It’s grey, raining and a tad breezy. What a Monday morning it is. I saved myself some time by doing work last night before putting the kids to bed, and that allowed me to make some report edits for another client first thing this morning. America has Memorial Day holiday today, so it wouldn’t need to be finished until tomorrow. But, why put off until tomorrow that which can be done today.
I’m just glad to have work to do. I’m in the midst of a slow period right now. This too shall pass. Whether it’s being busy, or slow. Well paid or broke. At some point things will change. Tighten a belt. Adjust to the new normal. Adapt to the new situation as it arises. That’s the life of a freelancer. It’s not for the faint of heart.
I didn’t have “break into my own home” on my Sunday bingo card, but here we are. After a long 90 minutes of traveling to & from the farm, swapping tires, labeling them, washing them, and torquing the whole lot down, and then taking the winter set to be stored at the farm once more, I was pretty tired out.
So we attempted a short bike ride which did not go over very well. My oldest has a new (somewhat adult) bike which she finds intimidating. So much so that she can’t recall how to pedal, steer or remain upright on the thing. I was not having any of the fits, fights, and tantrums and so I made her ride it up our street and back home again. She was fine, but chose to go cry in her room for a spell. Slammed doors included. Oh joy.
So I took my vehicle to go and fill it up with gas, and upon my return what do I find? The batteries in the front door have gone dead, and I don’t have the manual deadbolt key anywhere handy. Yikes. Luckily I am just a C hair shy of being too fat to fit through one set of windows, and I got in, swapped out all eight door batteries. That’s both the front & back door. Can’t get in the back as I have the screen door latched against the wind storms we’ve been having. Works a little too well, if you aren’t looking to cut through the mesh. As I’m not looking to do that repair again any time soon.
Alas I got in, with a bit of ingenuity, time, and the cover of trees to help me out a little. Glad that’s over and done with now. I’d be happier if I could get both cars tires swapped, but the van needs two new tires, and I don’t have them yet. Fun times.
Add into the mix my youngest having a play date that I wasn’t made aware of, and you have a pretty full morning on your hands. I even took the time to wash both cars while I was doing the tire swap. Can’t recall the last time I put either vehicle through the car wash. Metal parts aren’t going to like that salt residue all that much. I should find my power washer and get that set up for a Saturday morning car wash as we head into June & July. Could do the house windows while I’m at it. Try to peel the faux bloody hand prints off the brick work. They’ve only been there since mid October. Ha.
It’s times like this where I’m glad I bought the 3 ton jack, jack stands, breaker bar, torque wrench, and impact wrench. Makes doing my own tires far less hard on my back. A flat level driveway wouldn’t hurt either, but I’ll take what I can get out here in the streets. I don’t need them all the time but they shure do come in handy when you do need them. Boo-yah! Oh, and the wheel chocks too. With how inclined my driveway is, you best believe they get wedged in pretty good. You really see how far a car will roll back when you are tugging on a breaker bar to beat the 140ft/lbs of torque used to set the light nuts on over a very salty/briny winter. Glad for the ugga-dugga tool too at that point. 1150 ft/lbs of torque in my wrench. Real handy that thing is. Weighs a few pounds by itself. Top shelf.
That does it for me. I might tackle some paid work later on today so it’s ready for a 9:00am Monday morning review. But we’ll see if my back feels like it once I get home and put my feet up. I have a sneaking suspicion I’m being voluntold to go plant glad bulbs at the farm when I get home. May have to slow walk it. Speaking of Glad bulbs, we have a bunch of our own to plant too. Should get those in the ground tomorrow if I remember. Ciao Bella.
I’ve said it a number of times, I hate getting up early on a saturday. It’s one reason we never encouraged hockey with our kids, as I knew we’d have a hell of a morning making those 6:00am ice times for practices. Ugh. Today I just had to get the oldest to a Markham train station for roughly 7:00am. Not my favourite time to be up but atleast traffic was minimal, and it was above 10°C, so not too cold either. Could make for a pleasant day for my daughter atleast. I hope it is both fun and informative. A memory maker for her and her troop friends. There are only seven girls from our 5th troop going. A bunch from the attached younger siblings went though, so it could potentially be a riot of fun. They are expecting around 5,000 girls and leaders if all whom signed up go down for it. All I know is, pick up could either be 5:15, or 6:15pm this afternoon. That’s nearly 12 hours on their feet. My kid is going to be in such a mood when I go collect her. Desperate for food if our ROM trip is any sign of what’s to come.
But now it’s Saturday morning, I’m wide awake, and the house is empty. Do I kick on the air brush and try a different primer combo, or do I play a video game, do I read, or do karaoke? I don’t know. The morning (at least) is my oyster so to speak.
Looks like New York tied up their series against florida. I stopped watching after they got through regulation time. Knew I’d have trouble walking up if I didn’t. Glad I set three alarms. Needed two of them truth be told. Thankfully my bladder helped heave me out of bed prior to needing the third and final safety bell. I got my little girl up, dressed, fed, packed with checklisted items, and cleaned up & presentable as a representative part of her troop. Go team!
Looks like some nasty storm clouds are coming from the north west. Looks ugly as sin. I do hope my wife tears down her tent and packs up before the storm hits. It of my hands now though. I drove over yesterday evening to set up the tent, open the vents, and attach the rain cover. Did 95% of it myself, in the wind mind you. Managed to get the girls to help anchor the rain cover while I affixed it in place with the bungee cords and staked ropes. It’s a pretty big Ozark Trails 4-6 person tent. You could park a Smart car inside it. Or a mini cooper for that matter. Usually they camp using a queen sized inflatable mattress, or two. But my wife leant them out last year to a friend who has not returned either item. A bit ignorant if you ask me. If I borrow something it’s on my mind until I return it, right after using it. Usually washed or in the same/better state than how i received it. Not so with these people. I get that they are heavy, but come on. It’s nearly been a year. Bring it back my friend.
Mayhaps I’ll watch a movie, or the first two episodes of season three of Shoresy. That’s usually good for a laugh or two. Have a great weekend. I hope the impending storm doesn’t upend your day. Ciao Bella.
And the only non-garbage hose they have on hand is nearly three times the price of what you were hoping to spend. Gah! New – expensive hose it is then. Good news though, it’s a fifty footer so I nolonger need to haul the compressor out of the garage to reach all four tires from either vehicle. That makes me happy. One small win atleast.
Had hoped to go to the driving range today. But weather and life events for others stepped in the way. No biggie. No point swinging for the fences with my nine iron or #3 driver when there’s such a heavy wind blowing. Plus I pretty much blew up my budget on the new air hose, so not paying to hit balls was also a welcome break.
At least I’ve remembered to pull our tent out of the shed to let it air out for a few hours so that it doesn’t smell of grass clippings and gasoline from the shed. Not going to be much fun to sleep in if it smells like a landscapers garage shop. Now it’s time for the youngest one to go and do her Girl Guides sleep away camping night. Luckily this one is just for a single night, and not two days like the last one. The eldest has to be up and out the door Saturday morning to make the 7:00am train. Which isn’t ideal, as far as I’m concerned. Why do people want to do shit so gods be damned early on a Saturday. Now I’ll need to be up by six, to sort out breakfast, and drive time in order to get her to the train station in Markham. So no late night playing video games or watching movie(s) plural.
I’ll satisfy myself with just the Rangers Panthers game on tv. I pray it doesn’t go into over time, and that I can be in bed before 11:00pm. Was invited to a Refreshment Friday just over the road, but I have no babysitter on speed dial, wife is out for the night at camp with the youngest, and the inlaws are elbow deep into the farming/planting cycle. As in “not available”. So no party for me. Oh well. There will be others! If the eldest were twelve or more I’d be out like a shot, but nines just too young to be left alone at night for four plus hours.
I might still take a karaoke break to rock some tunes by myself tonight, but I’m not sold on it just yet. Anyway, have a good weekend. Ciao Bella.
Spent some time yesterday getting reacquainted with some of my hobbies after a fairly long break, due to travel, and various other things. I busted out the Karaoke for about an hour, and sang my way through my favourite songs, was even able to hit my current favourite twice! Even worked in some new (to me) songs I’ve been vibing with. That made me want to play guitar, so I did that for an hour as well. Jamming along to the JBL Boombox. It’s a concert in my office people. After I was done jamming, I pulled out my airbrush kit and finished off some cheapo 3d printed minis I had lying around. I did them up with a black base colour, then two shades of green, followed by a slime green dry brush. I plan to use this group as an undead/spectral horde. No need for fine detailing. Which reminds me, should I ever actually receive that Blacklist mi iatures I bought from Kickstarter 2.5 years ago, they’ll have all the details you could ever hope for, for a finely painted set of monsters and such. Followed that up by playing Diable 4 for a bit. Watched some baseball, and finished the night off watching a hockey game at my buddies place. We were hit with the mother of all tornado warnings (luckily for me my friend Leslie works for a weather tracking/mapping/research facility and was able to tell us we were really far south of where the actual threat was, but to be prepared for a heavy downpour and lightning) which was very helpful.
Today I had a moment so I took the inner frame of my resin kit and added a cohesive layer of light grey primer. I fear I thinned it too much. I hate having to unclog the machine once the primer kits off, but I might have gone overboard with the thinner portion. Live and learn. I’ll try it again with less thinner, see if I get better, and a more saturated (in colour) coating.
My cardboard box spray booth. Mainly to collect over spray, and save the stuff around me from getting coated in misted paint.
I was able to replace the innertube on my daughters bike the other day, cut the grass, and go grocery shopping, and do laundry. So it’s been a full week regardless of the holiday long weekend which we just celebrated.
If I can work in reading my book, rather than Twitter, and try to get some more of my Ninja turtle bust sculpted, all that’s left is to do some wood working and I’ve done just about everything, except painting on a canvas (which I substituted painting on minis, and on the resin kit so all good there) and trying to do some creative short story writing. It’s too much. I know I have a finger in too many pies, but I plateau and get bored fairly quickly. I find moving around between them all makes me like each one more, as it offers up some very different feelings, actions, and sense of reward for trying. Yeah I’d get much better and any one of them if I narrowed down to just one, possible two things, but I find that to be too inhibiting. Some of them I treat as seasonal endeavours, which really helps to open up the schedule to doing all of the things. Just not a once, this ain’t no fantasy camp for the arts here bud. That was college. Glad I went. Great times.
I personally would love to spend a week someplace where I could devote 16 hours each day to art stuff. I’d plan it like this.
8:00am wake up. 1hr work-out and a jog. 1hr for a shower and then breakfast. 2hr life drawing, 2hr painting, 1hr lunch, 1hr creative writing, 2hrs wood shop, 1hr music (playing an instrument or karaoke mixed) 2hrs sculpting, 1hr dinner, 2hrs free time (gaming/reading/model building etc…), in bed for midnight. For a week straight. Now that would be a vacation for the ages. That would be awesome, especially if there were talented folks there who you could ask for advice on stuff, or watch them for brief periods to learn new techniques. Fantasy artist camp. I’d go. I might squeeze in some computer software time to work in Photoshop & Illustrator to build some skills there too, if I had the option. A little skills workshop for the old day job wouldn’t go amiss.
I think my eldest daughter, and even my youngest might get a kick out of a retreat like that as they get older. My wife is quite crafty too. She used to paint rocks up as flowers, do beading, and stained glass projects. She might like it aswell now that I think about it. Ah, to dream.
It’s Thursday today. May 23rd I believe, of the year 2024. 2 years ago we had that massive Djericho storm that traveled 800km from Windsor to Montreal up the highway 7 corridor tearing up trees, rooves, and knocking down barns. Followed by a 26hr long power outage. What a day that was. Have a great day. Ciao Bella.
Spring around here is short lived. Winter over stays its welcome, well into the last week of April, May still has a fair bit of April rains attached to it, then you flick a switch and overnight we get temps up towards 30°C with just a couple of days in the high teens, and low to mid twenties. We have no gradual escalation towards summer. It’s cold and miserable, then like a week and a half to two weeks of mid tier temperatures and then BAM! The summer heat washes over us and that’s spring mostly finished with. This week the kids haven’t even needed to take sweaters to school in the mornings. It was 19°C or warmer by eight in the morning.
I recall May being under ten degrees in the morning, and nearly twenty five in the afternoon, with showers, wind storms, hail and thunderstorms. Nearly impossible to dress appropriately for. It was always both too hot and too cold. Too windy and dry, or wet and still. Hot when you brought boots, and wet when you didn’t. That’s my recollection of spring from grade school. That’s thirty four years ago mind you, but that’s how I remember it. It was either boiling in the direct sunshine, or clouds rolled in and pulled the plug on the heat. There was rarely any inbetween.
Sat down to watch Dune Part Two the other day. I still enjoy it. I feel like the author went off on a tangent because all the rest of the books ever off from what the first book was like. I think you could go back and write a whole new set of sequels if you followed the shape of book one, parts one through three without veering off and abandoning the Harkonmens, and court intrigue, smugglers, water guild, and all that jazz. Lady Fenring and Co all disappear come book two. Maybe killing 60 billion people makes the courtiers and hangers on fade away to save themselves.
The Ix and Tleilaxu come out of nowhere in the rest of the series. No mention of them in any part of the first book. It’s like he had a great idea, and then pivoted right after finishing it to tell a different side of the same story. I don’t think I’m being clear. It’s obviously the same story, but he emphasized different things as he got deeper into it. Ecology and cults of personality really take centre stage after book one. There’s no real great enemy once the Harkonnens get taken out, and house Corrino don’t do much after book three either. Do they ever tell us who the other great houses are, or what they are responsible for? We have flags, banners, and battle field drapery for the Atreides, Fremen and Harkonnen, but nobody else. An armada shows up for the othe great houses but no family names are ever given. It’s a big world and we really know nothing about it. At least with Game of Thrones you know the noble houses and a good chunk of the lesser ones, and a massive list of names. You get none of that with Dune. But it still feels big. Hinted at, alluded to, but almost entirely glossed over.
Maybe more of that is covered in Chapter house which is book five or six, I don’t remember which it is. It’s definitely a choice. I can’t really argue with it. I certainly don’t write like that when I do not down a few words here & there. The tale tells itself well enough without it. Alliances, rivalries and all that jazz. It has to be there. Just never mentioned.
I have some paid work to tackle, thankfully. So I best be about my business. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!
It certainly is a scene. Very quotable. An acquired taste for some of the excesses of patter. Funny, awkward, cringe, and entertaining all in one. It’s early work, so the newer show Shoresy has refined itself a fair bit. Enjoying it a great deal.
Since yesterday didn’t feel like enough we went back to the track again this morning to get in some running practice before the full sun came out to greet us. Once more we started with stretching and added a few core exercises from Taekwondo, which we both know that we can do. Then we did a 400m walk, followed by an 800m jog, and then my daughter ran a 41.89 sec 200m sprint. We did another 400m walk, and then I convinced my daughter to try a second 200m sprint, with the goal of staying as close to her original run time. Me, expecting her to be spent, was hoping she’d stay within 2-3 seconds but be a tad slower. Nope. She beat her time on run #2, coming in very close with a 41.87 sec. I think that on the day of the race, with nerves and adrenaline she’d be able to hit a 37- 38 sec time without trouble. Either way, we’re staying loose, having fun, I’m getting some much needed exercise, and time spent doing something fun with my eldest. Wins in every column as far as I am concerned. Plus, I didn’t nearly black out this time, so that’s great!
Was far less enthused to mow the lawn upon our return, but what can you do, this is mid spring, and we’re at the height of grass growing season. By June it’ll crisp up and I can go back to a once every seven days routine, in preparation for a once every two to three weeks shape up. Which lasts for most of July & August around here. Once you get back into September the rain comes back and the lawn takes off once more. Right up until November.
So while two days is technically a streak, it isn’t anything to get too excited about. So I don’t think we’ll have the chance to run again until thursday afternoon. Who knows if I’ll be able to move later today, let alone want to try and jog anywhere.
I greased and prepped our bicycles yesterday, and determined that my daughters front innertube is shot. I have one coming tomorrow, so I’ll need to get the tire off the bike, and the rubber off the rim so that I can fix it so that we can ride once more. We also recieved a second, smaller skateboard, so perhaps we can try that out along with my long board some time soon. Swimming will be a thing we do more soon too. I like that.
This time we spent a bit longer on the warm up stretches, and the cool down stretching. Maybe, just maybe I won’t need to be in traction tomorrow with DOMS. I have my Voltaren at the ready just in case. Plus a ten year old jar of icy hot in my downstairs fridge for emergencies. Fingers and toes crossed I don’t need to bathe myself in it.
As previously mentioned my eldest won her 200m finals to advance to areas in the coming weeks. So what better for a sunny sunday morning that to head over to said track and get in some practice. We started off with a 10 minute warm up of stretches and leg/hip swings, then directly into a 400m walk, followed by an 800m jog (which nearly killed me. So out of shape). Then a 200m sprint, followed by another 400m walk, some additional stretching and then a ice cold water, and the trek home.
Nothing too crazy. Not trying to introduce an injury before the big day. Just trying to add a touch more activity to keep her loose and ready for the big day. We’ve talked about how great it is to get the opportunity to go, and that’s a win, in and of itself. No need to get too upset if you race against the best in the local area and come up 1/100th of a second shy. Of course we’d love to have another win, but the work to getting there is more important than the 49 seconds of the race. Focus on your personal best, and growth in skills, and knowing what to expect next year. Enjoy the spectacle of it all. Take it in. A lovely sunny day outdoors with friends, interrupted by foot races and field events.
I on the other hand need to get more serious about exercise as I’m terribly out of shape once again. I gave up on the regimen back in November because we went to Florida for 15 days. I did swim and walk a bunch then, but not an actual work out. Then two more trips, one in Jznuary which was shorter, and the longest ever in April. So besides the interminable heat in Florida in April, I didn’t do much of anything physical to raise my heart rate, or develope a sweat. Thus, I’m tired, out of physical shape, and carrying a spare tire around my middle. The scale says 208lbs, but I feel larger than ever. I have my weights, and exercise mat so I should just get back in the habit of using them for 10-15 minutes per day. I put the writing on hiatus for 15 days straight after an 831 day streak, so I know how to build a new habit. Little by little consistently. That’s it. That’s all it takes ultimately.
Was in the orchard picking up busted and discarded sapling covers. The white mesh wraps used to stop deer and whatnot from peeling off the bark, and/or eating the little trees and all of their early leaves & buds. Luckily there are only nine rows of apple trees, and we didn’t have to look at the peach trees, so about an hours work. Grandpa came by with the side by side to gather up our piles, he did that with the kids, so they had some fun atleast. I however have a nice quarter sized burn on the top of my right foot, and at the back of my left leg, on a dollar bill sized patch of skin. So not great. No ticks though, which is nice.
The town had their opening long weekend holiday firework show last night. It was a blast. Both literally and figuratively. Got a tad smokey with no breeze present, but then again we lucked out as the rains stopped before, and a hefty portion of the town showed up. I’d make a few suggestions, if I could. One; invite two or three times as many food trucks, those lines are a real damper on the festivities. Two; station an icecream truck at all four corners of the event so that there are more treat options, shorter lines, and those frozen treats stay frozen. Otherwise the music was good, plenty of seating. The play structures are always a hit with our kids, and nearby parking isn’t too long of a walk away. Event parking is a nightmare to get out of, so we parked a block or two away, and walked the rest of the way in. Got there and home without incident. I’d call that a success.
As I get older, the worst impediment I have from a good lie in is a full bladder. No matter how well depleted I feel as I head to bed, by morning I am full to bursting. Now I do have the capacity to fall back to sleep after a brief visit to the facilities, but that sleep is never as good as the overnight kind.
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