October 6th

Well…damn, that was odd…slept all the way through the night and didn’t get up til 7:07 and that hasn’t happened for a long, long time…but I wasn’t good last night so that’s probably why…and I sure hope that’s not what I have to do to sleep since there is a trade off of how I feel…darn….it looks like I can get out on the bike as soon as it gets light for the last time this year since it is already 55 out there and that means I can work on the car this morning, too…and that’s good since it is supposed to rain this aft and then get cold for the next few days….it looks like today is not going to be as busy as my days have been lately and that is a welcome relief…after all, I’m getting old and that pace was really tiring….but I do still have a lot of work to do today to start on the dining room…and I should put the rest of the fall food on the lawn before it rains so I may do that before I work on the car….I do need to plan meals for a few days and get that out of the freezer since I only have food for two meals today…I am going to have a burger today to try to use up some more tomatoes but I can see the end of my crop coming…it was a good year for them and I didn’t have to throw any of them out….not much to do today…I need more coffee before I read the news and get out on the bike…it’s still not light enough but that is coming fast so I need to get going….more later….

Damn, this is getting to be a stuck record…

Well…after I wrote that title, it occurred to me that a lot of you out there may not know what a stuck record is…or what a record is for that matter, but a stuck one is where a record sticks and plays the same few seconds over and over….and that is what my days have seemed like since I got back to work around here…busy, busy, busy and today I didn’t get done till almost three after getting going about 7:30….started out with getting out to do the grocery run this morning…hit 3 stores that would have been 4 but the dollar store was closed and I wonder if it is having business trouble? After the run, I got back here and got straight on the bike at 10 and finished the rides at about 12:30 and then straight into working on the car…got the rust treated and painted over on the drivers side and then vacuumed the trunk and drivers seat and floor, then repaired the mat that was frayed and that took me til almost 2:30 and I have the passenger’s side to do tomorrow but I did put the first coat of the rust treatment on and will do another one tomorrow before I paint over it…after I got that done, I got the laundry started and then made a batch of pasta salad since I like it and it is handy to have with anything instead of chips or fries…after I got that done, I checked on the front steps for the package that was due and it was here, so I opened it and put the new case on the phone…I really like it, the phone just didn’t have anything to grip or to tell you where the buttons are and this case takes car of that…pretty cool…and I got my Phillips sonicare rechargeable toothbrush and I can’t wait to use it later…it really vibrates and I sure hope that it helps with keeping my teeth clean and infection free…it’s very slim and is supposed to last 14 days on one charge and that would be cool…so I retired my spin brush pro battery powered one that I have been using for almost 20 years….damn, I’m getting pretty modern and it’s all by accident…now it’s time to take it easy for a bit…long, busy day…again…

Justice Jackson is going to be a good one…

Well…have been looking for a topic since I finished up with all the work I had to do today and I found one….with the seating of Justice Ketanji Jackson on the supreme court…people have been focusing on the fact that she is the first African American woman on the supreme court, but after her first day on the court and with how she handled herself and illuminated how damn good she is, all I can say is I’m damn impressed and I know she is going to be a good one. During arguments where Alabama is trying to gut the voting rights act, blathering that any redistricting in Alabama must be race neutral, she patiently explained the history of the 14th amendment and that it specific purpose was to protect the rights of freed slaves…and she asked how that could be “race neutral?” And she went on to explain that taking race into account in redistricting is perfectly constitutional….how much this going to matter with the right wingers salivating to allow the repubs to gerrymander to their hearts content and them not needing any reason in the constitution or law to make that happen, it is still heartening to see someone explode the idea that the “fix” is in and her opinion doesn’t matter…I can’t wait to read some of her dissents…I think she is going to end up a legal giant who will rule to the law and not to political goals…and she will show just how much the right wingers on the court are just hacks with no business at all of being there…can’t wait….

October 4th

Well…running about on time this morning and I have settled into a sleep pattern where I wake up at 4, then back to bed til a little after 6…and it was my 4th night of being good so I feel okay today if a little sore from the work yesterday…and I have more to do today after the bike rides but it is easy stuff…just working on the car and it is a pain but  it has to be done to get the car through the winter….amazon is working really fast this week and the phone case and Phillips electric toothbrush I ordered are coming today instead of Saturday and the allergy meds that weren’t getting here til the 18th will be here tomorrow…and just in time since I’m running out and the ragweed is nuts out here….fun to get new stuff but I spent 65 bucks and that is a little hard for me…oh, I can afford it but the habit of not spending is pretty strong…one day I would like to just buy something without having the guilt that comes with it…I do need to make the grocery run this morning and hit menards for some stuff along with the dollar store so that means a 4 store run this morning….it’s going to be another busy one today with trying to beat the cold weather and get the car done…I did have some chickadees on the feeder yesterday after I cleaned it and put fresh food in it and that was pretty cool….very few of those last winter and I hope that the sparrows discover it this fall….more later….

Lots of work….

Well…when I started the day, I knew I had a lot to do and it was going to be a busy day…after I got the two rides in by noon, I mowed the lawn and then washed and waxed the car and then repaired the top in 4 places…but the repair caulk I have been using has gone bad so I think I’ll have to get more at menards tomorrow and will probably have to replace the patches with new stuff…and tomorrow I need to clean the car and try to treat the rust with rust preventer and repaint some of the matte black on the rockers…then I got a couple of bills ready to be go into the mail tomorrow and found that I had skipped a booklet of checks so everything is out of sequence…don’t think that matters…I hope….so tomorrow will be car work since sand is piled up in the trunk and both footwells and both seats and need to  vacuum the heck out of it since the sand is everywhere… so it looks like every day this week is going to be busy and I am already a little worn out from it….or I’m just damn old…that’s probably it….

Terrible, terrible people…

Well…it’s been another long day and I just finished up my work for the day so I thought I’d come here about the jaw dropping revelations about two of the repub candidates for senate and all I can say is I’ve been warning about the modern repubs here for a long, long time, and this bears me out…first, the senate candidate for Pennsylvania  (who is really from New Jersey) Dr. Oz, who has made millions of dollars selling his snake oil treatments on tv that do not work but the rubes don’t know that…it was reported yesterday that when he was testing his bullshit treatments, he killed 339 dogs including one litter where he killed half of them then stuffed the dead bodies into a garbage bag with the rest of the litter and just threw them in the trash to die….this is the kind of people who infest the repub party and not one of the leadership says word one about it since they are so hungry for power that anything these candidates do is just fine with them….then in Georgia, Herschel Walker (who called himself too dumb to debate) has a history of violence and who put a gun to his wife’s head and threatened to shoot here along with putting a knife to her throat and threatened to cut it if she continued with a divorce filing…and his son came out the other day to tell everyone that they had to change houses 6 times in 6 months to hide from him as he threatened to kill them all….and the topper for the absolute abortion opponent is that he paid for an abortion for his girlfriend at the time….but none of that is too much for repub voters, they don’t care if their candidates are the worst people in the world, they don’t care because they are like them…bad people who are just the worst in the world and just want to burn it all down to “own the libs” and it is a plus to them that these candidates are awful…the worse they are, the better they like them….geez….

October 4th

Well…I sure would like to break this pattern of tossing and turning all night and getting up a little after 4 and then out of bed around 6…still feel okay so maybe I should just get used to it as sleeping well through the night fades into the past….got a lot done yesterday and even hung the door to the bathroom and, even with how old beat up it was, the door came out pretty good and looks clean…still doesn’t fit that well since it is 82 years old and a little warped but it opens and closes so I can live with that…have a lot of outdoor work to do the rest of the week so I won’t get to much inside…I do want to get the shades down in the dining room and plan what needs to be done to the windows in there and even choose the color I want…the bedroom grey may be a little too dark in there so I could go with the same color as the living room but I wanted some contrast between them so we’ll see…maybe switch up the colors and do the living room in the darker grey? Who knows? I do need to mow the lawn and wash the car today to get it ready for the top and rust repair tomorrow and I need to get all the damn sand out of it and start looking for a new one over the winter…if I do buy one, I’ll need to get a cover for it and park it next to the garage since I don’t want to drive a new one in the snow yet…and I do need to cook some today and figure out my meal planning for the rest of the week….not buying any protein this week since nothing is on sale and I have a full freezer and I think I’ll thaw a pound of burger to use the lettuce and tomatoes up on some burgers….and I want to make some more pasta salad this afternoon since it is nice to have it available so I don’t have to cook…not much to do today…I get to just sit here for a bit since it’s not going to be warm enough to get on the bike til 10 and the lawn won’t be dry enough to mow it til the afternoon…so I’ll get the rides in first then lunch, then on to the lawn and washing the car….it looks like another busy day once I get started and it needs to be if I’m going to have everything done to prep for winter….more later….

Not going to feel guilty today…

Well…it’s one of those days finally that I don’t have to feel guilty about not doing enough work…got the door frame painted and the work room cleaned up, then outside to take the rest of the tomato plants down and cut down the remaining flowers at the back of the house and bag them up for pick up tomorrow…then out on the bike for two rides and cleaned and filled the window bird feeder and scrubbed the window and sill that had tons of seed spilled on it…then I just ordered some stuff from Amazon I needed…a new electric toothbrush, a case for the new phone, and some more allergy spray that I am almost out of…so I spent 65 bucks on things I needed but it is still hard spending any cash since I’ve been burning through it over the past couple of months…and now I’m going to put the striker plate back on the bathroom door frame and put the hinges back on the door so I can hang it tomorrow….and then take the rest of the day off and watch a little soccer…I think I’ve earned it….maybe…

Ron DeSantis is a grifter…don’t give him a dime…

Well…just got the first ride in and thought I’d do one of these before I go back out…with the devastation across Florida from hurricane Ian last week, you would think the governor of Florida would be asking for donations to organizations who are already on the ground like the American Red Cross or Jose Andres’s World Central Kitchen and any other established relief organizations…but no, the first thing that ole Ron did was to set up his own “relief” fund and is asking people to donate to it instead…only one thing wrong with that…DeSantis is just another repub grifter who sees disaster in his state as a opportunity to grift large quantities of cash from the rubes…and, it’s even worse…this “relief” organization is run by his wife and there is going to be no oversight of it…so ole ronnie could use the cash for whatever he wants…I guess he took lessons from the big grifter trump who stole a couple hundred million from the rubes pushing the “big lie” and saying he would use the cash to contest the election…which he didn’t…how can anyone vote for this asshole who is going to siphon off money that could help the people of Florida recover from this disaster but ole ronnie will use it to line his pockets and pull more political stunts…are the people of Florida so stupid to keep voting for this crook? I guess so…geez…

Done inside and it’s 8:45…

Well…there are benefits to being good at night and one is having more energy and ambition when I get up in the morning…it’s only 8:45 and I have all of the inside work done that I had planned…got the second coat of paint on the door frame and have the work room cleaned up and ready for the next project which will be the door to my bedroom but I’m not sure when that will be…think I’ll do the dining room first and I think that will take me about a month to do with how bad the windows and baseboards are…it appears like they had carpet in there since some of it is still stuck to the baseboards and that will mean I’ll have to use my angle grinder with a flap disc like I did in my bedroom but I still have the outside work to do over the next few days including getting the sand out of the car and trying to treat the rust and fix the top before it starts getting cold later in the week…so, it’s going to be busy this week and I don’t mind that…but it’s still only 39 outside so I think I’ll wait a while before I get started on the outside…still have some flowers that I can cut and put in a vase inside so I can enjoy the last of them…and I do need to take my scrub brush and hose at the bird feeder and the window it hangs on so I can fill that…so that means no bike ride until the afternoon but I am still going to try to get to rides in today….