Well…I think this is the latest I’ve made it here, other than Sundays, in a long time…had really fitfull sleep all night and didn’t get back to sleep until almost 5 and then didn’t get up til 6:46…so I’m running late today…how do you hurt the bottom of your feet? I know how…I guess that was a rhetorical question…up and down the ladder and standing on rungs for three hours for three days in a row will do it…but I think I’m taking the day off today to try to let them heal up some…they burn like crazy so they do need a rest…and I only have two more awnings to do so they can wait til Monday…or tomorrow depending on how my feet feel….made my first batch of salsa yesterday and it came out great…don’t think I put a big enough jalapeno in it, though…it has a little bite but doesn’t make me sweat so the next batch will have more…had something knock a ripe tomato off the plant yesterday and eat half of it and I’m betting it was the damn squirrel I have been throwing rocks at…he attacked another one but only broke the skin so I kept that one and ate it…it is sure nice having tomatoes that taste like tomatoes…oh, got the news from my youngest son that I am going to be a grandpa next Tuesday…they are going to induce labor for his wife since she is past her normal due date…it still sucks that I can’t be there in the hospital with them…god I hate trump and his toadies…not much to do today….with being so sore, I need to take the day off and just do easy stuff today…my hands even hurt and my back and my legs…okay let’s just say everything hurts and leave it at that….more later…

Well…running late again today and it’s another morning I just can’t get started…slept okay but feel pretty crappy this morning and can’t wait for the coffee to start to work…I even just laid in bed for a half hour after I woke up and that is just not like me…I usually just pop up out of bed when I wake up and get started…but not today…hmmmm….I am getting pretty tied of adhering to a schedule every day even though I don’t need to…I have all the time in the world so I wonder why I can’t take it easy…oh, well….I do have enough tomatoes to make my first batch of salsa today and I am pretty geeked about that…I think that is one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to plant tomatoes…there is nothing like fresh salsa to snack on and put on some tacos….but I forgot to get tomato sauce at the grocery store yesterday so I’ll have to stop after I hit depot for another gallon of paint to finish the awnings this weekend…not sure if I’m going to paint one today but I probably will…and maybe do two tomorrow so all of them will be done before the weekend and then I can take the weekend off and just plan the next work…but going up and down the ladder yesterday has made me sore today so there will be some ibuprofen in my future….I can’t remember a summer with this little rain and I am struggling to keep the lawn from dying….I mean the last rain was two weeks ago and it is not supposed to rain for another 10 days…I wonder if there is an official drought going on? More later….

Well…damn, it’s 51 degrees outside and that is the bottom limit of riding in shorts…and in August? Slept okay last night but I think I’m done with the sleep aids…just feel so run down until noon or so and I can’t have that…have to do the first ride and then the grocery run before I get to another awning today..I should have enough paint since the next one is a small one but I will have to go out tomorrow and get another gallon but that should be enough for the last three…I was pretty sore all day after being on the ladder for too long yesterday but I don’t feel too bad right now…still hobbling around but that seems to be normal if I keep up abusing myself…I’m starting to get too much stuff from my gardens and I don’t have any way to give it away…need to look for recipes for cukes but I know what to do with extra tomatoes…going to make some homemade salsa but not yet…still haven’t gotten my fill of tomatoes with just salt and pepper and some tortilla chips…and have some fresh mozz that I am going to slice up for some today too, since that is just a great flavor…maybe some cuke slices too? Not much to do today…just riding and work…again…just like always….more later…

Well…running a little late this morning and just can’t get started but I need to pretty quick since I have lots to do today…slept okay last night and I am happy that the nights have gotten a little more comfortable…and now we are into weeks of no smoke in my house from the idiot’s smoker and that is comfortable too…even with doing two rides yesterday, I’m not too sore today but will be tomorrow with painting another awning after the bike ride this morning…and I have to ride over to the post office on the way out to the trails to get my bills in the mail early since trump screwed up the post office so much it will take a week or better to get the bills where they have to go…I don’t think I’ll take a second ride today after working on the awning but I’m not sure of that yet….it is going to depend on how I feel after it and I need to prep the next awning for paint tomorrow too so I may be hurting too much…damn, this getting up late is screwing up my schedule…it’s already 7 and I’m not even started on my first cup of coffee…need to get moving…and I may be going out to meet up with G for a couple later so I do need to get everything done pretty early…I’m glad this awning is about half as wide as the big one out front so that will save some time but I still need to put two coats on and I need it to dry an hour between them…but the sun will be beating on this one so it should dry pretty fast…I will have to get another gallon of paint later in the week but that should be the last one I need…I hope…more later….

Well…man, it has been another busy day and I can’t really figure out how it got away from me…it started with getting out on the bike for the first ride then coming back here to head out for a couple of errands…I just had to get out to Meijer’s since they have half pork loins on sale for 99 cents a pound and that is good, cheap protein that I haven’t had for a while so I got a 6 pounder for 6 bucks that I can cut up into chops and maybe even turn into some pulled pork…and I didn’t want to wait til wed when I knew they would be out of them and I didn’t have anything else thawed for meals…then back here to mow the lawn and back on the bike for the second ride…then lunch and back out to prep the next awning for painting tomorrow…while I was doing that, I noticed that there was loads of junk in the gutters on that side of the house so I cleaned them all out and then had to sweep the entire driveway since there were so many nails in the junk….and that meant up and down the ladder and moving it a bunch too and I am already pretty sore from it…then I had to take care of the gardens and patch and reseed the big bare spot in the front lawn..oh, and do laundry that should be done in a minute and I’ll have to put that stuff away…and do two of these…so, yeah…it has been a busy day but I am done right now….I think I’ve earned a little time off after 8 hours of work today….

Well…okay, didn’t come back for a second one yesterday and there really is no reason for it other than I forgot…and I didn’t take the whole day off the bike, either….just felt antsy all day without riding so after I did the dishes from dinner, I jumped on the bike and did 14 miles…both my knee and elbow stopped hurting and I was walking around without pain so it just had to be done…the light looks really different at 5:30 pm than it does in the morning….slept okay last night and there is a reason for it but that is going to stop today…just too groggy in the morning and I don’t feel like doing much until late and that screws up my schedule…why I have a schedule at this point in my life I don’t know, but I do and the routine makes it easier than thinking…didn’t get much done yesterday but that was the plan so I don’t feel too bad about it…but I need to get back at it today…after I run a couple of errands this morning…need some stuff at meijers and a dollar store over on Leonard has Hanes t-shirts on sale for 3 for 10 bucks and I need some new ones to replace some that have just fallen apart from my acid sweat when I ride….then I need to get at the next awning and prep it for painting tomorrow…and I’m getting back on the bike here in a few so I have plenty to do today….more later….

Well…okay, this is going to shock you…I’ve decided to take the day off the bike…and the only reason is that I want to do something else…you know I’ve talked about MotoGP before…the highest form of motorcycle racing which would be essentially their formula 1…well…there is a race on at 7:30 this morning which will last until the F1 race at 9 and then lots more racing all day and Man U plays this aft too, so I think I’m going to veg it out today and just take care of my body….my right elbow is howling in pain today for some reason and I must have slept wrong on it…and that goes along with my right knee that has been hurting on the bike so a day off should help them both….and I’m going to use one of my last allergy meds this morning since I have already been sneezing like crazy and can’t breathe…so yeah, I’m pretty miserable right now but I slept okay last night and I’ll take that….I am going to get back on the awnings tomorrow and get at least one of them painted and that will leave me with only 4 more to do not including the one over the side door…that one is going to be a project in itself…going to have to take that one down and take it apart to paint it part by part…getting it down by myself is going to take some planning…hmmmm…I wonder if I can leave the frame up and just unscrew the pieces? Just thought of that right now and that would be much easier….but I still need to get at the dormer…I know the frame is not too heavy so maybe I can take it down after disassembling it…hey, I may be old but I still have ideas….more later….

Well…another day up at 5:04 but I don’t feel too bad so I guess I can live with it…it is a relief that my legs don’t hurt as much this morning but they have a fullness that comes with the damage I did to them…we’ll see in a few minutes how much they have recovered when I get out on the bike…my back has hurt like crazy the past two days too, but I welcome that pain since it means that something is moving around back there and it may help my foot…okay, no more bitching, didn’t get a lot done yesterday other than on the downstairs project but I was a week or so late on that work after waiting for the gas meter to be moved…and I have more to do today but that will be only about an hour’s worth and easy and I’ll get that done after F1 qualifying at 9…I have too many cukes coming from the garden and I need to find some way to use them or give them away…anybody want any? I’m pretty sure they don’t freeze well…I wonder if there is a food bank that would take them? And some jalpenos? I froze about 20 of them yesterday and have another 20 on the plants that will have to be picked soon…I am surprised that I am tolerating them again when I had a spell that I couldn’t eat them without distress…and they are pretty hot so you really don’t need to use much…it looks like I’ll have tomatoes to make salsa next week since some of the big better boys have started to turn red but I want to just taste them with some salt and pepper first….I can have tomatoes every day, especially just picked from my garden….not much to do today…just the normal Saturday stuff with races and soccer and not a lot of work….more later…

Well….when I was out on the bike this morning, my legs hurt like crazy and I couldn’t figure out why that would be…they never really hurt much when I ride…they get flat with no energy but very seldom do they hurt like they did today….and they continued to hurt as I ran a couple of errands as they do now…and then it dawned on me that this is the pain I was expecting from painting the awnings and, when I think of it, it is right on time…the second day after being on the ladder for three hours painting the big one out front…and you know it’s kind of a relief to figure it out even though they really hurt and I know I’ll be taking some ibuprofen later to be able to sleep tonight….even my feet hurt…from the time I got up this morning my feet have been hurting in weird areas like the balls of my feet…and they are stiff…how the hell do your feet get stiff? I hurt so much today that I skipped the second ride…but then aggravated the pain by doing some work on the downstairs project for a couple of hours which put me on my feet again…so, I guess I’ll take the rest of the day off and let everything stop hurting….I will get to a political one at some point but politics is depressing the hell out of me right now and I just don’t have the energy to even read more about it….but, I’ll try…

Well….okay, the cure is worse than the disease…took another otc sleeping pill last night and won’t be doing that again…I did sleep more than 6 hours last night but feel like crap today and I don’t like it…but, my foot still doesn’t hurt so I guess that’s something….and I think my back is gradually re aligning itself since I can feel it cracking as I move around here all day….my foot is still a little puffy but better than it has been so I can live with that gradual improvement…it is so much better than it was at the peak of the swelling that I barely notice it anymore…okay…that’s enough of the old guy bitching…was out in the back yard yesterday and watched a goldfinch pulling seeds out of the heads of one of the sunflowers to eat and it was a pretty cool thing to see…he hung upside down to get at the seeds then climbed onto the back of the head to spit them open and eat them…after he was done, I took a look at the back of the head and found a huge pile of shells that he had left there…that is exactly why I planted them and that made me feel good…saw a female doing the same thing the other day and she was just tiny, almost the size of a hummingbird….can’t wait to see how big the flower is on the 12 foot tall one I’ve going out there…or two actually and the trunks on them are almost as thick as my wrist….not much to do today…I think I’m only going to do one ride today since I have work to do on the downstairs project and I have a couple of errands to run this morning…but, who knows…I know I struggled a little on the second ride yesterday and I really should take better care of myself….more later…