Well…slept all the way through to 6:03 this morning and didn’t want to get out of bed but knew there was no more sleep to be had so I gave up…my damn heel still hurts and now it is getting really annoying…and this is a weird one since it runs all the way across my heel and that has never happened before….so another few days of limping around here is going to happen and I am not happy about that…still waitng to put the snow tires on the car but I think I’ll try it today…and I need to try to clear the sidewalks after the freezing rain last night but I’m not sure what I can do about it without some salt that I don’t have…doesn’t look like I am going to get on the bike again today but I am going to dig out the instructions and reset the computer so I can go when the roads melt off some….just don’t have any motivation right now but maybe that will change later…didn’t get anything done yesterday but I do need to cook today and I should clean some but that would take walking and I don’t want to do that with the damn pain…so I think I’ll just sit here and have some more coffee and read the news first….more later…

Well….after doing one of these that looked back at the horrible year that was 2020, I thought I’d look forward today to see if the new year could be better…I sure hope it is. What do we have to look forward to? At least the idiot boy will be gone in a couple of weeks for a start and that in itself makes for a better year…I am still looking forward to finding and buying a house for my final landing place…unless I win the 400 million dollar Mega tonight, then I’d buy a 3 or 4 million dollar house with a pool, lots of cars and a huge garage…but, in reality, I don’t think that is going to happen so I still need to keep putting one foot in front of the other….the house thing is the foundation to everything that can happen this year and I can’t wait to get that done…I wonder if I can take one more day off and just enjoy today and put the stress off until tomorrow? I am looking forward to my granddaughter being born this month and that would be a good start to the year…I never thought I’d have grandkids at all and I am still adjusting to it…it would be a hell of a lot easier if I could see them without any precautions but that will come later this spring…I can’t believe that 60% of healthcare workers in Ohio have said they won’t take the vaccine…I mean that is the foundation for getting this country moving again and it’s pretty damn selfish of them…I don’t know where people’s heads are at with that…okay, this one didn’t work out as I expected but I’m going to post it anyway…just rambling thoughts…I thought I had more to say….more later…

Well…running a little late today with tossing and turning all night and not crawling out of bed until 6:30 or so…I wonder why my damn heel hurts more after not walking on it overnight? I can barely walk at all this morning and that is getting old….oh, well…I guess I’ll just keep treating it and see what happens….even with not sleeping well, I don’t feel too bad this morning with just the normal aches and pains….I am going to try to get out on the bike today before the new snow gets here since I haven’t been out in a few days…I do need to remember to get a photo of the computer on the bike before I reset it to start a new year…a little over 5,900 miles isn’t bad for an old guy….I do need to get the snowies on the car today if my heel will stand being on it for a hour or so….but, we’ll see…don’t have anywhere to go until getting the paper Sunday so I guess it could wait…not much to do today…just soccer and football and taking it easy….happy new year….more later…

Well…with everything that has happened this year, I thought I should do a recap of the lost year in my life…as I’ve talked about before, this year was to be my “living in the city” year where I’d get to do city things as I rehabbed this house…and I was really looking forward to seeing blues on the mall since it only a 10 minute bike ride to get there from here…and get to be a regular at the Triangle bar that is two blocks away and enjoy some time on the various outdoor decks that bars have set up around GR…but no, stupid trump and his cronies took all that away from me….and it even screwed up the housing market so it looks like I’ll be back in an apartment after I have to leave here in a couple of months…and all because they couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs at the start of the pandemic. One thing that was a little easier for me than for most people was all of the alone time as we have all had trying to stay healthy…I’ve always been good with being alone and I never feel lonely even with months of forced isolation…but the one thing with having to be alone is I haven’t been able to see my new grandson as much as I would want…only two times since he was born in the end of August and that is just not enough….and I have a granddaughter on the way in January that I won’t be able to see until the vaccine is available…one good thing about having to be home so much is I’m not spending much money and have been able to build up a big enough cash cushion that I can afford any emergency and put 40K down on a house when I can find one…but damn, I would have loved to be able to spend some of it having fun…I mean, how many more years do I have left for that kind of stuff? So, to waste a year out of maybe ten I have left really sucks….but, I am going to make up for some of that next year with the England trip with my daughter and son in law…and if I can find a house soon, I will be able to put down my last permanent roots and get that stress off my head…it will be nice to just live and putter around at the pace that I want….and not have to worry about dying just going out to get groceries…so yep, this year sucked but trump will be gone in 21 days and maybe we can start to get back to a sane normal again…at least we can hope…

Well…damn, my right heel cracked all the way through yesterday and now I can’t put any pressure on it at all…and now I’m having to favor it and that makes the rest of my foot and leg hurt…and that is probably going to take a week to heal…at least I don’t have anywhere to go or any work to do other than putting the snowies on the car…but, that can wait for a few days since I’m not going anywhere…I did sleep okay last night and didn’t wake up til 6 but stayed in bed for another 45 minutes trying to get that one little drop of extra sleep but that didn’t come…I’m not as sore as I should be after shoveling the heavy snow yesterday but I do notice some stiffness in my right shoulder and I think the pain may come tomorrow…normally when I beat on it as I did yesterday the tendons swell up and cause lots of pain….so we’ll see…clearing the snow was all I got done yesterday and I’ll probably have to take it easy to give my heel a chance to get better today…the sparrows came back to the feeders yesterday but they used to stay on them for a half hour in each session but now they are only here for a few minutes and then gone…so, I do think there is another feeder up somewhere around here that they are using….now it’s time to have lots more coffee and get started trying to find a topic for later today…I think I’ll do a recap of the year since it is the last day of this crappy, crappy year….more later…

Well…just came back in from shoveling the snow and all I can say is that hurt…a half hour of pounding on my shoulder and back and now they both are howling at me and screaming Ibuprofen, ibuprofen! This was the worst type of snow and conditions that you can get…4-6 inches of wet snow that had already started to compress into a solid with the temp up over freezing so it had to be lifted instead of pushed…and that is what screwed my back up…but, as I sit here, the pain is receding some and I hope it won’t get worse as the day goes on…with all that work, I won’t feel too bad about not getting on the bike today…when I came in, I was soaked in sweat…almost as much as riding 15 miles but I will still need to restrict calories to about 1,000 today…and I think I can do that…more later…

Well…ick…just looked outside and there are at least 4 inches of snow on the ground that I am going to have to shovel when it gets light and it is still snowing…and that is going to turn to rain later this morning so I’ll have to shovel before then…slept okay last night but my right heel hurts for some reason and I am limping this morning…and my hip hurts, too, but I think that is just a continuation of the pain from yesterday…and I may take something for it so I can do the snow…didn’t get a whole lot done yesterday other than the bike ride and fixing the faucet but I do need to get the snowies on the car at some point today but that will come after I do the snow….but, I’m not in any hurry to do anything right now since I have nothing but that to do all day and I don’t want to get cold just yet…it took all day to warm up after the ride yesterday and I was sitting here under a blanket all night last night…and I never have to do that…not much to do today…more coffee…and more coffee and reading the news for an hour or so is the only thing on the agenda right now….just don’t want to move yet….more later..

Well…damn, that was cold…when I went out for the ride today it was only 26 degrees but the sun was shining and I wanted to see the soccer matches that started at 1 so I took off and immediately thought it may not have been such a good idea when my eyes started to hurt from the cold in the first quarter mile and my feet were cold just getting the bike out of the garage…but, with the storm coming and the probability that I won’t be on the bike tomorrow, I had to go today…it wasn’t too bad for the first 10 miles but from there, the cold turned to pain in my toes and I knew it was going to be bad when I got back here and it was…when I took my socks off, both of my big toes were white and I couldn’t feel them…and that was a little scary…and now, three hours later, they are still numb after transitioning from pain…think I need to be a little more careful when I go out in this cold…would hate to do permanent damage to this old body just to get exercise in…

Well….sitting here waiting for the temp to come up enough so I can get out on the bike so I thought I’d talk about some work that I got done this morning…you know I’ve been screwing around trying to repair the bathroom faucet and get it to stop leaking, replacing the 40 year old cartridge with an off brand one to save a few bucks…but that one only lasted a couple of months and it never really fit right…it had to be forced in to get the retaining clip to slide into place and was always stiff to operate…so, this morning I went out and got a real Moen cartridge, for only about 4 bucks more and I couldn’t believe how easy it was to install it…just the force of my fingers instead of using a hammer to get it to go in all the way and it works so smoothly and with little effort that I think it sometimes pays to buy name brand parts….and for only 4 bucks more? Now I need to try to find the receipt for the other one and see if I can still return it…it’s nice to have a faucet that just works right and doesn’t leak…

Well…darn, not sleeping again and I feel so exhausted that I just want to go back to bed…and I know part of it is from not eating enough…just couldn’t bring myself to eat a second meal so all I had was a slice of ham and some tots for lunch and I know that’s not enough especially with getting on the bike…oh, well…must have slept weird last night since my right hip is howling in pain this morning and I hope it works out when I do the grocery run this morning…need to do that today since we are getting a huge storm tomorrow with 6 inches of snow possible starting tonight…so the snowies need to go back on the car today, or I guess I could wait til tomorrow since I won’t be going anywhere….and this will close the trails for the rest of the winter so there will just be short rides on the roads from now on…it is going to be around 40 starting Friday for about a week so maybe they will melt clear again….didn’t get anything done yesterday and today looks much the same…all I have to do is replace the cartridge in the bathroom sink that I am going to pick up this morning and Man U plays this afternoon so that will be enough for me to do today….more later….