Well….after all of the snow last night, I had almost 8 inches on my driveway that had to be shoveled before it warmed up and turned into the heavy stuff, so I went out around 9 or so to get started…an hour and a half later, I came in sweating through my clothes and pain damn near everywhere…okay, not everywhere but my back, right shoulder, and right thumb were howling at me by the time I finished and I know they are going to be bad tomorrow even with taking something for them…and to cap all that off, about an hour later the snowplow came through and piled snow thigh high in the end of the driveway and that was not the easy to push fluffy stuff from the morning but the semi melted hard snow with the consistency of wet concrete…okay…not quite that bad but it took me almost another half hour just to clean that out…but one good thing is that I piled a lot of it in front of the house so no one can park there until it melts…all of that work took a lot out of me and I am still trying to recover from it and the fact that I only slept about 5 hours last night….needless to say I won’t be getting on the bike today…just don’t have the energy for it and feel pretty lousy, too….so, I’m just going to veg a while and try to recover…I may come back for a political one later but that’s a little iffy…

Well…running really early today with getting up around 5 for the final time and I am just trying to get started here with only a little luck…used the french press to make some coffee this morning since I didn’t have a lot left in the pot from yesterday and I knew I was going to need more than the 6 cups in there…it seems like I slept okay but I do feel a little worn out this morning with only getting about 5 hours last night and having a couple of cocktails….I am a little disappointed that Space X has postponed it test launch until tomorrow since I was really looking forward to that to start my day today…oh, well…I guess I’ll have to make do with soccer here in a little while…I did get more work done in the basement yesterday and even mopped part of the floor that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in 20 years but it will need a wax to get it back to looking like it should…but that is going to wait until I can get the rest of it cleared and I can mop the whole thing again…I did get a 10 mile ride in yesterday and came away drenched again but it felt good to burn a few calories and I’ll do that again today after shoveling the snow but that is going to wait a while until the coffee starts to work…I did get some new speaker wire yesterday to replace the cobbled together ones for the back speakers in the living room and that is going to be a project for the day today so I can get them around the base of the wall instead of the center of the room….and then I need to clean the room, too….not too motivated right now so I am going to watch some tv for a few minutes and have more coffee….more later….

Well…running a little late this morning and feel a little crappy after not being good last night and that may be the only time this week….just don’t enjoy it like I used to and I don’t need the calories…and my lungs are still trying to clear themselves and I wonder why it is taking so long for that to happen…the coughing is getting really annoying and tiring and I just realized that is why my upper back hurts….hmmm…slept okay last night but the lung problems are taking the energy out of me so I am going to take an easy morning…but I do have to run a couple of errands before it starts to snow and then I’m going to hibernate for the weekend since we’re supposed to get 7 inches of snow…it is kind of liberating to be able ride inside and not worry about the weather anymore…and I did get started on organizing the basement here…finally…and I think I’ve cleared enough of the tile floor to mop some of it over the weekend…don’t think that has been done for 20 years and it looks pretty bad…it’s nice to make some progress even though I don’t have the last room up here done yet….I do have to remember that Space X is going to do a launch tomorrow morning where they are testing the crew capsule escape rockets that will destroy the Falcon 9 in the process and is the last test before they can launch people to the ISS later in the year…and you know they will have cameras everywhere so it should be quite a show….more later…

Well…damn…if it wasn’t for the nightly 2 hour interlude of being awake, I’d be getting a solid 8 hours a night and that would be really cool…but, I don’t feel too bad this morning after another night of being good and I have almost turned that into a habit…I think my body can take having cocktails two days a week….at least I hope so…I think it would be way too much to not have any….but, I am pretty good at doing what I need to do to stay healthy…after all getting on the bike when I really don’t want to has been a habit for quite a while now….and it looks like yesterday was the last day on the bike outside with the trail flooded and the temps falling into the 20’s for highs for the rest of the month…and with the snow that is coming the trails would be impassable anyway…have space almost cleared downstairs to set up the trainer and will get that done today but I do need to set the computer up on the back wheel so I can keep track of the mileage if I want to get to 5K miles for the year….my lungs seem to be better today with less coughing but they still feel congested some  and we’ll see as the day goes on how improved they are…didn’t cough as much last night so I am going to hold out hope I’m on the downside of that infection…it has been almost a month and that is too damn long…not much to do today…going to get back to cleaning and working on the last room some but I am not going to overdo it…want to let myself feel better first….more later….

Well….talked to my oldest sister this morning and got some really crappy news about my youngest sister…she has been diagnosed with bone cancer that has spread to her lymph nodes and they are not sure what her prognosis is yet….this is really the first one of my siblings who has had any serious health problems and I am still absorbing what this means….all I know is that it sucks….

Well…running late this morning and I am wondering if I should try to get in to see my doctor with all of the coughing I’ve been doing lately…and I feel like crap this morning…even worse than yesterday and I know for a fact it isn’t from cocktails since I was good again last night…but, I had both a flu shot this year and a pneumonia shot last year so it shouldn’t be that…it does have an eerie resemblance to when I had pneumonia last time where I had a low level infection for weeks that just exploded and put me in the hospital…hmmm…and I didn’t sleep too hot, either with getting up at four and then back to sleep until a little after the coffee started…that has left me worn out today but I still need to do the grocery run in a little while and then get the bike downstairs on the trainer after I wash it….it is going to cold after this week and with the rain and snow coming, I just have to bite the bullet and give up on riding outside for a while….I did get to 100 miles so far this month so I don’t feel too bad about that….but it will be down to 6 mile days inside unless I do two a days like I did last year….not much to do today…I’m going to have to gauge my activity on how I’m feeling but it feels like I’m going to run out of steam after the grocery run unless the coffee starts to work….more later….

Well…cripes that was a crappy night of sleep and I was up and down all night….the congestion in my lungs is finally starting to break and that made me cough all night but I can feel it’s getting better so that is good news but I’m sitting here sweating and that is tough to do with it 65 in here….so I’m wondering where this is going…feel okay but I think most of that is from being good last night and I know that will continue at least until Friday….I did get out for a bike ride yesterday but it was a lot of work with the trails being snow covered and having to pay way too much attention…couldn’t go much over 9 mph but I still got almost 8 miles in and I’m hoping that the the trails will be a little more clear today and tomorrow…but, it is going to get cold starting thurs so I do need to decide whether to put the bike on the trainer…it looks like I’ll get to 100 miles before that happens so that is cool….didn’t get much done yesterday but some work downstairs and I am trying to not feel guilty while I feel crappy…but that’s tougher than it looks with the weeks going by…I’ve been here three months and the progress has slowed to a crawl….I do need to start to get a project list together so I’ll be ready for spring and to make sure that everything will be done in here before then….not much to do today…I’m going to take it easy to see how the lungs hold up to start but I am going to get out on the bike around 10 and see if I can break more of the congestion up….and I need to clean before I run the instant pot for lunch….more later….

Well….running a little late today and part of it is this damn cold that has been hanging on for what seems like a month now…still coughing and have no energy at all and that makes it hard to get going…but, I’m banking on the coffee helping here in a few minutes or it’s going to be a long morning…it’s going to be a long morning anyway but that’s pretty normal right now…I did get some work done yesterday with taking the huge headboard/bookcase apart and getting it moved up into the attic and will get the rest of the tables etc. moved today so I can get started on the repairs and painting….I am going to get a bike ride in today just to see what the trails look like…not sure if we got enough rain to flood them again but we did get enough snow/ice to screw the trails up so it may be a road ride today…I do need to clean today but I have leftovers so there won’t be any need to cook but I am going to drag the instant pot out and do some chicken tomorrow…haven’t used it since I moved in here and I really like playing with it…have to remember to over spice the chicken since pressure cooking seems to need it…and I need to put the rest of the chicken in the freezer later this morning to stock it up…I really should be taking things out of the freezer instead of putting them in…oh, well….more later….

Well…sitting here trying my best to avoid doing any work today so I thought I’d do another one of these…but nothing political…just noodling a little to try something different…I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I didn’t talk about idiot boy for a while and I know I don’t mind talking about something else….I didn’t win the powerball last night and that is a little disappointing…and the weird thing is I really do expect to win it at some point but it appears I’m running out of time….have it all figured out in my head how I’ll spend the cash but I don’t spend a lot of time on it…just something fun to think about…I think I bought way too much chicken this week with buying two trays of thighs at Meijers so I guess I’m going to have to freeze some of them or drag the instant pot out to cook some of them…maybe I’ll do that tomorrow but I just found a pasta recipe that uses cream cheese instead of parmesan that I want to make….I guess you can’t call it Alfredo sauce but with onions, garlic, olive oil, marinara, pasta water and crushed tomatoes with the cream cheese, it still sounds good to have over fetucinni… and Meijers has cream cheese on sale for a buck this week so I think I’ll give it a try after I do the grocery run on wed….I’m not sure how successful I’ve been with not spending any money after I did just do the math of how much I owe this month…over 800 bucks? Okay, 240 of that is for food and a hundred is for the winter taxes that are due next month but I still have almost 300 bucks that I owe on the credit cards for the month so I guess I’ll have to try harder…I did get my electric bill down by 20 bucks but it’s still a hundred bucks…yow…I did have to buy some stuff for the downstairs project on the cards that won’t show up until next month but that is only 64 bucks and I really needed to spend that money…so, I will need to stop using the card completely until the 4th week of Feb…actually the third week of Feb…need to get my balance up and the only way to do that is to not spend…so I won’t….no cocktails will help with that….okay, I’m done for now…need to get some work done….