Well…got all the way to coffee o’clock this morning and I think it was the cooler weather that did it…finally didn’t have to have a fan on to sleep last night and that was a relief….but I still feel worn out this morning and the time off the bike I was looking forward to didn’t happen even with the rain so I need to start thinking about taking a day to heal up soon….my toe doesn’t hurt for the 6th day in a row so I’m going to stop talking about it…not sure how I fixed it other than all the damn water I’ve been drinking so I think I’ll keep that up just in case that is the reason….didn’t get much done yesterday but I think I’ll mow the lawn today…had to fix my work shoes with almost half a bottle of adhesive so I think I may need to try to find some clearance ones on sale at Meijers that I can actually just wear instead of fixing them all the time….think I’ll do that this week with the grocery run…and I need to hit target for some new towels since the ones I’m using are 15 years old and falling apart too…I do need to spend some money on essentials over the next couple of weeks…could really use some new pillows to help me sleep better and I think I can afford more than 5 bucks for them….not much to do today….just going to ride and fool around outside and then watch all the racing that is on starting with F1 qualifying in about an hour and that means I need to get moving soon….more later…

Well…that sucked…another day of 6 hours with no power from a storm that it barely rained and lasted for about 5 minutes…at least it’s raining now and it’s still on…for now…one good thing is that I couldn’t cook indoors so I grilled a couple of marinated pork chops and they were really good…and having a beer and watching food cook is something I’ve waited for since I moved in here…I may just have to spend 150 bucks and buy a grill….and then kill myself with colon cancer from eating grilled food…oh, well…slept pretty crappy last night tossing and turning and it is so funny that I have been waking up at exactly the same time for almost a week now…3:40am and then trying to get back to sleep that never really works…so, I’m a little slow this morning but I am into 5 days in a row with no pain in my toe so I’ll take that….my foot is still puffy but better and I just talked to my daughter and she is sending me a bunch of electrolyte mixes that she thinks I need with doing so much on the bike and that will be interesting to try….didn’t get anything done yesterday but I do need to work on the downstairs project today…damn, it looks like it stopped raining so maybe I will do two rides today…but no hurry…going to relax a little and have more coffee first…don’t really have much to do so I have to remember that I don’t need to hurry….more later….

Well….another 3:40 morning today and that has left me a little worn out already…I did get back to sleep until almost 6 but I had the lost car dream again which was really weird until I figured out it was just a dream and woke up…my toe has a little twinge of pain in it this morning but I think that’s from having pressure on it when I was in bed and I hope it will work out as the day goes on….I am really getting disappointed with the yield from my gardens this year since it looks like my beans are already done producing fruit with only two meals out of the 5 plants I have….they were supposed to produce fruit all summer and that is pretty disappointing…and that goes for the green peppers and jalpenos….didn’t get one green pepper and the jalpenos appear to be done too with only about a dozen of them off 7 plants….the tomatoes don’t look much better and all the work of getting them in downstairs to push for ripe ones by the end of July seems to be a bust…I’m pretty sure I didn’t prep the soil enough and will do better when I get my own house….I do have one of the squirrel planted sunflowers that is blooming out front and that makes me a little happy and the rest of the flowers I planted out front bloomed too so that is cool…didn’t get a lot done yesterday and it looks like I won’t do much today with Man U playing this afternoon and the possibility of storms around 1 or so…I do need to run out and get some more food for the gardens since I’m out and barely had enough to feed yesterday…that may have something to do with the disappointing gardens…I should clean some but, with this heat, the bike rides are taking everything out of me and I don’t have much left to do anything…more later…

Well…damn, up at 5 again but I think I slept okay but feel just a little slow….and my toe doesn’t hurt for the 4th day in a row and that is good news…okay, it hurts a little but just twinges and I’m almost back to walking normally…but the idea of it flaring again is in the back of my mind all the time and I think it will take a month or so before I stop thinking about it…and my foot is still puffy so that doesn’t help…I am liking my new schedule of getting a bike ride in then working around here for a couple of hours before getting back on the bike for the second ride…got the garage washed and ready to paint over the past two days but it appears that waiting to paint was a good idea…there are supposed to be scattered showers this morning and then there are t-storms off and on for the next couple of days and I need a couple of days for the paint to dry so it looks like the painting will wait til next week…and I need a few hours to mask it off…holy crap…it’s raining! I can’t remember the last time it rained and this is welcome…going to screw up my schedule for the day but I think it will stop before 7:30 and then I’ll get out on the bike….okay, it’s sunny out there and it’s raining…pretty cool…and the rain is already stopping…darn…….not much to do today….just going to do the grocery run after I ride and that will do it for the day…oh, one more comment…I follow Joe Walsh’s twitter account and he announced that a 2018 Eagles concert was on last night so I tuned in and just couldn’t get past the fact that Glenn Frey wasn’t there…Vince Gill doing his parts? Nope…it just wasn’t the Eagles to me and I turned it off…oh, well…more later….

Well…you know, I would really appreciated it if we could get some temps for a few days that are not 95 or hotter…this is starting to wear on me and I know my foot would love it being cooler…it appears that this is going to be the third day in a row with very little pain in my toe and the redness is even better too…I’m pretty sure that it is the result of water, water, water and I am going to keep that up for the near future so I can get my walk back to normal and I don’t put stress on the rest of my foot…slept okay last night with just moving the fan a few inches so it blew on me all night…I thought it would be annoying to have that wind all night but it made sleeping tolerable and I can use a little sleep…I did get some work done on the garage yesterday prepping it for paint and discovered that there are blocks all along the back of it that were buried in the dirt that was allowed to collect there…chopped out the remaining stumps that were in the way too but now I have to try to figure out what to do with the piles of dirt that are back there…but getting the cleanup and the prep work done are going to take longer than I thought so painting tomorrow is not going to happen…should be able to paint next week and then move on to the siding on the house….not much to do today…okay, I wonder why I even say that anymore…I have tons to do and still need to get any work done in the morning  since it is still going to be 95 today and I am not going to set myself up to do damage by working in the heat….have to be smarter than that…I am old after all….more later…

Well…that just sucked….up and down all night last night and feel like crap this morning…and I was an idiot and ate some nuts that I know I don’t tolerate anymore so I’ll be paying for that all day…and my toe feels like it’s going to start hurting again even though it doesn’t right now…it just itches which it has never done before…I don’t remember a streak of weather like this in a long time…it has been over 90 for more than two weeks now and looks like there is another two weeks before we get a break…and that is just damn tiring…I did get two rides in again yesterday and I am going to try to do two today but I just have no energy right now so I’m not sure if I can manage it….I did pick some beans from my gardens yesterday and I am going to cook them today for lunch…pretty sure I didn’t plant enough of them since I cleaned off the plants of 5 inch ones and only got enough for one meal….I do know that when I get my house I need to do a better job of conditioning the soil since my plants seem to be somewhat stunted and my green pepper plants never developed any fruit….but that is the learning process that this garden is supposed to serve…and I will get tomatoes by the end of the month and that will be cool….didn’t get much done yesterday but I am going to work on the back of the garage today so I can get it washed and painted this week…so that may keep me to only one ride today but we’ll see…I do need to clean the stairs to the basement today since that door is the one I use most and I drag lots of dirt in from working outdoors that collects on the landing and then I track it into the kitchen…and that is annoying when walking barefoot in the summer….still have too damn much to do….more later…

Well…okay, this is a little weird…my foot stopped hurting yesterday morning and it still doesn’t hurt today…and most of the redness is gone from my toe…how the heck did that happen? The only change I’ve made over the past week is to drink a lot more water…oh, and I only did one ride yesterday so maybe that had something to do with it? This one is going to be a little confusing since my foot is still puffy…it just doesn’t hurt anymore…I wonder if it’s going to fall off? I do know this is a welcome change and another strange thing is I was ready to use up the rest of the gout medicine I have Saturday but decided that the ibuprofen was working well enough so I’d save it for a bad pain day…and then it just stops hurting….I’ll take it though….now I need to get the pain in the rest of the foot from favoring the toe to go away and I’ll be back to as normal as I can be…

Well…running early for a Sunday with getting up at 5 or so after not sleeping much last night…it sounded like a damn war zone around here last night and it was so loud I had earplugs in and pillows on my head and still couldn’t sleep…going to put a complaint in with the city today to see if I can join with the people trying to get fireworks outlawed in GR…there just is no reason the whole damn neighborhood has to suffer just because some ass wants to play soldier….but, my foot doesn’t hurt even without ibuprofen so I guess that’s something…for right now anyway….it did feel good to only take one ride yesterday but I’ll be back on for two today…and I need to get the first one done before 9 so I can watch the F1 race…I am a little sore from weeding the gardens yesterday but it feels good to see them looking neat and tidy….I may even pick some beans today to try them…have never gone straight form the garden to the plate with beans and I am looking forward to that…can’t wait for tomatoes later in the month….I am going to try to clean up the back of the garage today so I can make some headway on painting the garage siding this week…and I started trying to save the front lawn by watering it yesterday and it looks like I’ll need to keep that up for weeks until the next time it rains…whenever that will be….more later…

Well….the day I have been anticipating since I planted my gardens is here! Today, I picked my first crops, 4 Jalapenos, from the plants in my garden so I could make pickled Jalapenos….and I did but added red onions and green peppers to make a sandwich topping that I used on a chicken sandwich with dijon mustard for dinner tonight. Yow, 4 jalpenos and the other vegs in a quart of pickling liquid and they are still damn spicy….and I’m not sure how my body is going to react to them but they tasted good and I ended up sweating from them so I’ll just hope that I can tolerate them this time…not sure what I’m going to do with all of the jalapenos if I can’t eat them but I guess I can give them away…and the green beans are almost big enough to pick some for a meal but I should have planted double the plants I did…I have 5 of them but I can eat all of them that are ready in one meal so I guess I’ve learned something for when I get my own house…plant lots of bean plants…maybe a dozen or so….plant more of everything except tomatoes….I think I’ll have plenty of those….still it’s pretty cool that my gardens have started to give me some good, healthy food to eat….can’t wait for the tomatoes….

Well…not sure what is going on but I have felt pretty good today…I wonder if it is only doing one ride today or something else going on? All I know is that I got the gardens both weeded today and cleaned up so they look good again…and my toe doesn’t hurt too much so that is cool, too…but, I just remembered something when I was outside working…you know I’ve been concerned about the swelling in my foot and not having any luck getting it back to normal no matter how much water I drink or how much I keep it elevated…then it dawned on me today that it has been in the 90’s or close to it for a couple of weeks now and whenever that happens, my foot swells up some…and that has been happening since I was in my 20’s but that memory was pushed to the back of my mind by the recurrence of the gout and thinking that they were related….but, what if they aren’t? What if they are two overlaying problems that just happen to be occurring at the same time? If I didn’t have the redness an pain from the gout, I probably wouldn’t think much about the swelling or I would have remembered that it happens all the time when it’s hot. so, I’m not sure what to think now…I’m still going to keep drinking every bit of water I can since that will help with the gout but I may just live with the puffiness until we get a break in this weather in a few weeks and see what happens…nothing seems to work anyway and it may take a little stress off my brain….hmmmm…