Category: Uncategorized

Macron did it, beat out the alt-right lady Putin la Pen. Good for him. Nicely done. Though that ten point lead, bit of a squeaker in this point in time. Could have done with a twenty to thirty point lead, but those Alties aren’t going anywhere, am I right? Yeah – I’m right.

Back to Monday! Busy weekend that felt both too long and too short, especially after the four day Easter weekend we had previously. Our newest nephew was born yesterday afternoon at some point. He went a full seven days late. Little shit. Ha. Glad he’s here with us, and welcome to the land of the living, nearer to the close of Covid times than at any point in the last two plus years. It’s not totally done with us, but here we are. Glad to have you on board. Ok? Great.

I have my fourth jab booked for a week thursday, glad to have it. Us immune suppressed types gotta take all the help we can get! Get it in me! I want to be able to take the kids bowling, and to indoor parks, and movies and such. Get back to the full spectrum of living. Carefully, and masked, but doing fun stuff again. Going places and having experiences out of the ordinary. Summer helps with that, immensely. Lots to go and do outdoors, and away from crowds.

Did a pretty good chunk of wood working last week. Easy simple stuff. Nothing to bask in the glory of. I feel as though I need to start something a little more substantial, and that I don’t have to rush to complete in one day. Almost into open door weather. But building a table is lots of fun. Especially a small coffee table, that doesn’t have a trestle, or four legs. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions.

There is the matter of the gazebo too. Lots of calls for rain this week. Might need to postpone that project again. I am very excited to see it go up though. That’ll be a massive item ticked off of the to-do list from several years ago. If I recall, we got it in late October or November of the year it arrived, so that meant not building it right away. Then life gets in the way of doing builds like that. Meant to do it last summer, but Covid meant no summer camps, thus no alone time to build outside with minions running around needing to be entertained and watched over constantly. Ugh. I cannot abide by helicopter parenting. What a waste of resources. Kids need some happy, healthy time to work out play time by themselves, safely ensconced in a locked & private yard, in a quiet suburb. But I digress.

Needed to purchase some fonts for a project this morning, but otherwise I’m all caught up. Have a great week.

I have to admit that it’s nice to get out and see people and have my kids run free again. We’re masked up, and having a blast. Laugh Out Loud was a tonne of fun for both kiddies. It has recently been redone on the inside. New equipment, and a whole new layout. Both kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Pink flushed cheeks and sweat soaked brows. I give that an A+.

Now for me to eat lunch, and tackle some lawn work. Ciao.

Did one drawing in the morning for the book, and then went into the wood shop to build the kids a bigger toy box.

This time out of pine, with a plywood base – for stability, and to try to not warp over time. I made it 36 inches long, 16 inches high, and 11 and 7/8ths wide internally. Turns out my 12 inch board was not actually 12 inches wide, so accommodations were made in the cut. I added hand holds in the sides with a 1.5″ hole saw, then rounded over every edges with my palm router. Glued and Brad nailed it all together. Except the base, which I used inch long pin nails. Brad nails were wandering in the thinner plywood base. It isn’t for carrying, but to sit and hold stuff, so no fancy joinery this time either. I’m in a soft gap between projects, so I don’t know how much, or little, time I have to work on household stuff, so I tend to start and finish projects quickly, if I am able too.

I need to get these drawings done. I just don’t want them to suck. But I should aim for finished instead of some whacked out idea of my ideal art style. I haven’t drawn in years. So not a surprise that I’ve lost the feel for it in my fingers, wrist and arm. I’m too tight. Too stiff. Too rigid. Maybe a couple pages of circles and lines will loosen me up a bit.

Any way. How are you all doing as we get ready to finish with April, and head into May. Which reminds me, I need to give the lawn mower a once over. Sharpen the blades, clean the air filter, change the oil, and buy new gas. Check out the springs on the air intake. Too floppy and it sputters, to tight and it roars like a jet engine. Wash it, oil it up and give it some grease for good measure. I’ve had the same Briggs & Stratton lawn mower for 16 years or more now. One of the best purchases I ever made.

If the weather will cooperate in the new few weeks I want to get our gazebo built too. Get that done, several long years in the doing.

Just had to tweak my lower back while fiddling with that damn wheel barrow tire a few days ago. Tried treating it with rest, heat and cold but it’s not really getting any better. Kept me awake last night too. Will have to turn to Tylenol for a spell to get over this initial hump of soreness. Here I thought working out with weights would help me not do my lower back in by simply leaning over to work on a project for an hour, but here we are. I’m pretty sure this all stems from a previous injury I suffered doing too much weight at a Cross-Fit event prior to my wedding. Feels like I compressed a disc or something along those lines, and it just goes off if I compress it at an odd angle for prolonged periods of time.

It’s the sort of thing that hurts if you lean over, but also hurts if you lie flat on your back. And doesn’t like it when laying on your belly either. Sideways it is then.

This too shall pass.

Things are shaping up to be busy again this week. Which isn’t a bad thing, that’s terrific. Received word of a few new reports coming later this year, all good news to me! Love to hear it. The reward for good work is more of it. Which is nice.

Just stopping briefly for lunch, and then I’ll get right back to it. Projects await!

Sell sheets, 3D renders of retail displays, and final edits for the report. Swallowed up a good chunk of the day. It’s funny, I had originally planned to build our metal gazebo today, or at least this week, but then it snowed – again. Plus it’s cold and also kinda rainy. So now building to be done today.

I also seem to have put my back out fixing my wheel narrow wheel that wouldn’t seal along the bead. I tried a ratchet strap, heat, exploding fumes with a torch. And the only thing that worked was a rope, a long piece of wood, and punching the tire in frustration as I juiced it up with compressed air. Leaning over the tire for an hour has done a number on my lower back. Argh. I’m sure shoveling out my compost pile, and putting three wheel barrows full of earth in the front beds by shovel didn’t help much either. Silly what can bring us low. Guess my work out regimen hasn’t been doing as much for me as I had planned.

Day four of lousy weather while we are all off. Gotta love it. As soon as we all go back to work the temp will rise, the sun will shine, and we’ll not have the time nor inclination to enjoy it. Ain’t that a bitch. On a high note for today we didn’t wake up to snow. That’s gotta count for something!

I have some cold weather gardening to do today, so I best be getting a move on. I keep waiting for the sun to get warmer, but I’ll not finish if I wait for too long. Time to move the good soil out of the compost pile and spread it in the flower beds. Time to dig out my wheel barrow and spade. Possibly my forks too. We’ll see. I don’t make a habit of filling our permanent flower beds. I could edge them up, I suppose. I was going to trim the hedgerow at the back of the house, but I might have left it too late. As I understand it, that’s a late winter project.

Enough procrastination, time to get to it. Enjoy your last day of the extended long weekend, if you get the day off that is.

Nothing says Easter like pushing upwards through your bed sheet first thing in the morning, which is why we’re glad to have Cialis as today’s sponsor. It has Risen, so we cured ED for the moment with little blue pills.

It’s a holiday Sunday, and we’re still waiting on baby news, so nothing much is going on today as we wait. The kids had an Easter Egg hunt this morning. Our town had a walk through egg give away on Saturday which the kids enjoyed. Would be nice not to have snow on the ground today, but it’s April in Ontario, so what are you gonna do? Complain, and move on. Little over two months left of the school year, which is kinda crazy to think about. Our youngest completing year one of kindergarten. What a raggedy ass bitch of a school year it’s been too, thanks Covid. I don’t even know if our oldest remembers a school year without interruptions and sickness looming over everything.

Take it easy today. Watch a movie, and stay healthy out there.

The sad story of every person everywhere. So I’m about 75% done my big project, and now need to wait for the last quarter from people who are now sick with Covid and/or the flu. I guess I didn’t need to go so hard out of the gate, but I did my portion as quickly as I was able to. Can take a breather, collect my thoughts, rest my wrist for a bit. Perhaps I’ll get outside to enjoy a beverage in the fleeting warmth & sunshine. Who knows. The day is my oyster, until the last sections come in and I have to scramble to add them in. No matter.

Attendance at school is back up to close to normal. On friday my oldest class had seven kids, out of a possible 23. Which is pretty wild if you ask me. My youngest had their class collapsed into another due to teacher absences, and missing kids. Must be very strange school life during these Covid times. I remember a months long teacher strike when I was very little, and all we did was draw all day. From September until Christmas I thought we were still aiming towards Halloween and drew pictures of skeletons and dead people for months. A meeting was had and questions asked. But it turns out, having a grade one student be totally aimless for four months meant I didn’t realize Halloween had come and gone, so I just kept on with that spooky feeling for months after the fact. I even drew a santa claus with dead reindeer, to incorporate the two best things in a child’s mind. Christmas and Halloween. Must be why I like The Nightmare Before Christmas so much. Ticks all of the above boxes for me.

I’m thinking of starting to build our gazebo next week. Just have to pin down where exactly the missus wants it to go, as moving it after the fact will prove very difficult. Plus I get to remove the enormous box from my shed! I don’t recall how many years it’s been in there. But woah Betty! Can’t wait to get it out, and set it up. Next week!

Easter holiday this weekend, means two short school weeks. With warming weather perhaps we’ll get out on our bicycles for a short ride. No big get together again this year. Going on year three of skipped family stuff. For the best. We’ll make bacon instead of ham, how about that! 450 degrees for ten to twelve minutes. Crispy, not burnt bacon! Bam. Delicious.

Can you hear that folks? Do I need to turn the speakers up? Unless you’re driving and I’ll need to turn the volume down to find my exit. Back into the thick of it. 9:00am on a Monday, how are you feeling? I’ve got lots to do today, and every day this week. It’s a short one with the holiday Friday/Monday combo, so have to do more with less. Ain’t that always the way? Never asked to do less with more than you need. Funny how that is. Last weeks illness has decided to stick around to muddy the edges, but no matter, we press on.

I have an older brother currently at The Hague, competing in the Invictus Games 2020. Two years late, but better late than never. I had plans on going to the Netherlands to watch, in person. But that was before Covid Times, and now it’s going on, and I didn’t go. You couldn’t pay me to sit in an airplane right now with maskless strangers. I’ve been to Amsterdam before, it’s lovely. The bike culture is insane, but the people were great. My wife and I saw some shows, and took a boat/canal tour, drank a bunch of fresh quality Heineken, and had a fantastic time. But weeds legal and good here, so you don’t have to go far for bud any more.

Anyway. I need to eat breakfast, and try to get 20 pages done today (this morning if at all possible). Crack on with it. Earn your daily bread.