A good portion of my business contacts are in the US, so this week has been pretty quiet. I had one email late tuesday night, and one other email exchange yesterday. I would be surprised to have more than one today aswell. Not to mention today being Black Friday, a shopping spectacle for a lot of people, which means they aren’t in the office, or reviewing standing projects. No problem. I can handle a quiet friday with my puppy. I did think I was going to get a new report in today, but tomorrow afternoon works too. Or Monday, whichever works for those signing the cheques. I’m easy.
It is a rather chilly minus seven today. A particularly cold walk for the dog this morning. Boy am I glad the new vehicle has a remote starter, heated seats, and a warming steering wheel. It’s quite lovely. Very toasty! I’m hoping to not have much on the docket this weekend. Oh we will definitely go rock climbing, and make our hands, and forearms go numb. But beyond that, I’m not interested in seeing people, hosting, or interacting in any way, shape or form. I feel overly tired. Staying up too late watching Reacher with my wife. Solid show, but we don’t start it until 10pm, and if we do a double header I’m not into bed until nearly midnight. And I’m feeling exhausted because of it. Still, it’s a good show though. I appreciate the couch cuddle time with my wife though.
I spent the morning drawing up my months invoices, and sending those out. Truth be told I sent a couple yesterday, because two were requested asap. No problem! I’m expecting two, or three more reports before the new year starts, so I’ll have lots to do in December if things move along as planned. But I won’t get upset if one gets bumped to January instead. I’d prefer more work get done now, but having jobs lined up for the new year is not a bad thing. Takes some of the stress out of potential lull periods if I know I can break it up with one, or two paid gigs in the middle of it. Three individual three week lulls is better than one eleven week long down period if you ask me. Just means I can get a lot of cleaning done, and organize the house after the winter break with the kids home all day. I can indulge in longer dog walks, and take my time with lots of snow shoveling to keep the house free of ice jams, backed up eaves troughs, and potential flood threats. I treated myself to both a new metal shovel, and an industrial ice scraper for the driveway. I only pray we don’t have too many dumpings of snow that are over six inches in depth at one time. We had nearly 17 inches one time during the Covid lock down months, and that very nearly killed me. A run away heart beat made me tingle, not in a good way. It was too much. But we don’t get that kind of action every year so I haven’t spent the money on a snowblower just yet. With all of the bikes, benches, tables and tools, I don’t have anywhere I can store something that large which won’t put it in everybody’s way 90% of the time. It’s a purchase I wrestle with constantly. Mainly for the bottom of the driveway where the town piles up a four foot tall wall of heavy, wet, partially melted ice after I’ve cleared my drive already. Followed by having to do the back patio because it wants to drain into the basement via the windows if I don’t. I don’t want a thirty six incher, but a twenty four inch wide snowblower would fit through the back gate, I believe, and would cut down my back breaking labour by more than half. Would have to be an electric start, as I can’t be putting my shoulder out tugging on an icy cold pull start RIP cord. See, now I have conditions, and requirements on the purchase. Before you know it I’m buying handle warmers, a wind shield, automated blower direction changer for the stack, and chains for the tires, on and on.
We had the first very light dusting of snow last night, so the streets were brined, and the parking lots salted in anticipation of an impending storm. It’ll be December in one more day, so just about the right time for it. I guess it’s technically still the fall until the twenty first or something like that. But winter is on the cusp of making itself known.
Ok, enough from me. Hope you are all well. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!
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