Well…pretty much on time this morning with getting up at 6:05 but it took me a half hour to get to my first cup of coffee after reading the news for a bit and getting my first water of the day down…slept okay but have that damn headache that I’ve had on and off for months now and I’m sure it’s allergies since my head is plugged up…I wonder if it’s just still from the dust after sanding the trim and cleaning up? But, I’m done with that in the kitchen and today starts the final push to finish it by the end of the week…going to paint the trim this morning and if I have time after I get those two coats done and let it dry, I’m going to paint the ceiling in there…I do need to let it dry so I can put down drop cloths without smearing the paint on the trim…if I can get the trim done with still having about a third of a gallon left, I can do the ceiling today but will need to get out for more paint in the next couple of days if I run out….and I don’t think I have enough grey to finish the walls but I will be able to get at least one coat on if I have enough painter’s tape to mask it off…but the white needs to dry for a day or so first or the tape will pull paint off and I’ll have to touch up lots of spots…didn’t do a whole lot yesterday with it being my day off but I finished off the sanding for some repairs I did on the basement door frame and I cleaned the bathroom since it was way overdue…I am quickly inching up on needing another week off to heal up since my right thumb is howling already and I am sore everywhere…and I hope that will be next week and I will use the week off to buy the range hood and install it along with a complete scrubbing of the range and kitchen floor and do some repairs on the tiles since I’m not replacing it until next year… and then I can move the bookcase I’m using for my microwave stand back into the kitchen and that will end the work in there…finally…not much to do today…just need to get on the bike here in a few and then get to painting…can’t wait to see what the white trim looks like after I finish…and I think the whole kitchen project is going to be worth it after I get the detail work done…at least it will be clean and I won’t be embarrassed by it anymore….more later….
Ukraine’s big problems started with Manafort and trump…
Well….if you think that this invasion of Ukraine started just recently, you’re wrong….Putin’s meddling started long ago…even before he started screwing with our elections in 2016…and Paul Manafort and trump were essential in trying to give Ukraine to Putin but weren’t successful…or as successful as Putin wanted and that meant making Ukraine a client state that he could dictate to and basically run to his every whim and plunder as he wanted….and when trump tried to extort Zelensky into making up dirt on Biden, it was all part of the disrespect that trump telegraphed that was taught to him by Putin…and since he was such a sycophant, trump was more than happy to treat them like crap like they had no worth….not like the democracy they are. With trump showing Putin that the US didn’t care about Ukraine for 4 years, Putin thought that was still the policy of the US and the EU no matter who was the in charge since we didn’t to anything at all when he invaded the Crimea….so he assumed that Ukraine wasn’t important to anyone and he could do the same there…but, it is not 2014 and trump is not in charge…we now have a president who understands that making partnerships with our allies is extremely important and you can see that with the almost monolithic response to Putin’s thuggery that is due to Biden and his team’s work….now we just need to keep it up and make Putin pay for his decades of bullshit…geez…
Happy anniversary to me….
Well…February 27th has a bit of importance to my life that I am going to celebrate today…it was one year ago today when friends and family helped me move into this place to start the final phase of my life…and it has been an interesting year to say the least…I am still marveling at how the whole thing came to be…I mean seeing the listing on Friday night, touring the house at 10am Saturday morning, putting in the offer on it by noon, and having the offer accepted by 5pm Saturday afternoon…but, that wasn’t the end of it…it took the work of my brother the realtor, the mortgage broker, and lots of other people to make it happen…to make all the moving parts of the process work in the short time frame that I had available to me with my son and his wife moving back to GR to take over the house that I had just rehabbed…and it was close, I made it out of there with two weeks to spare and it was such a relief to not have to move back into an apartment as I looked for a house….but it has not been all sweetness and light…there have been cultural issues that I have faced out here…or maybe not cultural ones but habits that permeated this neighborhood where the other residents had gotten used to playing their music so loud and at all hours of the day that it made this neighborhood a war zone…and I’ll admit that I was seriously considering selling this place after being in it for only a couple of months but then I got a little pissed about the selfishness of these people who were depriving me of enjoying my new place…so that set in motion the long saga of making noise complaints multiple times every day to get people to follow the law up here…and after months and months of that, it finally had some effect and the neighborhood is quiet now but for the damn cars that come by shaking my house and that I will attempt to deal with this year….and I know that I’ll probably be starting from scratch with the noise as spring comes but I know the process now so I can work it to good effect…but, that has been the only bad thing about living out here other than not having pool days anymore…oh, and my kids have disowned me since I haven’t visited my grandchildren but that’s on them for their reaction…and after what was essentially a panic buy of the house, I have been pleasantly surprised that the area and the house do have everything I need…and I didn’t know any of it when I bought it…the bike trails are a couple of blocks away and go all the way out to Lake Michigan, Lake Michigan is 8 minutes away by car so I can go to the beach whenever I want, and Muskegon is a vibrant small town with lots to do once the pandemic is over…and I hope his summer will be the one that allows me to take part in the life out here and meet some people to have things to look forward to other than working on this place…all in all, it hasn’t been a bad year and the idea that I have an affordable place to live that I have already made a ton of money on takes such a big load off my head that I can just enjoy life for the first time that I can remember….onward to the second year….only 14 more til this place is paid off….
February 27th
Well…damn, that was pretty crappy….didn’t sleep well at all but the thing is, I don’t feel too bad even with the bad sleep and I know that is from being good…never thought I’d be heading toward 60 days of no cocktails but it has become the new normal and I kind of like it…used a lot of new muscles washing the kitchen yesterday and that means lots of new soreness this morning…it’s funny how creaky I feel after doing something new but I still have the ability to recover so I guess I’ll keep doing them…tomorrow is going to be another one of those with using the extension on the roller so I can paint it standing on the floor like I did all of the ceilings in my son’s house….but I do need to use a drop cloth over everything to keep the drips off the floor and everything else….but I’m not sure how my right thumb is going to hold up with doing all the trim tomorrow so I may have to move the ceiling out to Tuesday but I need a couple of days to let the white dry so I can mask off the corners and trim to get a good line for the grey…and I don’t want to pull off the white with the painter’s tape…may have to run out to HF to get another roll of tape and some more sanding pads for the small sander so I can get to work on the dining room next week…nope, going to take a week off to plan and let my body heal up some before I get to the dining room…I do need to find a new place to get the paper on Sundays with Wesco closing by me for renovations…too damn far to go to the next nearest one….not much to do today…it is my Sunday off and I won’t be doing much but cleaning a little and watching some races and soccer on tv….and I do have a special one of these to do in a while…more later….
No politics today…
Well…it been kind of f lost day for me today after working on the kitchen this morning, I haven’t really done anything but veg out today…and, even though I’ve read a bunch of news today, I can’t get my brain to care enough about anything to actually do one on politics….it has really felt like I was hungover today and I have only had one day of cocktails since January 2nd…just no energy at all and it may just be the 3 days I only had one meal a day catching up to me…I guess that’s more what I feel like than hungover but I don’t really remember how that feels it’s been so long…I do know the day after my one day of cocktails I felt like crap all day and vowed I wouldn’t do that again…and so far, so good….oh, I did give myself a hair cut today since I was looking shaggy and I don’t like to look like a homeless person….man, I just got the new assessment for the house and it has gone up by 5,900 bucks and that is going to cost a bit but it is still well under half what the house is worth so I can live with it…will have to budget for next winter’s taxes and that sucks a bit…oh, well…time to make some dinner…don’t want to but I know I need to….
This is too weird…
Well…there have been lots of weird things about this house that I have discovered as I work to get it cleaned up and liveable…but this morning, I found one of the weirdest things so far and all I can do is shake my head…as you know, I had to take the glass cover from the overhead light today to clean around it to get ready to paint…but, when I just looked at it, it had lentils in it…yep, lentils like the kind you make soup from or put in stews…and my question is: how the hell do you get lentils 8 feet in the air to have them land in the light fixture? I mean I’ve never thrown lentils around in the kitchens I’ve had over the years or any other food for that matter….but there they were…and the second question then comes: why the hell didn’t they ever clean the light fixture to get the dust, bugs, and lentils out of it? Just another instance of how little maintenance this place had before I bought it…and the remedial cleaning I’ve had to do to just get to the point that I can repair and paint….pretty damn weird…
Ready to paint…
Well…got some work done this morning with washing the entire kitchen to get ready to start painting Monday…after I was done, I had a half inch of mud in the bottom of the bucket and it was all from dust on the surfaces….they didn’t look that dusty but after all of the sanding in there on the cabinets and the trim and door frames, I guess the two tubs of filler I used ended up in the bucket….I even got some painting done on the door frame for the door to the basement to get the raw wood covered so it will look good when I get the rest of the frame painted Monday…didn’t do all of the new trim for the door since it takes about two hours of masking to keep the door seals and hinges clean and I just didn’t feel like working that hard today….so that will be a project for when it gets warmer and I have the rest of the kitchen done….and now I have the rest of the day off to watch soccer and races and I am going to enjoy that while I can….I do need to clean a bit around here, too, but I’m not in too much of a hurry to start that….more later…
February 26th
Well…running about on time this morning but I thought I was running late when I woke up and smelled the coffee brewing but didn’t hear it….but it was only 6:08 so that will put me on the bike by 7 or so…need to get going a little early this morning since I need to get the entire kitchen washed to get ready to paint and that needs to be done by 10 with Man U playing…still want to watch them even with how crappy they are playing….I did get all the sanding done in the kitchen yesterday…or done to the point that I’m taking it…just have run out of patience with all of the dust and pain and want it done….I think I have enough white to do the ceiling but it is going to be close on the grey for the walls to do two coats of paint on them so I may have to get another gallon…and I need a hot glue gun to re-fix the power feed to the range hood to the wall and for other things around here and I wonder why I never bought one? Can get a nice two temp one with trigger feed for about 11 bucks at depot so I’ll get that this week so I can finish up the kitchen details…and I do need to get a new outlet to replace one that was filled with plaster when they did some repair and some new black cover plates to have them all match…I am getting tired of moving the damn stove out and back as I work behind it but that will be done this week…man, I have been waiting to say that…I did make a huge lasagna yesterday and it is good to have some easy leftovers to make as I work….not much to do today…just the bike ride and then cleanup in the kitchen…I do need to take the glass light fixture shade down to clean since they painted the ceiling with it up and it has paint all over it….detail work…more later….
Brave frickin Ukranians….
Well…just had to do one on the stories coming out of Ukraine about the bravery of these people in the face of Russian attacks…the first one that I read about was about a sixty something woman standing in front of a group of Russian soldiers and she told these guys with their AK-47s to make sure they put sunflower seeds in their pockets so flowers would grow when their bodies are buried in Ukrainian soil…then there is the “Ghost” a pilot in the Ukrainian air force who has shot down at least 10 Russian planes and all he does is patrol, shoot, and go back to his base to refuel and reload and back into the battle…flying an outdated Soviet reject fighter this man takes on the “best” the Russians have to offer and is decimating them…you want “Top gun?” here is a real one…then a sad story about how dedicated the Ukrainians are when it is to protect their home….a major in the Ukrainian army was setting charges on the main bridge that the Russians were using to invade from the south to blow it up so they couldn’t use it to attack his friends and family…and when he couldn’t use a delayed timer so he could get away before it blew, he stood there and set off the charges knowing he would die….but he stopped the southern invasion force that was heading to Kyiv….and the last one, an 80 year old Ukrainian man showed up at an army recruiting center with 2-t shirts and an extra pair of pants in his bag asking them to allow him to help defend his country….this makes me believe that there is still good in the world and makes the assholes who “protest” mask mandates since it is taking away their “freedom” should look at what fighting for real freedom looks like…and it ain’t them….geez…
A great pick…
Well…you know, when a dem president gets the chance to nominate someone to the Supreme court, it’s never someone like “I like beer” Kavanaugh or the blank slate liar like Barrett, and Biden’s pick of Ketanji Brown Jackson shows that in glaring neon lights….what a great pick…Ms. Brown is someone who has served as a clerk for retiring justice Stephen Breyer, has criminal defense experience, and is someone who can bring to the court and wide experience in how the law affects people’s lives…and does not believe in the “originalist” bullshit that the right uses to destroy settled law like Roe but will interpret the law as resilient as time changes the circumstances of the law….oh, and I didn’t mention she will be the first African American woman on the court that will also bring that experience and knowledge to the right wing majority of the court who feels, like Roberts does, that racism no longer exists in this country…while the repubs pass racist voter suppression laws all over the country after the Roberts court gutted the VRA. I am pretty excited with this pick because Biden didn’t fall into the repub talking point that he should nominate a conservative dem to the court…that is not what the court needs…what it needs is someone who understands what the law means to real lives…and in Ms. Jackson he has that jurist…what a great pick….