Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

From all of yesterday’s running around, jumping my wife’s dying car battery, racing home before it died a second time, going hunting for battery’s, getting it tested, working, cleaning, and then doing the kids extracurriculars, I thought it was Wednesday or Thursday all ready, and it was just Monday evening. Oh my! But I still got the dog walk in, still did my days work, still had a hot lunch. It was a ram packed day, one which I could have fewer of if I had my way. Turns out the battery in my wife’s car had gone bad, and the ABS, Power Steering, and a bunch of other functionality in the car are electronically controlled. Odd. But ok.

Let us hope we can get another several months out of the vehicle now that we have updated a few less expensive items. Only time will tell. I miss the time period when you could buy a reasonable car for $22,500.00 and it wasn’t a lemon, nor did it require yearly subscriptions to pertinent abilities that are integrated into the vehicle. What a racket this stuff has turned into. Moreso now than ever before.

I’m on the hook for some render updates, and a new big project came in last night, so I best be about my business. Take care out there!

We just had it back from the shop for a wheel bearing issue, and then it died on her way to work this morning. I had missed nine calls under my jacket while dropping the kids off at school. My FIL and I were able to jump the battery so I could coast home with it. The electronics died about halfway home, and I just had to leave room to roll it keeping the engine going. The ABS, TIRE SERVICE, SWERVE PROTECTION, POWER STEERING lights all came on then the dash died, and nothing much worked. It was a harrowing wait at a couple of intersections believe you me. Hopefully it’s a bum battery and not a costly wiring issue. Batteries are plentiful and relatively cheap. Who knows, car is on its last legs at this point. Just trying to get more miles out of it without too much additional cash put in. The ever present struggle. Fun morning. I need to eat, and work.

Come on sunshine and warmer weather, I can feel you in my bones drawing ever closer! Soon the clocks will push forward an hour, then the sap will begin to run, we will have March Break, St Patty’s Day, and hit the first official day of spring by the 20th. I feel like we can make it. I see the light at the end of this snow covered tunnel! I can feel the return of vitamin D to our lives with each day making the sun’s rays just that much stronger. Oh it’s a wonderful time to be alive. Soon the grass will be green, there’ll be buds on the trees, and most importantly, soon the ice and snow will be gone! I love to see it leave for the year.

Wow the third month of the year is here. I’ll need to gather my tax stuff together and get that stuff in order. That’s always no fun whatsoever. Gotta love data entry.

That’s right, we lose an hour on March 8th, so the evenings will be brighter moving forward, which means spring will soon be here, and we can rid ourselves of all this snow, grey gloom, and brown bare trees. As the weather turns we can get outdoors more without the temperature hurting our faces, and outer extremities. That’s a good thing. I for one am here for it.

I’m still busy, but that’s cool. Hours worked mean invoices coming my way, and that’s fantastic. Excellent even. I forgot to send out some invoices last night because I was working until ten trying to get some high priority stuff off for a client. Then I started in on some promotional materials, and that was cool, but I was getting tired, so I stopped. I need to go back to it today to finish up though. Glad for the work.

I need to build a rig for my computer so I’m not hunched over so much when I sit down to do my paid day job. My floors are rock hard so I don’t want a standing desk either. Maybe a better chair would help? I don’t know.

This weekend is still pretty chilly, but I have some more thoughts about items to put in my friends rented dumpster. I have some old doors I can be rid of, which would be cool to remove from the garage. Along with several busted bird houses, and wooden boxes, and other scraps. Like those that came from my garbage bin box that I had to take apart in December/January. I don’t know if my wife still wants to keep the train table, but I’d pitch that too, if I can. I have some log cut offs from the cottage remodel that I can’t really do anything with. I’d like to see my busted up cut off bin thrown out too. I have until Wednesday, so I’ll make a list to get to for tomorrow.

I think the tiny bicycles and snowboards should be donated to charity, and not tossed into a landfill site. I cleaned out the shed before, so I’m stretching for items to throw away at this point. Not looking to make trash just to throw away, but I’ve been purging successfully since my youngest started school five years ago, and I’m down to just the last bits & pieces! That’s terrific, really. I never thought a day would come when we’d have all the really big junk out of the house. I’m pumped!

We will always struggle with clothes, because my wife & kids are clothes horses, that need items in multiple colours, and have far more than they need, or even wear. The laundry baskets versus the closets and drawers don’t lie. 60-70% of the clothes they own, they do not wear. But if I get rid of it everybody freaks out. It sucks that we have to keep every seasons clothes out together. We have no seasonal clothing storage solutions as of yet. If we didn’t have three totes of costumes, we could remove summer/spring gear from their closets, and rotate through, but that takes timing, dedication, and adherence to the rotation. Three things they aren’t known for. For some reason limiting their wardrobes to only the items they actually wear frightens them. They think they’ll be poor if they do that. But why keep sixty pairs of pants when you only wear right of them consistently? Why keep thirty sweaters when you only wear seven of them? Wouldn’t you rather have the room/space back, instead of keeping things, just to have things!?!

I’m getting drawn back into an internal argument I have all the time, so I must digress. Before I work myself into a lather. Have a nice Saturday, the last day of February at that!

In the few times over my limited life span that I have encountered a “Birthday Week” type of individual, why is it that it was a girl, lady, woman, female of 19 years of age to about 30 years old. They must have one hell of a charismatic kick to keep others engaged in celebrations for so long. Not only that but the support team has to be extensive. Kudos to you for being able to pull it off. I personally don’t inspire that sort of outward pouring of emotion from others around me. My fault, I’m not terribly outgoing, nor do I drink much, nor be effusive with my friends. You cannot expect back that which you do not give! Those who can give big love out to the world can get it back in spades, and often do. I’m envious. Not of the giving out of love endlessly — that sounds exhausting, and draining in a way I don’t think I could measure. But to be the cause célèbre that others rally around (just for a little while, only on the day) could be fun. I’d feel self conscious about it, and would likely hate it. Hard to beat British Conditioning of cool reserve, with no outward confidence in one’s abilities.

Needless to say I have a non milestone birthday just around the bend, and it’s a day much like any other. With any luck work will have calmed down so that I can take a moment to read, or play a video game, or continue to paint my Warhammer 40K Space Wolves of which I have forty to complete, with another sixteen Eldar waiting patiently in the wings for a colour scheme, and some paint application.

I bought myself a chainsaw for Christmas that wound up needed additional chains, gloves, helmet with face shield, ear phones, and chaps to keep me from killing myself. Not to mention the bar oil, and different grades of engine oil that differ from the Proyama to the Stihl. It got very expensive, so I bought myself  three small paint sets for my birthday because I really over spent for myself at Christmas. No snowblower, or upright kick boxing punching bag this year. Maybe if work stays hot I can get my daughter the bag for skill building, and my own exercise. We’ll see.

So to those capable of a birthday week, I hope you cherish it, and enjoy every second of the celebrations.

Friends just down the road from us are moving into their new home and have a 20 yard dumpster out front. They have given me permission to add some of my own long standing junk to their pile to be taken away. I of course dropped everything to make the most of the opportunity. I fled down to my basement hall closet and immediately removed old cans, bags, boxes and plastic wrap that had been left under the stairs for fifteen years. When we moved in, I was all “I’ll throw that out next week“, and then promptly forgot all about it. I didn’t even click it last summer when I did our tech recycling run to Aurora. No matter, good things come to those who wait. I then walked outdoors to the side of the garage where our old water softener, and accompanying brine tank have sat idle for the last two years or so. Those are gone now too. Yippy!

I have four bikes in the shed I want to be rid of, but those are being donated, and not throw away. Same with our children’s sized snowboards. Why waste them, let somebody else enjoy them at least for a little bit longer.

If they are desperate to fill the dumpster I do have a bit of wood waste, bird houses, cut offs, and the old train table that can go in there too. Otherwise it’s going to the burn pile at the farm. I’m not too picky. Ha!

What a wonderful start to my Thursday morning. I’m well chuffed! Now I must turn my attention back to paid work for the day job. Enough lollygagging around. Worked up a good sweat getting that softener off the property and into the dumpster, along with the brine tank that had ten inches of fused salt still in it. See ya later!

1.) a design agency told me to “just use AI” to help flesh out the 16 other pieces to their 18 piece project, which they are doing, for money. And because I don’t have a huge library of my own images I turned to Microsoft CoPilot to produce them, and it worked ok. Some look a touch janky, but I’m under the gun, and I don’t have weeks to produce images myself. I feel icky.

2.) The children were playing in the basement with friends the other day and I found several 3d printed additions to my D&D / wargaming table (snakes no less!) and it was very thematic. I’ll allow it! I liked it so much I took some pictures to capture the mood.

Now I need to turn my attention to all the new snow we got last night, and of which we have more coming later on today. Enough already with the snow! I bet the skiing folks are happy as clams this year. The season started in November, and will likely carry over until at least early to mid March. My eldest Girl Guide troop is snowboarding next week, so if it can stick around until then, we’ll all be very grateful, otherwise it can fuck off from whence it came!

I have a good chunk of work to do today, so I’ll not keep you much longer. Ciao Bella.

A blazing minus twenty eight this morning. The vehicles had to think real hard about starting after sitting for so many hours in this cold. Even 8 had to sit and consider my life choices when it came time to venture out of doors. To save myself the trouble I put the trash, and the green bin down on the curb yesterday evening before the full throated effects of this cold had settled in. Still had to go out with a third bag of trash this morning though. That was a brisk walk with some pep in my steps!

This Tuesday feels like it should be Thursday. That happens when I work through the weekend after a second very busy week. That means meaty invoices to go out on Friday, which is a good thing. Otherwise I was yawning and tired, ready to go back to bed by four pm yesterday afternoon. I like a good amount of paid work, but not too much, and certainly not all at once with long lulls in between, but in this economy I can’t be too choosy.

On the upside it is sunny with a baby blue sky!

If our dog walking pals don’t show up shortly we’re just going to walk ourselves and head home, in our of the cold. Brrrr. Miserable cold. It’s ugly. No chance the kids have outdoor recess today with it feeling like this.

Not off to a particularly auspicious start for Team Canada, but they’ve held the USA to a one point deficit, so not completely terrible. I would be happier to see Team Canada tie up this game before the final thirty seconds of the third period. I’d rather this not go to OT. We will have to wait and see. I got up early for this, so I’m drowsy, and feeling a bit grumpy to boot!

I believe today is the last day for the winter Olympics, so there should be a closing ceremony on television at some point tonight. Oh… Team Canada power play coming up, LFG!!

Lost in OT, with some disappointing game play during the final minutes. Taking line changes instead of following the puck in the charge to the net. Lacklustre. Lackadaisical. Generally lacking all around. Whiffing on the puck – twice, on  break aways (looking at you McDavid). Lost the gold to take home silver, same as the women’s team. Better luck next time.