Well…I finally have birds coming to my feeder and it is pretty cool but very loud as they peck at the food I’ve put in my windowsill and bang on the feeder….have the biggest darn bluejay I’ve ever seen that has been coming for the past few days and that thing is so big it barely fits on the feeder and it scares the other birds away when it comes in…but, even that huge bird was chased off by a Redwing Blackbird the other day and I know they are pretty aggressive birds having been attacked by them when riding by their nests in the spring…well…not attacked but they fly down and peck at my hat for some reason and I find it funny after I got used to it…the Grackles have even found the feeder and they eat in packs…when I have 6 of them on the sill and feeder it is pretty loud but fun to see….had a red bellied woodpecker on the feeder last week that I thought was a Northern Flicker and I’m not sure why I thought that…but, I thought the Grackles were Starlings so I guess it’s pretty easy to make mistakes…even had a Chickadee on the feeder but still no sparrows and I think that is still weird….but it may be the Grackles are scaring them away there are so many of them and they are pretty big birds…need to figure out where to hang the hummingbird feeder this summer to try to lure some of them in and give me something to watch…will probably put the hanger outside the same window so I can see it when I’m doing this….not sure if I’ll keep the window feeder up all summer but it doesn’t cost much and I’m sure the birds can use an easy food source even with all of the natural food out here…for a long time, I didn’t think I’d get one bird on the feeder so it is cool to have them finally find it…

Well…that was okay…slept through until almost 6 and feel okay this morning other than I hurt everywhere but I guess that comes with working hard and getting old….but today is my day off! Not really…still have some work to do on the window and a couple of spots of the plaster to fill to get ready for sanding day tomorrow…and I need to re-hang the door to help contain the dust but all of that is at most 45 minutes of work so that’s cool….I do want to get out on the bike if it every warms up enough but that looks like it won’t happen until this afternoon and it will still only be in the high 40’s so that will mean thermasuit and gloves and it’s almost halfway through April…and we’re getting a few days of 50’s this week and then back into the 40’s again and I suppose I shouldn’t bitch too much since it is keeping the lawn from growing as I try to finish the interior before I have to spend hours on the yard…need to start planning what I want in the garden this year and I think it will be more beans and less tomatoes…and more green peppers since I’d like to make some stuffed green peppers this year….and I still need to make the border around it and that needs to be done before I start prepping the soil…week after next? Not much to do today…just the little bit of work in the bedroom and then some time off and need to start thinking of food for the week but that will be kinda solved with a big spiral sliced ham that I’m buying wed that should feed me for a week or so….and it looks like the leftovers will time out perfectly but that means I’ll need to cook wed and need to plan for that…but right now, I need more coffee and to read some news to come up with a bunch of topics since I am behind for the month….more later….

Well..crap…woke up this morning with the blotchy rash I had when I was working on the kitchen all over me again…and I’m pretty sure that it is from all of the dust I have been exposed to working on the bedroom and I still have two days more of dust eating to do to get it ready to paint….I am a little reluctant to take the flonase I’ve been using to control the allergies since I wonder if that has something to do with it? This is just what I need with already beating the hell out of my body just trying to get the work done and I don’t want to take any time off for the rash to go away especially when I’m not sure that the dust is the cause…it makes sense but until I have a doctor out here, I won’t be able to know for sure and that isn’t going to happen until I have my work done…and I put in almost 7 hours today with sanding the two door frames, the window, and the rest of the baseboards and then putting two coats of paint on the window and frames…I am so beat up that I am glad I have tomorrow off other than hanging the door…I did attach the shop vac to the sander to try to control the dust but that meant I had to shake out the filter bag a dozen times with it plugging up in about 5 minutes of usage…but better to have that dust outdoors than in for sure…but now, I’m taking the rest of the day off…just beat and sore and I’ve done enough….might be more later if I can find a topic….

Well…this is going to be an ugly morning with not sleeping at all last night and I have about 12 minutes to get on the bike with Man U playing at 7:30 that I want to see…yesterday was a little bit of a disappointing day with only getting the door frames sanded and filled and then waiting for the filler to dry and waiting, and waiting until I was just done working for the day and it was still not dry….so that leaves me with all of the trim to sand today and eating a lot of dust….don’t know why I’m rushing so much to get the sanding done since I’ll have a couple of weeks after I paint the trim to paint the rest of the room….so I guess I’ll finish up the bathroom next week…don’t seem to be as sore today but that will change after I work and I do need to take something for it before I get to working…it looks like it may be warm enough to ride outside tomorrow so it looks like it won’t be a day off like I really need and I do need to hang the door, too, but that should only take a few minutes….not much to do today…just need to get started right now and then power through the day but I sure don’t feel like it right now…don’t even have time to have coffee before the bike and that is going to suck…..more later….

Well..I know most of you come here for my rantings on politics for some reason…and I thank you for that…although I’ve never figured out how to make any cash of the 10,000 of these I’ve done…I guess I don’t have enough “content” for google ads to allow me to have ads on my site so oh,well…but this one is not about politics, I’m just not feeling it today so I’m going to talk about something I’ve been thinking about lately with all of the work on this place…when I was young, we lived in a 100 year old house that was pretty old and worn out with plaster falling off the walls, leaking roof, doors that didn’t work and it didn’t even have indoor plumbing until I was born…and that was in the 50’s….and a basement that was full of junk that no one did anything about….it was full when I was born, and it was full until the house burned down in the early 60’s…and no one did any painting, plaster work or anything else to the house other than a very little cleaning…other than putting a new roof on it when the leaks got so bad we ran out of pans to catch them….so, and this is my question after all the exposition: how the hell did I get to be a person who is compelled to work on his house to the point of damaging his body after being brought up like that? I never learned how to do plaster or paint or anything else about maintaining houses when I was young…I did learn about fixing cars but that was about it….and this house as I bought it was nicer than the one I grew up in so why couldn’t I just move in and live? These are questions I don’t really have any answers for but it has been making me think lately…the questions won’t make me change my attacking this house and busting my butt to improve it…just thinking about how I got to this place at my age…that’s all…

Well…with getting off track this morning and turning the first post into a house one…unintentionally….here is the one that I promised…even with all of the pain, I slept okay last night and feel pretty good this morning….and I really do think there is something to this taking care of myself and being good…I can see doing that for a long time and, when I find a doctor out here, I’m hoping my blood pressure will be better as I know my weight will be…and that’s a funny thing, I have never owned a scale to weigh myself but I can tell when I’m making progress staying in shape…as I said before, I think, that I have run out of holes in the belt I’ve had for more than ten years and I guess that means I’ve lost two inches plus off my waist since the start of the year…and I think that is something to be happy with….I still marvel at how I have a house of my own to live in that has everything I want except it’s not in GR…it’s still pretty cool to get in the car and hit the button and the garage door opens…little things make me happy and I’ve always been like that…like a nice looking lawn or getting flowers to come up in the yard….have never needed much for me to be happy…and I need to stop complaining about working on the house when there are so many people who would love to have this house and do the work for a place to call their own…and to have enough cash to live on and have a cushion that the majority of people in the US just don’t have….so, I need to reset my thinking…again…and even as I work my butt off around here, I need to appreciate what I’ve accomplished in this past year and look forward to taking some time off this summer…and that is going to be weird….but fun….