This old ugly git…

My wasting fat-man bust WIP (Fig 1.)

I haven’t done all that much sculpting this year, just wasn’t feeling it. I made a ninja turtle bust along with my daughter, but it came out looking like a Jim Henson knock-off type abomination, so I don’t much care for that particular item. I had plans to make some new monsters from scratch for the fair, but then the summer got away from me so I resorted to painting an old epoxy sculpt from the pandemic era. So here we are with what was to be an enormously fat goblin King that is also wasting away in random spots due to some unknown illness. It has stalled out and been in the early stages for months, plural. Maybe five or more now that we are into December. Also it’s being made in clay so I won’t be painting it, nor can I use it in next year’s fair either. So ha!

I suspect much of what I have currently done will be hidden by chain mail, armour playing, fabrics & furs. So I really shouldn’t labour over the physique all that much. I just want it to be good, so I move slowly at first. Eventually (like always) I will reach a tipping point and then sprint to the end just to have it done, and off my mind. Once I get to that point I never, ever go back to fix errors of any sort. It’s a bad habit.

Not much going down at the farm today. No sawing or random clean up to do today. I don’t even know where the front end loader went. I did not see it while walking the dog. Plus I forgot my work gloves at home, so 8 couldn’t have done much bare handed in the snow covered wood piles when it’s minus five or colder depending on wind direction. A slow moving morning when compared to how productive yesterday morning was. I ebb, and I flow.

Tonight (should there be no more active snow fall) my youngest and I should make our way over to the climbing gym for a quick walk scaling session. I enjoy it a great deal. I know the kids like it, I do not know if they like it as much as I do. But we’ve done it for more than a year now (mostly — a few gaps with summer break, and taking November off) and we continue to challenge ourselves, and get stronger. Won’t be long before they leave me in the dust and hit the 5.10’s or above consistently while I putter away on the 5.8’s, and 5.9’s, trying to slim down enough weight wise so that my grip strength is maximized for the climbs I aspire to do. Right now I am too puffy for what my grip strength can hold for any amount of time. If I can get closer to 175 lbs. Then I’d be in better shape, both physically, and in regards to my climbing holds. Working towards it.

Honestly though, without hitting up a real weight room, and totally reworking what I eat on a regular basis, it’s all just wishes, and dreams at this point. The dog walking, wood splitting, chainsawing is helping, but not enough to drop more than 1 or 2 pounds total. I’m a pear. I see it. My waist line is that of a spare tire. Climbing is helping to curb the worst of my middle aged spread. Might need to bump it up to three times per week before I start to see any noticeable improvement of skill, or weight reduction.

In other news I did make a couple items in the wood shop this year. And not just tidying up the garage, and erecting my shelves! I made a stand for my APC battery pack that regulates current for both computers, router, and my guitar amp(s). Plus I made a display for my eldest daughter’s Taekwondo belts. She is due to get another promotion soon. Another year or two and the whole display will be totally full. On her way to a black belt! Once she reaches her Red belt she can attempt the hardcore mode of sparring at tournaments. I do not think she wants to do that, but the option is there. I also made a utensil organizer/holder for the kitchen because the glass stein we were using was too small. We got some additional items for Christmas last year that wouldn’t fit. Now we have a nice Walnut item to hold everything.

Which reminds me, I never did find the meat thermometer I had bought last year, or the year before. A black fold up digital thermometer for steaks, and meats, and such. Poof! Gone. Into the wind. I have searched high and low for it. Not even a whiff of where it might have gotten to. Oh well. I only BBQ here at home once or twice per year. I run the grill at the cottage, or my inlaws home far more often.

I have some quick work items to do, and then I need to think about Christmas shopping some more. Do I want to head over to a mall, or order a few items from on-line and be done with it? Choices, choices…

Christmas shopping has begun…

Even though we have many birthdays to celebrate this month, including my eldest brother, my eldest daughter, my other brother in law, and my sister in law (different couples of opposite sides of the family), and my best friend, I have decided to get a jump on Christmas. Today I got my inlaws, and BIL completed. Plus I picked up some sparkling wine for Christmas breakfast mixed drinks. I just need some Welches grape juice and that treat is all set to go off for the holidays! BAM!

I picked up stocking stuffers for the whole family and blew my budget completely out of the water. I think their climbing passes/memberships might have to be Christmas gifts at this point. But all four of us have lots for our stockings, nobody’s left out. “Santa” brings the daily things we need, like tooth brushes, tooth paste, hair ties, bubble bath, shampoos & conditioners, lip chap sticks, vitamins, detangler sprays. Occasionally a family board game for us all to play (of which I bought two). So that stuff is purchased and awaiting a wrapping session. Which 8 might do on Saturday when the girls go see Shrek as a live performance downtown. I can fire up Scrooged, or Elf on the tv, and wrap gifts like a champ. Drinks in hand, and get those items out of my hair.

I will need to send something to my parents, and my brothers kids, and then figure out what to do about my own children. I have twenty three days to sort it all out! Nice.

So at the farm we cleaned up Pile Two completely. All of the waste wood that I could not split got thrown into the bucket of the front end loader, and dumped in the garden wood lot. So now the fence line is clear, and the yard is open again. There are a few bits of split wood left over, but I guess I could try to stack it all on a pallet to get it off the ground, and away from the side doors of the barn. I forgot my boots so no chainsawing today. Just  heaving waste wood onto the loader as exercise this morning. Luckily the sun was out and it didn’t feel much like the minus eight the car said that it was. Not windy. So that helps a great deal.

I brought almost all of my chainsaw gear, all except the boots. Kind of important with how the log rounds fall and land on, or near my feet. I do not fancy any more broken toes. I’ve broken two over the course of my life, in quick succession, and I’d rather not break anything else if I can help it. Oh well. There is lots there to do, and waiting a few days in-between won’t kill me. Or send the piles to waste. I’m doing more in these three piles over the last three months than anybody else has done in a number of years. I’m good.

But I did go to Home Depot for bar oil, and a new smaller bladed shovel. I went to the LCBO for booze for gifts. I went to Walmart for stocking stuffers too. Busy, and productive day. Shall I also tackle the LOL Doll piles, and you box today!?! No idea. Maybe tomorrow.

I’ve just learned my October invoice for one company was never logged, so no payment for that coming until mid to late December now. Maybe it’ll get paid along with my November invoice for an added bonus! One can hope. I should start to see invoices get paid for jobs from this year this month. I have had to chase another company to pay stuff from August. I hate chasing money, it is far less enjoyable than doing the design work. But getting paid is very, very important. I can’t keep working with no funds to support my business expenses for all these product subscriptions we have now!

Happy Monday afternoon to you all.

So this is Christmas, and what have you done…

The very last day of November is here, and I am not certain of how much new work I am going to have moving into December. I was fortunate enough to pick up some last minute projects that carried over Wednesday, Thursday & Friday of last week, but budgets are thin, and I don’t know if any of my clients will put anything else together before the new year starts. If they don’t have any work for me, then I’m going to spend more of my time using my chainsaws to clean up at the farm, and I am going to use the time to purge our house before Christmas dumps a bunch of new “stuff & things“into our midst. With any luck all outstanding invoices will get paid in December, and I won’t have to wait until January to get my funds.

So those are my options if no more work is forthcoming. Clean, clean, clean inside the house. Tackling closets, toy boxes, drawers and junk piles. Washing windows, blinds, ceiling fans, and light fixtures. Dusting hard to reach spots, and vacuuming out the air vents. Doing another ruthless purge of all of our collected junk, broken items, busted toys, and whatnot.

I feel as though I have tried to do a good job of that sort of thing over the last year or two, so there really shouldn’t be too much of it left. Except the kids rooms which hoard stuff and it gets kinda crazy every four to six months in their bedrooms. If we could limit the stuffies to just 10-15, instead of the 200 or so each, that might go a long way towards tidying things up. Neither kid plays with dolls much any more, so we could move the dolly oriented mess into the basement. Get rid of some bean bag chairs that don’t get used by anybody, and those can sit in the basement. See both kids are afraid to be in the basement by themselves, so they don’t play down here much at all. But I’d prefer the doll houses, and toys be down here and out of the living room. Just to free up space, and declutter the main living room. Even when clean it’s a visual cacophony, and still a mess.

I don’t want the girls to grow up too fast, I just don’t want every toy directly underfoot 24/7. Maybe I can convince them to let me move it down here today!?! Make a real kids zone downstairs for them to enjoy, more so than the Lego city they have set up, and don’t really touch anymore. We will see.

Purge, clean, rearrange, and farm chores will try to keep me occupied. Once the birthday party is done I can focus on Christmas itself. Lots to do on that front still. All three stockings need stuffers. A thoughtful gift each. Niece’s & nephews, inlaws, and my parents. Ugh! It never seems to end.

Well I started with good intentions, and got side tracked by laundry, and the grocery order that came in. Did get the ok to relocate one doll house to the basement. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Positive thinking! When they go back to school tomorrow I will just move more things because they haven’t touched the lol doll cars in months, and the display case can go downstairs too. Perhaps the toy box could go downstairs too. Open up the living room floor a little bit. Since they’ve glued themselves to their tablets the physical toys have grown dusty cobwebs from disuse. They are growing up. It’s not dolly houses, it 99 nights in the first, and killing each other in Roblox mini games. Oh how sad the passage of time is.

(So far) The Snow has given us a miss.

Which means we can in fact climb as a family later today! W00t-w00t! Although my right hand is still kinda numb from yesterday’s chainsaw pull cord incident. Not to mention the ache in my right shoulder, bicep, and pectoral muscle. Very lopsided with the effort to get that cold engine started in the early morning chilled air. But I digress.

It’s a sunny, if bitterly cold Saturday morning, with weather that feels like minus eleven degrees Celsius. That’s one way to wake yourself up, just head out of doors in your pajamas, and breathe for a few moments. Brrrr. I will definitely need to warm the car up before we drive anywhere. I’m sure the windshield and all other windows are coated in frost. And so begins the season of earlier starts due to having to scrape every window surface prior to driving, for visibilities sake. Ice is a real problem, but frost is much easier to clear with a quality scraper on hand.

The pesky part of winter, is not just the bad driving conditions, reduced visibility, and snow encroaching on the roads width. But the black ice, and doors that freeze shut so you can’t even get into your vehicle in the first place. When I get out of a car at night I have to remember to turn the heat up, and place all the jets, and cents on full blast, so the remote starter can have some chance at cleaning off the glass in the mornings.

Sliding passenger doors in our part of Ontario live to freeze shut. Kids have to get into the car via the trunk, or drivers side door and climb over the console, and other chairs to get to their seats. It can become a real hassle once we consistently have temperatures down near minus twenty or beyond.

I for one am glad I did not wake up to a foot of snow (so far) that needed to be shovelled out of the way. I will say this, I do not mind snow in the month of December because it makes all the lights look that much better, and it feels very festive for the holidays. But! Come January first I am altogether tired of it all, and would like nothing more than no more snow at all until the following December.

I have not skied in decades, I don’t snow shoe, I don’t do cross country skiing, I don’t snowmobile, and I rarely skate. Winter makes me itch uncontrollably regardless of moisturizer use, and a fully functioning humidifier on the furnace. I hate the cold so, so much. Snow pants, long johns, Balaclavas, insulated boots & gloves, you name it I still feel the cold right through to my bones, and I detest it. Ugh! I understand snowbirds more and more as I get older.

If I had the money, and the mobility* (*read that as both children, and pet commitments) I’d go away from January first through March 31st and avoid the worst of it all. Maybe I can convince my wife once both kids are off to college, or trade schools, or are working full time living their own best lives.

I do hope those of you in Singapore are having a good time looking through this blog. I’ve seen recent spikes in viewers from your region this week. Slowly trying to catch Germany, and the US viewer numbers I see. I will most definitely reach 4K views this year. Back when I had to do like 250 views to reach it in one month I was thinking it might not happen, but now I need 5 more views, with a month to go, I’m positive I will see 4,000. An all time high. One I won’t soon top. A blessing, and a curse. I remember when 43 views in a single day was enough to keep me wired for a month. Then I randomly hit 1,500+ in a single day in July from Germany, and now my elation response is skewed. It really shouldn’t be, because 33 in a day is still above average, so I should be happy when I see that or anything above it really if I’m being honest. Just doesn’t hit quite like a 1,500 does! Still no ad sales ha! This is the way.

Pile Three proving itself to be a challenge in sub zero temperatures.

The new 68 CC Proyama just did not want to start in the sub zero temperatures this morning. So I picked up my handy-dandy Stihl MS170 and got to work with that instead. Burned a whole tank of gas clearing myself a spot in which to begin stacking the full logs I’m bucking up under the barn. It was fairly fast moving as a lot of those logs are four years old or more. I believe a good few of them are from the wind storm/Jericho that blew across southern Ontario during the pandemic.

It took me about sixty pulls to finally get the Proyama to start, and I immediately needed to lie down, and dry heave because it make me so sick to have to yank that hard, so many times, while in a crouch. My hand is fried from the pull cord. But! It did finally start, and I got into a good number of cuts before I was overcome by burrs, and the icy winds. I have made a terrific start to the pile.

I can see myself cutting there for another several days if the temperatures are mild. I’ll need to pre warm the saws in the car with the heater blasting on high if 8 don’t want to keep over vomiting trying to get the damn thing started. It was a process. One I’m not keen on repeating all that many times. I can’t wait for my arm and one side of my chest to ache starting tomorrow.

If the snow storm comes down from the lake this far then we won’t be going climbing tomorrow, so I can suffer my aches & pains without exacerbating them. Otherwise I’m sure I will add sore hips, forearms, shoulders, and abdominal into the mix with an hour or more of climbing with my kids.

It’s Friday, hey yeah! Nice. Work got busy right near the end so that’s cool and all. I can’t get over how numb my hand is from yanking on that cord. It’s fried. Just gone man, solid gone! Not going to lie, it made me sick to my stomach reefing on that damn cord. Pull after pull, after gods be damned pull. If I pulled it sixty times, I damn near pulled it eighty I’d wager. I got kinda dizzy, my guts churned, I drooled a fair bit, and my guts quakes and I reached on the road beside my car. I even had to lay down inside the back of my vehicle for several minutes. I am out of shape. I was sucking air, and cramping up in the thighs. I was a sight to behold I imagine.

The next big thing to do if pick all of those burrs off of my new chainsaw gloves, my chaps, and my coat. It took me a good fifteen minutes to do the cuffs of my sweater, so it’s going to be time consuming, and suck the whole time. I will say this, the gloves were functional, and warm. I was very comfortable cutting once I got over the bodily harm I did myself getting the new saw to start in this blasted cold. Didn’t know saws needed a block heater! Ha.

If I don’t cut again until spring both saws are filled up ready to be stored away should they need to be. Premium fuel, and a rich oil mixture. I have to think about getting more chains for the big saw though. More money spent! Silly man that I am.

Didn’t take any pictures of the progress because I am wiped out. My hands are tired. And by the end of two tanks of gas I was ready to go home, and be done with Pile Three for the day. Ciao Bella!

On a side note, something has kicked off in Singapore because my views there have picked up considerably. Don’t know why. I might just hit 4K views on this here blog this year. Wild. Check out my books while you here, they’re free! Read ’em too if you would be so kind.

Last minute big project.

And it isn’t from who I would have expected either. It is from one of the smaller periphery brands I subcontract for, that previously had not done much more than the occasional one off print ad for a local grocery store chain. Seems they have undergone some serious rebranding, and/or market positioning so I am essentially building it from scratch in an all new (to me) manner. Not bad.

In other news two other major clients have finally finished their PO’s, so they will need to allocate more funds to continue working, or halt until January 1st. I prefer the allocation of additional funds myself, but since the PO’s lasted from January to nearly the end of November I think they got their money’s worth out of the deal. I hope to convince them to spend more money with my company in 2026, and beyond!

I am still chasing down some small invoices from another client, which is always disheartening. Everybody wants their work completed in a rush, but then can take three to four months to pay out. It’s infuriating. Hurry up, and wait.

In other news, I found a tick on my person earlier today which I’m not all that thrilled about. Not cool. I split wood for seven weeks without issue. Now two days into chainsawing and I pick up a tick from the log piles. Ugh. Not cool man. Not cool.

The Leafs somehow managed to win in overtime last night, which was a pleasant surprise. They did not play well. Lots of missed opportunities. Will kept them in the game for much of the sixty minutes. Let in a loose near side goal which seemed to suck the air out of the room, but then the young kid scored his first ever goal from the sharpest angle possible. So that was awesome. That tied the game at the end of the third. I forget who knocked in the winner, but it was sudden, and kind of anticlimactic of all things. An away game, so it makes sense. No horns. No smoke. No flashing lights. No raucous crowd cheering for blood. A win is a win.

Now I’m waiting for further instruction on the big project. So I’ll watch the snow fall for a spell. Ciao Bella.

It’s larger than the photo can capture accurately.

The monstrosity that is Pile Three behind the old barn is so big I had to move back fifty feet, and use the fish eye lens setting to get all of it in frame (Fig 1.)

The issue I have with this angle is it doesn’t accurately show either the depth of the pile, or the full logs along the bottom of the barn, and the stacks at the back by the old fence closer to those Pine/Douglas Fir trees. There is quite a bit of chainsaw work to do here, and once splitting season starts in 2027 (ha!) it will take all of September, October, and much of November to get through it all splitting by hand with my axes. I’m going to have strong hands, shoulders, and back muscles by then, holy cow!

It was supposed to rain a lot harder this morning, so I didn’t take any tools with me on the dog walk. But that’s ok, because I have paid work to do today, so I’m otherwise occupied. But if I hadn’t have had any work I’d be miffed at myself for not bringing at least the smaller saw just in case. If the weather is nice on Thursday or Friday I will get a start on processing this stuff too. I could leave it to do next year, but since I do not know when, or if any urban forestry people are going to drop off any more wood, I’d like to do what I can while I have easy access to it.

On another note we went back to climbing last night for the first time in a month, and it was all good. We have memberships now, so we can go whenever we like. I’m excited! I wasn’t as rusty as I had feared after the gap in attendance. I was still able to complete a few brand new (to me) 5.8’s, so that’s a bit of all right! I did not venture to try any 5.9’s because I wanted my arms to not be fried this morning (as I have paid work to do). There were still a fair number of old routes still up on the walls, so it wasn’t as new feeling as I would have hoped for. But it’s fun, good exercise, and my youngest will actually do it, so it’s all good.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, the last one in November 2025! My how the time does fly.

Finished up what I feel comfortable with.

I consider Pile One to be as good as it is going to get until I start splitting again next fall. I have the bigger logs that I can reasonably manage to manhandle all bucked into small bite sized sections. Not only that but I have stacked them nice and close to where I will be splitting them next fall. So that was a lot of back end processing to make the act of splitting that much easier in 2026. Good job!

I got through one more tank of gas on the big saw, and picked off some tiny straggler bits with the little saw, and then proceeded to call it a day. If we get one more day with no rain this week I will venture down to Pile Three. However, it is really big, and kind of a mess so the first day there might be spent moving bits around to give myself the best possible spot to work in, once I get around to splitting down there.

Pile Three has several sixteen to twenty foot logs piled up, eight footers that are at least 24-36 inches in diameter, as well as lots of limbs, and off cut bits I will need to sort out. There is far too much there to stack it nearly, so I think my plan of action is to throw the bucked rounds into a tighter pile closer to where I was working in Pile Two. Put them up tighter to the barn. Free up some of the grassy areas for more wood should any arrive, or to allow me to park my vehicle nice and close by because that’s where all the tools are, and my snacks, and beverages. Plus the dog wants to be close, but not deafened by the saws.

Although once I get going 8 might just toss the pieces where I see fit, as the path of least resistance. It doesn’t take much log moving to get tired, and waylay all of my precious plans. Apathy and muscle soreness kicks in, and I give in to my laziness. Ha!

Now we wait for more reasonable weather to appear because I don’t fancy working in the rain, or active snowfall. Also chainsawing when there is ice on the ground doesn’t seem all that smart to me. Let us see how things shake out. Ciao Bella!

I’m hoping to go back to climbing with my kids tonight. It’s been at least three weeks if not more since we last went. I miss it!

Sometimes it do be like that.

Bucking some of the bigger stuff today with the brand new Proyama 68 CC 24″ bar chainsaw (Fig 1.)

Though my safety helmet arrived late Friday evening, I decided to wait until first thing Monday morning to put it to use. I did the usual school drop off run, and a treat filled dog walk, security coverage of the farm, before 8 got dressed in my PPE to start sawing up some of the bigger stuff my little MS170 Stihl was not having much fun with. And you know what, it kicks when you give it the beans, but it is otherwise well worth the money (so far). I burned a full tank of mixed fuel (40:1 to be exact, whereas my Stihl uses 50:1, which means separate mixed fuel cans for both machines, plus a third larger vessel just for straight gasoline.) it worked admirably. I am happy. Both the saw, the chaps, and the Green Devil forestry helmet/visor/glasses/ear protection combo worked a real treat. The Proyama 68 CC. Chainsaw is 116 decibels, so not a fun toy to run if you have no hearing protection on.

I also stacked the new bigger rounds I made today, so that took some doing. I might have cut these rounds closer to twelve inches thick rather than a full sixteen, because I had to carry and/or roll them forty some odd feet to where I’m stacking near the chopping block. More effort up front means less effort next fall when I go to split it.

At some point late this week my Husqvarna chainsaw gloves are due to arrive. I have a handful of logs in Pile One left to buck. And then it will be time to focus on the behemoth patch that is Pile Three. Good grief, it feels bigger every time 8 walk anywhere near it! I think it’s growing all on its own. I suspect the weather will turn wet, or snowy so I do not expect to get too far into processing Pile Three before I give up for winter.

One thing I hate most about my Crohn’s disease is what it has done to my teeth & gums. They get very sensitive to the cold weather. Sends my nerves into a painful fit that can last several hours, even with the proper toothpastes, and a fabric covering. Plus I start to itch like crazy in the severe cold, so that puts a real damper on being outside too. Need to dress warmly, but not too warm as once you start to work & move about you’ll sweat, then get chills, and ruin your day with weird body temperature issues. Fun times.

Lazy Bear lobby tree (Fig 2.)
Inside the theater and out of the rain. (Fig 3.)
Curtain call for the dancing. Singing, acrobats at Canada’s Wonderland Wonderfest performers. (Fig 4.)

For a change of pace we took the kids to Wonderfest at Canada’s Wonderland for the late afternoon. Got there just before four o’clock, and was heading back to the car by six thirty. We had dinner inside the Lazy Bear over by the Mountain. I did not realize it had a downstairs eating area. What luck! The youngest & I scoured out seating for the four of us, so that worked out well in the end. We also stopped off four six pieces of garlic bread to eat on the way home, so that was a tasty way to finish off the late afternoon.

My wife has always wanted to see the show at the King’s Gate theater, or whatever they call it now. We’ve missed it a few years running, but not yesterday. We got great seats near the back by the exit, so it wasn’t hard to leave once the show was done.

The show itself was thirty minutes long, and was entertaining. Kids liked it a great deal. I know my wife liked it. The shows we saw at Busch Gardens for the Christmas holidays was hard to top, as it had figure skating in it, and my three ladies love them some figure skating. That being said, it was a good show. Lively & bright, with nice props, backgrounds, back drops, and costumes. I would watch it again this season if we needed to.

You know what I do need to do? I need to figure out how to keep dust from the sawing out of my nose. I can feel it in there, and it’s making me want to sneeze. Glad for the new face shield. Good visibility, and easy to push up out of my way. The integrated safety glasses are a real hoot. It’s a nice touch! Soft on the bridge of my nose too.

I had best get to the paid work. I see I have at least one work related email in the queue. Ciao Bella!

Thinking about the year’s end that is coming up.

Did not get ahead of my reading schedule, that’s for certain. The fact that I needed to get, and wear reading glasses put a major damper on my desire to read this year. Mostly because I don’t keep my glasses on me, but in my office. I need them for the reports, because 99% of that work comes off of an Excel spreadsheet, and while I am good at wearing them while working, I don’t feel like going downstairs to fetch them to read when on the main floor, or if I’m out & about. Definitely spent more time with YouTube, Reddit, and Threads this year, instead of reading books. It’s a weakness, I know. Should I ever need new lenses on the glasses I’m going while lense as readers. And not bifocals. I thought I might wear them all the time, so I gave myself that option to do so, but I don’t. Money well wasted at that point. Ha.

I did read six books cover to cover (so far) and two partial reads. I need books to be about 300 pages, and read quickly, without too much naming complexity in the characters. Also, I need to care what is going on, and for those two hold out books. I don’t give a shit. If I could swap these books for large print versions of themselves I might read more, because the text would be readable without glasses. I’m just lazy.

Did not go out to watch many movies at all this year. Nuremberg looks good, but I doubt I’ll get to it while it is in theaters. We had two new Predator films this year, and I have seen fifteen minutes of one (which I liked) but never went back because I forgot about it almost instantly. Not sure what that says.

I didn’t do as much wood working, sculpting, model building this year either. Played my guitar a little more. But the phone took up a lot of my time. The Xbox Series X ate up many hours with Diableo, Gears of War 4, and Goat Simulator. I didn’t do much of any creative writing at all either.

Chopped wood, and got back into chainsawing wood as a past time. Also spent two days a week this year climbing indoors, which was pretty awesome. Did a huge purge of the garage. Purged the house of my extraneous stuff. Got rid of lots of toys, and general junk. We donated coats and clothes by the garbage bag full. I have taken books, and sports equipment to the local charity shop as well. My closet is as thinned out as it has ever been. I did buy two pairs of work pants that I have worn religiously, instead of track pants, and sweats. I do still have an enormous collection of t-shirts, but with how quickly the armpits get plasticized by deodorant, I can’t have enough clean tees at the ready it seems.

We could probably pull a full jumbo garbage bag worth of clothing out of each child’s bedroom/closet, but that takes a lot of time, and considerable effort, and planning.

Been a weird year.