bread trap into a 3 sided one and put it back into place just in case there is another one in here…what a pain in the butt to have to think about this crap…but I think it’s over now so I don’t have to think about that before I go to Italy…still going to make sure that all of the food is in plastic totes that mice can’t get into and I’ll leave the traps in place when I go…one mouse doesn’t smell when it’s dead so I can get away with catching a few more while I’m gone…if there are any…okay, back to reading…

Well…that was sure a weird as hell day with getting almost 5 hours of steady rain in the morning…I even had to clean and service the indoor bike so I could get a ride in somewhere and did one on it…as soon as I finished that one, the rain stopped so I jumped on the outdoor bike to get the miles in…and I found the detour that I’ll be riding or the next couple of months…not too hard but it adds about 4 miles to the distance since I have to ride all the way around the country club to get to the beach…and it has this huge half mile uphill climb in it that is going to be a chore…and all the extra is road riding but they do have bike lanes painted on the road I need to use but it is the roughest new pavement I’ve ever felt…way too big of stones in the asphalt…and this bike lane looks like it has never been used with all of the branches and leaves on it…oh, well…slept okay last night and I hope that will help with the exhaustion I felt yesterday afternoon…again, from not eating enough…I need to remember when I have soup for a meal that I’ll be under on calories for the day and have something to compensate for that…so that means I can’t skip the bagel this morning since I need that fuel before I get on the bike…weight work first…more later…

Well…it’s still raining here and it looks like it will be for a while…so it looks like I won’t get out on the bike until 10 or so…check that, the storm has lined up so it will be hitting here for a few hours yet and it is really weird to still be sitting here at 8am doing this….I just had to put letter stickers on the laptop keyboard since I had a bunch of letters that had worn off and, even though I type every day, not having letters on the keys was getting pretty frickin annoying…so now I have 9 stickers there and it looks like I’m good for a while…I was going to go in and get my flu and covid vaccines before Italy but they didn’t have the updated covid one yet so I guess I’ll wait til I get back…sure hope I don’t get sick on the trip…this has been a nice storm and it is forcing me to relax a bit this morning and I really don’t know how to act without having the bike rides to burn the caffeine off…and I really want another cup of coffee so I think I will and that will set me vibrating…it is 2 of my sons birthdays today and I’m going to text them here in a minute to say happy birthday…still want to go to the library and I may go right at 9am if it’s still raining…then I’ll get to try out the new wipers I put on the car a while back…more later…

Well…man, it’s raining here with a little thunderstorm so that is going to make me late for the whole day….but the main body of the storm is going to the north…again…so it’s not going to be long before I can get out on the bike…didn’t sleep much last night and I am easing into the day with coffee. coffee, coffee and I may even have to make more even though I just made 12 cups…I guess we’ll see…didn’t get much done yesterday but I may have to go out to the library this morning since I’m down to the last book and there is a holiday Monday…and I do need to cook some chicken but I’m making a normal recipe since I really don’t feel like cooking much…maybe some mashed potatoes and corn to go with it…and cooking two breasts will give me sandwich material for later in the weekend…damn, I get tired of planning meals all the time…it would be nice to just wing it for a change but that would mean fast food and I don’t even know where any of the fast food places are…I think I’ve only had it once since I moved out here but I don’t remember what or when that was…so I guess the plan for the day is to just wait out the storms and get the weight work in as I wait…buy that’s a lot of waiting…more later…

Well…not sure if it’s an accomplishment or not but I made potato soup this afternoon and had a bowl for dinner…but that’s all I did after the bike rides…oh, I did finish up the Orson Scott Card sci fi novel that I started yesterday and it was pretty good…I haven’t read any science fiction since I got into the thrillers I have been reading but I’m glad I chose the book…and the one I read has a cliffhanger that I think sets it up for a sequel that I will look for next week..still have a couple of books that will get me through the weekend and both are authors I haven’t read before…still trying to expand past the ones I’m running out of…I used the 2% milk to thicken to make the soup creamy and it worked much better than skim…I guess I’m a convert to milk with fat in it…oh, I just remembered that I did do something today… a load of laundry…not much work but work anyway…I did get a bit wet on the bike today but the big rain that was coming hit the Muskegon force field…again…an just dissipated without a drop falling and that sucks…so now no more rain…okay, nope, they are calling for storms overnight but I won’t believe it until it makes me wet…okay, need to look for something to watch tonight…