Well…running about on time this morning and didn’t get up until almost 6 so I guess that’s progress…but I don’t like the idea of taking sleeping pills every day so I don’t think I will…just needed a couple of days of sleep to recharge so I don’t feel exhausted all the time…but we’ll see how that worked as the day goes on….I do have a nagging left hamstring pain that has been there for a couple of days now and I’m not sure if I’ll take something for it before getting on the bike this morning….don’t want to get back in that habit if I can just work it out by going a little easy for a couple of miles…didn’t get much done yesterday but cook some and watch sports all day after fixing the bike but I do have stuff to get done today….need to go over the shop to have the new muffler hung at 9 and I hope that goes well…I’m a little concerned that the flange on the cat is corroded too much to have it seal and I sure don’t want to buy a new cat until I have the car in the garage over the winter so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed…then I need to get back into the normal routine and head over to the house to fix the storm door on the front of the house that the previous tenant screwed up…but, it looks like just moving it a little on the door frame will do it….hope so…more later….

Well…this day started out okay with getting a ride in early and then getting into what I had scheduled for the day…and I ran the instant pot and the thighs came out great after I took the skin off first and seasoned them, then let them set in the fridge for a couple of hours before cooking them…very tasty and I think that will be the way to do it from now on…but, with that working out good, I had problems with the bike today and had to do repairs in the woods just to get back here when the nut that holds the sprockets on came loose and, even after fixing it, I still only had up to 6th to ride it back here…so when I was fixing it, I noticed that there was lots of wear on the 7th and 8th gears and I think that was part of why 7th had started to skip today…so, I changed out the entire cassette with one that I had on the old bike that had the same ratios but is chromed which makes it really hard to the point that it has virtually no wear on it after more than 5,000 miles on the old bike…I am a little disappointed that this cassette only lasted 7,000 miles before the teeth wore out…but, the chrome one looks pretty cool on the bike and worked great on the test ride so I can get back to normal tomorrow…now it’s veg time with races and the Lions playing in an hour or so…

Well…running a little late today with wanting to get the bike ride in before the F1 race and just getting back here a minute ago…it’s strange how busy I am once I decide to get on a certain schedule for the day…I know I don’t have to be busy but I can’t be a slug, either, and I feel better when I try to get something done…I did take an otc sleeping pill last night for the first time in almost a year due to the frustration I’ve been feeling with not getting any sleep over the past few weeks…but I’m not sure if it has helped or not since I still feel exhausted but I have just started my morning coffee so that may help…I know I can still feel the aid and that will make me sluggish until it wears off…didn’t get a lot done yesterday but cook and I made some chicken for lunch that I had in a dry marinade overnight and that came out really good so I think I do that for the thighs I’m doing in the instant pot this morning…and I made some fettucini alfredo that I had been thinking about for a while so I’ll have leftovers for most of the week…not sure if I’m going to clean today or not but the bathroom sure needs it so I may try to do that today…who knows?  More later….

Well…damn…a 4:57 morning and that is with getting to bed at 11:30 and being up and down all night…oh, well…but, I’m not too sore this morning so that’s something…and I had an okay day yesterday with getting two bike rides in but not doing too much else…oh, I did get the microwave cleaned on the way to cleaning all the counters in the kitchen and the stove top…and, I should do the floors, too but I’m not sure I’ll get to it today…or maybe the bathroom…who knows? I am going to cook today with all of the leftovers gone but I think I’ll do the instant pot later…did a dry marinade on some chicken breasts over night and want to cook them for lunch to see how the rub tastes…I may even make some homemade fries to go with them…haven’t done those in a while….It’s kind of a pain to have to wait to go out on the bike until it gets light and that time comes later every day….need to get out before 7:30 so I can get back here before F1 qualifying starts around 9 and it is still cold out there, too….hope we get one more warm spell before it turns to fall…more later…

Well…that was another crappy night of sleep and it shouldn’t have been…but, I just figured out part of the reason…forgot to use flonase last night and I am miserable this morning with my nose completely plugged up…and I have a low grade headache to go with it…so, I won’t forget that again…and I may even use some this morning before I get on the bike since the goldenrod is blooming along the my entire route…I am a little happy that I am going to have an enforced weekend off the house and everything else with the car being down…I have made enough progress that the house will be un condemned as soon as the windows are in and I got the feeling yesterday that it is finally a house again and not just a project with finishing the bathroom and getting the furnace running…along with testing the downstairs fridge which started right up so I could move into it any time and live there so, with almost two months until my lease is up, that takes a load off and makes this a no stress weekend…I do have to cook some after today since I still have leftovers to use but I need to think what I want to make…and I do have to finally clean some around here…or not…might just take the day off completely…more later…

Well…yeah, I’ll get to a bunch of political ones tomorrow and over the weekend since the car is down for the count until Monday…had a hanger connected to the pipe just behind the cat rot out on the way home and the car is now too loud to drive so I will be carless until Monday morning when I am having the new pipe hung by the same guy that did the last one…but the hanger that rusted out isn’t even on the new one so I hope the rest of it fits…it still has 4 hangers on it and I’ll keep the one from the old pipe and weld it on if I need it…so, Tom…I may have to use your welder but I think it will be okay without it but we’ll see…so, I have an enforced 3 day weekend off the house and that’s a bit of a pain just when I was making some good progress…let the furnace do a cycle and it turned on and shut down just like it’s supposed to and I got the belt on the blower adjusted so it doesn’t make any noise anymore and I oiled the bearings in the oil caps…yep, it’s that old, and it is pretty damn quiet so maybe it was an okay day…it’s just hard for me to have to wait to have the car fixed but I’ll take some deep breaths and just ride the bike and amuse myself some other way…okay…I’m going to try to repair it…just found a clamp that is big enough to fit around the pipe but I don’t have any beer cans so I’m using six layers of folded aluminum foil that should deform into the hole and make it usable in an emergency…..and the hole is only about a half inch across…okay, closer to an inch but I’m going to try it anyway…

Well…got all the way to 5:45 this morning and that is just damn unusual…but, I’m not sure that helped much since I am just worn out right now…and I forgot to make coffee last night with putting the coffeemaker parts in the dishwasher so I am running late today…I’m not sure what my schedule is going to look like today with it only being 49 degrees out there right now and I am not going to get on the bike with it that cold…so maybe after it warms up some but that will mean no house until after lunch today…I do need to hit HF to get some more supplies since I ran out of painter’s tape yesterday and I still have the front door to paint…I did get the furnace running yesterday…after a fashion but it seems to be out of time and I think I’ll have to have someone come and look at it…I did get two rides in yesterday but my right hip is killing me for some reason and I don’t remember hurting it…must have done it at the house or maybe I’m just getting old…who knows? More later….

Well…not going to talk about waking times today…just going to say it sucked and leave it at that….but, I don’t feel too bad this morning so I guess that’s something…I just noticed that my shoulder hasn’t made any grinding sounds in a month or so even with using it a lot on the house so I guess it’s fully healed and it only took 9 months…and I haven’t felt any pain in it lately, either so yay…after the swim and the traveling yesterday, I just vegged it out here for the rest of the day and didn’t get anything done…even skipped working on the house but I will be back at that today…need to complete painting the entry door frame and start trying to figure out if the furnace still works or not and that is going to be a pain…I have replaced the blower motor a couple of times but the furnace is 60 years old and I just hope I can cripple it through one more winter…I am a little depressed with the prospect of losing a long term friend since she has stopped talking to me for some reason…I guess a 20 year run is a good one and this time I can just shrug it off with the thought that things change…and will keep changing…more later…

Well…as I told you this morning, today was going to be the day that I kept the streak of 61 years of at least one swim in LM going….and I did! Even though it looked like rain, and was raining when I left, I trooped over to GH to at least splash in the water…when I got there, the wind was blowing about 25 from the southwest and there were huge waves coming in…but the problem was that the wind was coming from the southwest…it set up a really, really strong rip current that was running parallel to the beach and made it hard to even get to water that was deep enough to swim in…but, I made it and the water was really quite nice but I didn’t stay in long with the dangerous conditions…and getting back through the rip to the beach just about wore me out with the shallows being almost 50 yards wide. I did find something out today, too…wet sand is even a bigger pain to deal with as dry…it got all over the interior, my clothes, and me and wouldn’t brush off with a towel…so, the car is going to need to be vacuumed tomorrow…on to 62 years!

Well…as you could see if you came here earlier, my site was down from when I got up this morning until just now when my son got it fixed…so, I’m running late today through no fault of my own…geez…that’s weird to say…I did sleep in until 5:50 this morning and don’t feel to bad right now since I’ve already gotten the bike ride in…did get a little wet riding today but it wasn’t bad…I think I missed the heavy rain…so far…but I am going to go out to GH here in a while to get my yearly swim in even if it’s raining…just as long as there isn’t lightning I’m fine with rain…just won’t be able to sit on the beach today but I’m going take my chair anyway just in case…this will be 61 years in a row that I’ve had a swim in LM and I wonder how long I can keep that up? I did get the bathroom done at the house yesterday but I won’t go over today…hmmm…maybe this afternoon…I do have some prep work to do before I can paint the living room and still need to do clean up from all the sanding on the cupboard doors from the bathroom…and I do need to put the bathroom door back on so maybe I will go over….more later…