Well…as I sit here having my last cup of coffee for the morning, I thought I’d talk about something I discovered yesterday on the internet while I was looking for methods to get the registers cleaned up and ready to paint…one of the suggestions was to spray them with oven cleaner…even the new stuff that you can handle without gloves…and the weird thing was it worked better than the paint stripper I bought last week…still didn’t cut all the paint but it did more than I ever expected and that made me laugh a little….but I am still going to buy the heat gun when they get them in a couple of weeks from now….but I may check on it tomorrow if DD has anything that I want since they are right across the street from each other…and I need some sanding pads for my detail sander and another roll of painter’s tape even if they don’t have the heat gun…almost time to get to work….

Well…that was a little better…slept okay last night and didn’t get up til around 6 or so and I’ll take that any day….and I can breathe better this morning with no headache so I wonder what is going on with that? Still think I may have a bug of some sort since I do have some crap in my lungs and cough occasionally but my allergies have the same symptoms so how do you tell them apart? Oh, well…going to make them worse today with getting on sanding the baseboards and trim in the bathroom this morning to get ready to fill and smooth them…I did have another brainstorm yesterday…and no, it didn’t hurt…not much anyway…instead of getting a propane torch to remove the paint from the heat registers, I remembered that they make heat guns for just that purpose and it may be a better solution…but the one I want from HF is out of stock til early next month…only 16 bucks and I may be able to get away from stripping with chemicals altogether and may have some extra uses for it that will eliminate the need for sanding and filling on a lot of the trim….it is a slow process but the areas I have to do are small so we’ll see how it works…damn, the headache is back….not much to do today…going to get on the bike early and work some on the bathroom…then I’m going to suit up and try to get an outdoor ride in today and that will make for a 20 mile day…and Man U plays at 4 this afternoon so I need to have everything done by then, grit my teeth and watch them lose again..damn, I wonder why every team I follow sucks so much? More later…

Well…happy pi day….is it 7:30 or 6:30? Going to go through the time change math for a couple of days until I get used to it…but I think I’m running late when the clock says I should have gotten on the bike 15 minutes ago…this is the worst my allergies have been this year so far and I feel like crap so I may not work on the bathroom today…I wonder if I have a cold? It sure feels like I have a bug of some sort but I just remembered that I only had a small pork taco to eat all day and that sometimes has the same feeling as a bug….so maybe I’ll have some toast here in a minute to get some calories in before I get on the bike…I did take the weekend off to finish up my healing week and my hands feel much better so I may ease into some work….until it snowed so much yesterday, I was going to get outside for a ride the next couple of days since it is supposed to be over 50 tomorrow and Wed…I guess I’ll have to take a look at the trails to see how bad they got since they were already almost clear a week ago…that would mark a milestone much earlier than last year when I didn’t get out on the trails until April….but, after the couple of days of semi warmth, it is going to be back in the 40’s for the rest of the month and I am not sure I want to be cold again….not much to do today….still need to adjust to the time change and feeling crappy so I may take it easy today after the bike ride….after all, I don’t have a schedule any more and once I get the bathroom and bedroom done I think I am done for on the house for the year…I’m running out of time to just enjoy my life…oh, and Tom…the 400 buck insurance payouts have to be complete by May 9th and have already started…new kayak is coming! More later….

Well…as I was sitting here doing the last one, a new bird that I have not seen this winter landed on my feeder and has been going and coming for the past hour or so…didn’t know what it was so I had to go out to the internet and look it up…and found that it is a White Breasted Nuthatch that is pretty common here in Michigan..it looks a lot like a Chickadee but has a long. slender beak that is as long as it’s head…about the same size as the Black Eyed Juncoes that have been the predominate bird here this winter…still have not seen one sparrow on the feeder this winter and it continues to be strange to me with how many of them there were on the feeders back in GR last winter….and the volume of birds out here are probably 1/20th of what they were in GR, too, but I hope that will change next year when I change out the type of food I use…but I still have half a bag of this feed left…I am going to get a hanger and put my hummingbird feeder up this summer right outside the same window so I can see if any of them come to it…that would be cool…

Well…darn, it’s the middle March and I shouldn’t be out there digging through foot deep drifts and getting my toes frozen…I really do hope this is the last time I have to shovel this spring….but, I said that two weeks ago and most of the snow had melted until today…now it will be another two weeks before I can get out on the trails and it looks like I’ll have to keep getting my miles in downstairs…and with that, I may be able to get to 600 miles on the inside bike since I am almost at 500 today…and two more weeks will get me there…as I get older, I like the cold less and less…or I don’t dress for it more and more…not sure which it is but the rubber garden shoes I have been using are only good for about a half hour until it’s like not wearing shoes at all…I am going to buy a nice pair of winter boots for next winter…maybe some winter hikers that have good tread for the snow and ice…at least I didn’t have to buy a snowblower this winter but the day is coming where I’ll have to…cripes, I hate getting old….oh, well….time to watch some soccer and get ready to make some pork tacos for lunch….more later….

Well…that was strange…just went out to get the paper and it was probably the most snow I’ve driven in all winter…and it feels like the depths of January instead of March….we must have gotten 4 or 5 inches of snow last night and with the wind out here, there are frickin drifts that I think I’ll have to shovel later….and it’s only 15 out here…again…and I am damn tired of the cold….oh, well…that’s Michigan for you…slept really crappy last night with my allergies acting up and I could barely breathe all night even with the allergy meds…and that is not a good omen for how it’s going to be when the trees get going with their pollen….even with that, I feel okay today with being good for 10 weeks now and I am getting to the point that I will stop mentioning that since it is the new normal for me….didn’t do much yesterday and today will be the same since I am making weekends weekends again…Sunday is actually the only day I plan to take off but yesterday was a bonus day and it felt good to veg out instead of work…but I did make some decisions on the house and will do the bathroom next but then move on to the big bedroom so I can move in there permanently….it is so much larger than the room I’m using that I can actually put furniture in there…but it needs a lot of work to get it ready to paint that I probably won’t be done with it til May or so…but, it has a door that I can close to keep the dust controlled when I repair the plaster….and I may even try to remove the old wallpaper they painted over so I don’t have to have wallboard installed….it looks like a big job but the kitchen did, too, but that only took me a couple of months and there is less work in the bedroom….I am still thinking of putting in one of those pull down stairs to give me easy access to the attic but that may be a job for a contractor….haven’t really even looked at that yet….not much to do today…just going to have more coffee and get to the news that I haven’t even started yet….and there are soccer and races on today that I can play in the background as I read…a new normal Sunday….more later…..

Well…with adopting all of the new cooking technology that has become hot over the past few years like the instant pot, we sometimes forget the methods that we used to use that worked great and sometimes the old school stuff works as good or  better. As you know, a couple of days ago I made an 8 pound pork shoulder in my instant pot, cooking it for over an hour and a half under full pressure…but, I wasn’t really happy with how it turned out…it was not really the fall off the bone tender that I was expecting and that others had come out before….it didn’t look or feel tender or done even with adding an extra half hour to the recommended cooking time…now, I could have put it back in the pot for another hour but I was done with cooking and didn’t want to put in any more time…but yesterday, I got a brainstorm to take the partially cooked pork and put it in my big slow cooker that I haven’t used since I got the instant pot….so this morning when I got up at 5:39, I took the pork and put it in the slow cooker along with some celery, garlic, and onion along with some veggie broth and let it cook on high until almost noon…and it came out so darn good…tender and tasty and it broke up all of the huge pieces that were left after the instant pot so I now have two big containers of shredded, tender, tasty pork that I can use with the gravy and mashed potatoes I made Thursday and will make much better pork soft tacos than the undercooked stuff did….I just have to remember that the old school stuff still works great for some things…especially if you have the time….

Well…it you’ve been here at all, you have heard my laments about weekends not meaning anything in the long time I was unemployed and now with being retired…and I complained quite a bit that I didn’t care what day it was since they were all the same and there was nothing special about them and no reason to think they were…but, in the time I have been working on this house for hours every day, it has become kind of a job and I am trying to recreate the patterns I lived by my entire life to….and by taking weekends off from that work, I am starting to feel that weekends are special again…after the Saturday bike ride, I am making a conscious effort to limit the amount of work that I do and the guilt that I feel by not working…and the possibility of doing what I want instead of what I have to do is really pretty cool and I am looking forward to the freedom that it gives me…but, it’s more the languid feel that I get from this new attitude that is getting me back to normal a bit….for the first time in forever, I’m not rushing around here being so task oriented that I don’t enjoy life and I am finally just letting the days happen…it’s like I’ve shifted down a gear and I don’t have to be wide open anymore…okay, that’s a car analogy that I use and I hope you understand it since it is a good description of what I feel…I just hope I can sustain it….but I’ll take this small bit of progress if I can’t…

Well…it’s new coffee day! One of those days where I have fresh coffee and it is from a container that I opened yesterday to make the first pot….the bad thing is that this is the best pot of coffee I’ll get from this 32 oz container and it’s downhill for the next 6 weeks until I open the next one….oh, well…I’ll enjoy this one while it lasts…it’s the damn middle of March and it is 16 degrees out here and it snowed last night….where the hell is spring? Okay, that will be my last bitch…for now….I was up and down all night last night starting at 3:02, then 5:09, then 5:39, then I gave up…but I feel okay so who cares? The big pork shoulder I made the other day was not done as well as it needed to be since it was not fall off the bone tender and I probably should have put it back in the instant pot for another hour…but I didn’t…I did come up with an idea that I am doing right now and that is to put the pork into my slow cooker that I haven’t used since I got the instant pot and I am going to run it on high for 6 hours or so to see how that works…and I added some veggie broth to it for liquid to change the taste…do you think I have too much time on my hands? I am in the last two days of my healing week off and my hands are better but still hurt so I guess I’ll just have to deal with it as I get back to work….I am a little excited to get after the bathroom but I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with the built in cabinet that is in there…I really like all the storage but it needs to be stripped or sanded and re-finished with a urethane that will hold up to the humidity in there….and there is not a lot of room to move around in there so I think I’ll take the cabinet apart and do the work downstairs like I did for the kitchen….and I may have to wait to work on it until I can open the window and let the fumes out…I think it will be a stand alone project that will take a week or so since it needs to be re-stained before the finish….not much to do today….it’s kind of nice that I have gotten to the point that my living space is pretty organized so cleaning it doesn’t take a lot of time..and that is what I’m going to do today after the bike ride that starts in 18 minutes….more later…