Well…not going to talk about how crappy my sleep was last night since it depresses me to think just how bad it is…I did have to take some allergy meds last night since I couldn’t stop sneezing and that is making for being able to breathe this morning and I appreciate that…and I don’t really feel that bad today…just the normal aches and pains but my butt is starting to wear out with all the riding and I have had to move around in the seat the last week or so just to tolerate it and I may just need to take a day off to let it heal up some…oh, I did just go past 3400 miles yesterday so that is more than 2/3 of the way to my 5000 mile goal for the year…I was a little disappointed that my rear tire only lasted 3,000 miles  before coming apart but I have one of the hard ones on now that I hope will last the rest of the year…I am going to see if I can find a spare locally or get one ordered so I’ll have one in reserve…I could take the front off the old bike if I need it but I want to keep that intact so I can get it repaired…didn’t get much done yesterday but I am going to paint the trim on the front of the house today to get that off the list…and I may try to clean the copper trim around the porch too, but that will depend on how my foot fares….not much to do today…I may lay out in the sun again to try to even out my biker tan and continue getting some color but we’ll see how the day goes….more later…

Well…I wonder if I’ll ever sleep again? Needless to say it was another crappy night with getting up at 4:44 this morning so that’s another 5 hour night…and I’m tired….oh, well…there probably has to be some long term health problems that go along with not sleeping but I’m not ready to find out what they are yet…I did get a few things done yesterday and I picked the first of my tomatoes and had one for a snack and I can’t believe how much better they are than the cardboard ones you get at the grocery store….and that makes the fact that I’m not going to get too many of them really suck….I guess I’ll just enjoy what I get and plan for the next garden….I am getting some cukes now and that will allow me to refine my pickle recipe and that is cool….I did get the lawn mowed yesterday and I am going to feed it tomorrow in front of the rain that is supposed to come Sunday and Monday to try to green it up some….I think they will be working on the gas meter today and I hope they finish it up so I don’t have to look at it anymore and I can get things back to normal around here…I do need to get out to depot this morning to pick up and return a new garage door receiver that I ordered since I fixed the old one and don’t need it…and that will save me 37 bucks that I can use….more later….

Well…cripes, it seems like my waking time is slowly moving back toward bed time with this morning being at 3:18 instead of the normal 3:40 but I still got out of bed before 6 so I’m not sure there is much of a difference….I did break down and take both some ibuprofen and allergy meds last night and I feel better for it this morning….my head is clear and the normal pains are down about 50% so that is cool….hope it continues all day….the swelling in my foot is down some too, so that is encouraging…had a nice visit with T yesterday and it was nice to see her and laugh a bunch but the whole thing was marred by DTE being here to move the gas meter from the basment to outside the house and they had to replace the steel gas line with a plastic one that they tunneled under the road for…but that still leaves the meter job and I just hate the disruption to my life that this three day process is doing….need to be here for them to be able to get in the basement so that means another day of only one ride…oh, and I just did one ride yesterday since I needed to clean this place up and that may be part of why I don’t hurt as much as normal…I did pick the first two tomatoes from my garden yesterday and I am going to have them for lunch today…they are pretty small so I think I need to feed the plants more…so I’ll do that today….not much to do today….just going to hang around here after the first ride and wait for the guys to finish the meter job so I’ll work on the gardens and the last of the trim on the front of the house….I did get a big box of baking soda to clean the copper trim and I may try some of that today too….more later….

Well…okay, my allergies are really bad this morning and I know I should have taken something for them last night…but I didn’t and now the decision is whether to take something this morning with only having a few left….maybe after the first ride…slept okay last night but feel as bad as I have in a while and it may be that I need to take a day off the bike to recover….I may have to only do one ride today with doing the grocery run and needing to clean this place up with having a visitor this afternoon…should have done that over the weekend but just couldn’t get moving to do it…I did take an ibuprofen last night since I was so damn sore everywhere and I think that is making a difference this morning…just small aches and pains that I can live with….I did get some work done yesterday and I bought a small sprinkler to use to try to save the front lawn so I don’t have to use my hose end sprayer and blocks so that will make it easier to keep it presentable….I think I’m going to be able to pick 3 tomatoes from my garden today and I even picked an inch long potato that was on the surface and that made me laugh…I planted the potatoes on a lark from sprouted ones in my cupboard and never expected to get anything from it…and there are more little ones just below the surface of the ground and I wonder how long they have to stay in to get big enough to eat? Not much to do today…just need to get going right now to get the bike ride in…okay, after one more cup of coffee that is….it’s not 7 yet so I can sit for a bit….more later….Oh, and I will get to a political one today…I know I’ve been slacking a bit on that lately but there was a reason for it….maybe even two of them if I don’t take the second ride….

Well….as I’ve said over the past week or so, I’ve have had another bout with depression that had me essentially shut off from everything but I’m a little happy to say that the veil seems to be lifting some today and I have been able to enjoy the bike rides and have even got some work done on the house…got the tuck pointing finished on the brick on the porch and have worked on watering the lawn a little but I still do need to buy a cheap little sprinkler so I don’t have to use the nozzle on the hose supported by blocks to water it….have been looking for one of those little ones with a turret that has different holes for different shapes but haven’t been able to find one…and that’s weird….oh, and I got a text from my youngest son that his wife is getting close to delivering and they are thinking of inducing labor so it could be any day now…and I am a little excited about that…and he made me laugh when he told me he is growing a “dad” mustache and he thinks he looks like me from when I was younger…I always had a mustache then and I think it’s kind of cool that he thinks of me….that made me smile…

Well…another morning of getting up at 3:37 and I’m pretty damn tired…but, my foot doesn’t hurt at all and the swelling is improved too so I’ll take that…it feels weird to be able to walk without pain but everything else hurts but I guess small progress is all I can hope for right now…yeah, I know, I could take something for it but you know how much I avoid that since I do like to have working kidneys….and I know part of the pain is from pulling all of the crab grass out of the back yard and the abuse that it did to my thumb…and I really expected to hurt worse from all of the bending over but I think it helped stretch my hamstrings and that helps on the bike…I did do the full 36 miles yesterday even though I’ve been trying to convince myself to take a day off but the weather didn’t cooperate by giving me an excuse….so that means I’ll need to rig up my sprayer for the front yard today so I don’t lose it to the heat and drought…I think I figured out what was wrong with the receiver on the garage door not having any power…just some corroded wires that I cleaned up and it has been working fine for the past two weeks…but that means the new receiver that I ordered from depot has to be returned and it just got here and I haven’t even picked it up yet…I wonder how that is going to go? Not going to spend 37 bucks for nothing, though…not much to do today…I am going to test out my foot on a ladder out front today to get some grout repair done and start working on the last of the trim around the front porch and maybe even start prepping the gutters on the garage to paint them…the weather is going to be a little cooler so I need to take advantage of it….more later….

Well…it seems that nothing is easy anymore, even ordering checks from my bank. Back in June, I ordered checks for my checking account since I was down to the last booklet and I write a lot more checks since I moved in here….so the whole thing turned into a fiasco with the check company sending the checks to my old address for some reason and they just disappeared…the company said they were sent on the 2nd of July but I had still not seen them this past Friday so I called to find out what had happened and the person I talked to freaked out that I hadn’t gotten them and cancelled all 140 checks…but he couldn’t get the charge for them removed or order me new checks so I had to go over to my branch to get that done this morning. The woman I talked to was quite a bit of help and took care of everything in about 5 minutes and also changed my checking account to a better one since I keep a high balance in it and that gave me free checks so I got my 30 bucks back and didn’t have to pay for the new ones…and getting it straightened out was basically painless other than the drive over there. So, things got a little better today…oh, and I finally remembered to change the address on my car insurance so I’ll get the bill and can pay it on time…and that only took about a minute so that was cool….still haven’t gotten my new tabs yet but the expiration has been extended until Sept 30 so that should give them enough time to get them to me….I’ll probably start working on on them in a month or so just to guarantee that I get them on time…I’ll take the baby steps…

Well…running a little early this morning with getting up at 5:23 and not sleeping worth a damn…and the rain that I was counting on to keep me off the bike fell apart coming across the lake so it looks like I’ll be back at the grind here in a few minutes…but, I don’t want to…don’t really want to do anything today….at least my foot doesn’t hurt so I guess that’s something….and I noticed that I have reached the last hole in my belt when I was going out for the paper yesterday and that means I’ve lost about 2 inches off my waist this summer which normally I would be happy about but who cares? Didn’t get a lot done yesterday but work outside on a few things and I think I’m going to have to water the front lawn today just to keep it alive until the next rain that who knows when is going to come? This damn weather is just wearing me out….I can’t remember a summer where it has been over 90 so much and doesn’t cool off much overnight….everything is so damn sticky all the time with the high humidity and it is almost impossible to get relief from it…and yet I’ll be out on the bike in a minute sweating my butt off because I don’t know what else to do…not much to do today….sweat, sweat, and sweat some more and I’m going to try to work on the outside of the house some to see if my foot will hold up to it…it’s kind of nice to be able to get my shoes on without trouble but I know that will end if I’m out in the heat and on my feet too much….more later…

Well…it’s been another depressing day in a depressing week that is turning into a depressing life and I’m sure I don’t like it much…not getting anything accomplished with the damn heat and knowing that if I work in it it’s going to flare my foot again and I’ll be off my feet for another week…but I need to get off my ass and finish this house soon since all of my efforts now need to be focused on finding a house that I feel is going to be impossible with the weird assed housing market right now…prices are exploding and I’m pretty sure I’m priced out of the market…houses that were going for 120K a couple of months ago are now priced over 150K and that’s too rich for me….and the prospect of going back into an apartment at my age is just too ugly to contemplate….so, I’ve got about 5 months to figure something out….and the stress from all of that is always in the back of my head so I can’t really enjoy anything anymore….I’m getting too old for this crap…and my option of just pulling up stakes for somewhere else is gone with two of my kids expecting grandkids and I do want to be part of their lives…so taking what cash is left and moving to Costa Rica is off the table….I don’t even enjoy getting on the bike anymore but I still do it because I’m supposed to and I have a goal that I need to meet…don’t even care about that anymore…can you tell I’m depressed? I can….and my sunflowers are dying and my three important plants out back are dying, too and I’m not sure why that would be…and my tomatoes are dying to the point that I’ll probably get a dozen tomatoes off 20 plants and that is depressing too….should probably just pull them all out so I don’t have to take care of them anymore…have already pulled out 6 of them that weren’t growing any tomatoes on them and chopped down 6 sunflowers that were attacked by that damn squirrel and a couple that were just mutated and weren’t going to blossom….oh, well…I’ll get over it in time…and maybe something will happen that will lift the depression…what that would be, I don’t know but it’s happened every time and just took time….so I wait….

Well…running really late today and it was just a choice…I remembered to come here but only after I was suited up to go out on the bike so I decided to go out instead…so, here I am late as normal for Sunday….and it was another 3:40 morning with only fitful sleep after that so I am still a little worn out today….and I need to get back on the bike in a few minutes so I can get the second ride done before Man U plays t 11:00…jut talked to my daughter and she and her husband just bought 80,000 dollars worth of new cars and that is pretty cool…so glad they are doing so well….my foot doesn’t hurt much again today but the redness is coming back and that normally means my toe will hurt here in a while…have been taking vitamin c and lots of water to try to avoid it but we’ll see…I did make the pulled pork in the instant pot yesterday and made a southern vinegar based thin sauce that I will be trying today….very spicy with cayenne and red pepper flakes but it tastes good…but I only had two small sandwiches for the whole day yesterday so that may be one reason why I was struggling on the bike on the first ride…damn, I need to get going…it’s already 9:15 and I need to get ride two in….more later…