Well…okay, didn’t come back for a second one yesterday and there really is no reason for it other than I forgot…and I didn’t take the whole day off the bike, either….just felt antsy all day without riding so after I did the dishes from dinner, I jumped on the bike and did 14 miles…both my knee and elbow stopped hurting and I was walking around without pain so it just had to be done…the light looks really different at 5:30 pm than it does in the morning….slept okay last night and there is a reason for it but that is going to stop today…just too groggy in the morning and I don’t feel like doing much until late and that screws up my schedule…why I have a schedule at this point in my life I don’t know, but I do and the routine makes it easier than thinking…didn’t get much done yesterday but that was the plan so I don’t feel too bad about it…but I need to get back at it today…after I run a couple of errands this morning…need some stuff at meijers and a dollar store over on Leonard has Hanes t-shirts on sale for 3 for 10 bucks and I need some new ones to replace some that have just fallen apart from my acid sweat when I ride….then I need to get at the next awning and prep it for painting tomorrow…and I’m getting back on the bike here in a few so I have plenty to do today….more later….

Well…okay, this is going to shock you…I’ve decided to take the day off the bike…and the only reason is that I want to do something else…you know I’ve talked about MotoGP before…the highest form of motorcycle racing which would be essentially their formula 1…well…there is a race on at 7:30 this morning which will last until the F1 race at 9 and then lots more racing all day and Man U plays this aft too, so I think I’m going to veg it out today and just take care of my body….my right elbow is howling in pain today for some reason and I must have slept wrong on it…and that goes along with my right knee that has been hurting on the bike so a day off should help them both….and I’m going to use one of my last allergy meds this morning since I have already been sneezing like crazy and can’t breathe…so yeah, I’m pretty miserable right now but I slept okay last night and I’ll take that….I am going to get back on the awnings tomorrow and get at least one of them painted and that will leave me with only 4 more to do not including the one over the side door…that one is going to be a project in itself…going to have to take that one down and take it apart to paint it part by part…getting it down by myself is going to take some planning…hmmmm…I wonder if I can leave the frame up and just unscrew the pieces? Just thought of that right now and that would be much easier….but I still need to get at the dormer…I know the frame is not too heavy so maybe I can take it down after disassembling it…hey, I may be old but I still have ideas….more later….

Well…another day up at 5:04 but I don’t feel too bad so I guess I can live with it…it is a relief that my legs don’t hurt as much this morning but they have a fullness that comes with the damage I did to them…we’ll see in a few minutes how much they have recovered when I get out on the bike…my back has hurt like crazy the past two days too, but I welcome that pain since it means that something is moving around back there and it may help my foot…okay, no more bitching, didn’t get a lot done yesterday other than on the downstairs project but I was a week or so late on that work after waiting for the gas meter to be moved…and I have more to do today but that will be only about an hour’s worth and easy and I’ll get that done after F1 qualifying at 9…I have too many cukes coming from the garden and I need to find some way to use them or give them away…anybody want any? I’m pretty sure they don’t freeze well…I wonder if there is a food bank that would take them? And some jalpenos? I froze about 20 of them yesterday and have another 20 on the plants that will have to be picked soon…I am surprised that I am tolerating them again when I had a spell that I couldn’t eat them without distress…and they are pretty hot so you really don’t need to use much…it looks like I’ll have tomatoes to make salsa next week since some of the big better boys have started to turn red but I want to just taste them with some salt and pepper first….I can have tomatoes every day, especially just picked from my garden….not much to do today…just the normal Saturday stuff with races and soccer and not a lot of work….more later…

Well….when I was out on the bike this morning, my legs hurt like crazy and I couldn’t figure out why that would be…they never really hurt much when I ride…they get flat with no energy but very seldom do they hurt like they did today….and they continued to hurt as I ran a couple of errands as they do now…and then it dawned on me that this is the pain I was expecting from painting the awnings and, when I think of it, it is right on time…the second day after being on the ladder for three hours painting the big one out front…and you know it’s kind of a relief to figure it out even though they really hurt and I know I’ll be taking some ibuprofen later to be able to sleep tonight….even my feet hurt…from the time I got up this morning my feet have been hurting in weird areas like the balls of my feet…and they are stiff…how the hell do your feet get stiff? I hurt so much today that I skipped the second ride…but then aggravated the pain by doing some work on the downstairs project for a couple of hours which put me on my feet again…so, I guess I’ll take the rest of the day off and let everything stop hurting….I will get to a political one at some point but politics is depressing the hell out of me right now and I just don’t have the energy to even read more about it….but, I’ll try…

Well….okay, the cure is worse than the disease…took another otc sleeping pill last night and won’t be doing that again…I did sleep more than 6 hours last night but feel like crap today and I don’t like it…but, my foot still doesn’t hurt so I guess that’s something….and I think my back is gradually re aligning itself since I can feel it cracking as I move around here all day….my foot is still a little puffy but better than it has been so I can live with that gradual improvement…it is so much better than it was at the peak of the swelling that I barely notice it anymore…okay…that’s enough of the old guy bitching…was out in the back yard yesterday and watched a goldfinch pulling seeds out of the heads of one of the sunflowers to eat and it was a pretty cool thing to see…he hung upside down to get at the seeds then climbed onto the back of the head to spit them open and eat them…after he was done, I took a look at the back of the head and found a huge pile of shells that he had left there…that is exactly why I planted them and that made me feel good…saw a female doing the same thing the other day and she was just tiny, almost the size of a hummingbird….can’t wait to see how big the flower is on the 12 foot tall one I’ve going out there…or two actually and the trunks on them are almost as thick as my wrist….not much to do today…I think I’m only going to do one ride today since I have work to do on the downstairs project and I have a couple of errands to run this morning…but, who knows…I know I struggled a little on the second ride yesterday and I really should take better care of myself….more later…

Well….finally…the damn gas meter is outside and I don’t have to think about that anymore…they have been working on replacing the old steel lines with plastic but that started almost a month ago and I have been waiting for them to finish it for weeks….so today, one of their people came and finished it and did a pretty nice job…the meter was hung on the side of the house straight and he even made the pipe work that was up against the floor joist without cutting a new hole…and now I don’t have to keep disrupting the downstairs project every morning…but, I didn’t get anything else done but fool around…I did notice a computer speaker set up with a subwoofer in the garage…well…I noticed it a long time ago but didn’t think about trying it until today…and when I plugged my mp3 player into it, it worked like a champ and now I have music in the garage when I want it…it has three small speakers to go with the sub and it doesn’t sound bad….so now I have something else to annoy my neighbors with…I think I’ll take it with me when I move….oh, my bat didn’t come back today…darn….and my foot survived all the ladder work yesterday and doesn’t hurt at all today…weird….

Well…man, I’m sore this morning but I got the biggest awning on the front of the house painted yesterday…up and down the ladder a hundred times to get the two coats done…and using a roller worked out really well…it looks pretty darn good and now I only have 5 more to go….and my foot survived and doesn’t hurt at all today…I think I may have even cracked my back with all of the twisting and reaching on the ladder and the swelling is down some in my foot too, it was nice to finally work with still being able to walk afterwards….I even slept okay and didn’t get up until 6 but that took some aid to do that…I can probably take that again tonight or even for a few days to help fill the sleep deficit I’ve had for the past few months…I did have my own personal bat that I found sleeping under one of the awnings yesterday…was getting rid of the wasp nests that are constantly being built there and thought it was a big mud wasp nest…had to go and get my glasses to figure out what it was and it was pretty cool that a small brown bat was sleeping under there….it left to go hunting last night and it doesn’t appear that it is coming back…going to check again after the sun comes up…not much to do today…they are coming to move the gas meter this morning so I need to get a ride in before they come…only did one yesterday since the awning took almost 3 hours from start to finish and beat me up pretty well…going to try to do two rides today but I need to text my brother to find out when I can pick up the bike I’m buying from him….and I need to start to prep the next awning I’m going to paint…the rest of them are much smaller so I may be able to do two a day….more later…

Well….damn…5:08 again today and I am just worn out…again…and being back on the bike for only two days and I am stiff and sore just like before…okay, part of that may be climbing on the ladders to do the awning and will be doing that again today to paint the large awning over the living room window…I think I’m going to try a roller to get a better finish on this one and to be able to reach all of it…that will be a pain having to climb up and down for every roller full but it should be a lot easier if the roller will reach down into the corrugations….we’ll see….I may have to cut down an extension handle to reach everything but I won’t know that until I get started on it….I did start to feel a little better about the election in the fall with Biden’s VP pick yesterday and I need even some little crack in the darkness that has smothered this country since 2016…but I don’t talk politics here so I leave that where it is….I am going to take some allergy meds today since I am miserable and plugged up today and this is the time of year they normally get really bad…and I wonder if that is one of the reasons I’m so tired lately? I think I’m going to have to try to figure out how to sleep more or take some of the otc sleeping pills I used to use every day…might have to try one on a night I have nothing going on the next day since I know they leave me groggy…not much to do today…need to get the first ride in here in a few, then the grocery run, and then painting but I think that will be enough for the day depending on how hard the painting is going to be…the second ride was a chore yesterday but I do want to go over 3700 miles today and it will take two rides to do it….more later…

Well…sitting here waiting for my mp3 player to charge up so I can get on the bike for the second ride and thought I’d use this time for something other than tv or reading the news…got all suited up and suncreened and noticed that my player wasn’t charged so now I sit and wait for a while until it gets enough charge to make it through the hour and a half on the bike….I did make some progress on the house today and got the small awning on the round window painted with two coats of paint. I looks pretty good so I am going to do the big one on the living room window tomorrow  but that one is at least 4 times bigger so it will probably take a couple of hours at least and will probably keep me off the bike for the second ride…climbing on the ladders is already hurting my foot so I may not even be able to work tomorrow…who knows? But, it does feel good to accomplish something finally…

Well…it stormed last night and the power didn’t go out! A pretty low bar to make me happy but with it going out for 10 and 6 hours the last two storms, it was pleasant to be able to sit outside and watch it and then stare at the tv for a while and have light and fans running…same old sleep so nothing there to report but my allergies are starting to get bad again so I think I’ll take something for it today…I think I’ve gone long enough so I can buy more next week and I have 10 of them to last til then…I was stupid and got back on the bike for two rides yesterday but the stiffness from it is not too bad this morning and I was able to move around okay all day yesterday…but I think I’m going to work on a new schedule where I’ll do the first ride, then work around here, and then see if I want to do the second ride….have been too fixated on getting the two rides in that I’m not getting much done around here and I’m running out of summer….I am finally getting some produce off my gardens and filled a container with jalpenos, beans, and tomatoes yesterday so it looks like I am going vegetarian for a few meals over the next few days…got a 14 inch long cuke off the vines, too and have quite a few more that will be ready in the next week or so….need to start finding more things to use them for other than pickles since I can’t give them away like I planned….I do have two of the big sunflowers that survived in the back yard that are already over 10 feet tall and have just started to bloom so I wonder if they will get to the 15 feet that they are supposed to? Still looks pretty cool…not much to do today…I am going to get at the small awning in the front today and get it painted so I can see how they are going to look….need to take a before and after photo so I can send it to my son for his opinion…but any color will be an improvement since they have very little paint left on them and they look pretty shabby….more later….