Good morning! Hello there. How are you? All well? Did you have a lovely weekend? I do hope so. I am good. I am wearing PANTS. It is weird. And a belt. Not sure how I feel about it. Headed to New York in about two hours. Going to the Webbys and an ad conference and doing about five work meetings. In and out. One day. Gonna be a thing. I’m sorry I can’t see you. I would love to see you. Maybe if you’re going to the Webbys or the ad conference? I don’t even really have time to see my coworkers, which is really sad. I guess I’ll have to go back. Which is a total hassle. It’s a no win situation.
I had a lovely weekend, though. Wall-to-wall, non-stop chores, from basically 7 AM to 8:30 PM every day. It RULED. If I could do that every day of my life I think I would be happy. I get so much exercise, I end the day sore, and it feels so good.
Saturday I did a bunch of gardening. I trellissed the tomatoes — wait doe “trellissed” have one or two Ss? That looks weird. Google says one. I stand corrected. This year I’m also going to trellis my cucumbers. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s all the rage on YouTube but my god I got so many cucumbers last year, do I really need additional success in my cucumbers? On the other hand, all my cucumbers were hidden in the bushy leaves and I couldn’t find them and they grew too big. So maybe this will help. I also discovered there is a small leak in my irrigation system that is messing up my furthest Birdies Bed, where my peppers are, so they are just… not growing. Which sucks. I love peppers. I think I have an interim fix in. The real fix is easy but I can’t find my drip irrigation toolbox at either house so, um, yeah, first world problems.
Jane helped with gardening for about five minutes before she got bored and went inside and worked on her art.
Anyway, the cucumbers look great.
After lunch Satureday I went to the other house and “mowed” the remainder of the lawn and got it covered with tarps and cardboared to kill it off. I am so happy getting rid of this grass. What’s this garden going to be? Unclear. I’m thinking sort of English cottage-y. Maybe more Birdies beds? Definitely a path to the new greenhouse, which does not yet exist and man, greenhouses are expensive. In any case I have a year to think about it because this year it’s just gonna be grass killing. I should probably mulch the whole thing to make it look less ugly. Maybe. I need to find a place that delivers mulch in big bags.
That took all afternoon. I had to haul all those rocks up from the crawlspace and go buy tarps to finish the job. Second Walmart run of the weekend. Man I went to Walmart so many times this weekend.
So then dinner, our nice family walk and then I did Jane bedtime. Oh wait I have nice pictures of Jane from the walk I’ll put one at the end. She put her phone in her backpack and walked with it so she could close her rings and she was so proud of herself and she got her first award in Apple fitness man that girl love gamification.
Sunday. Got up, made another Walmart run, came home, worked on the pool contracting company books, woke Jane up, she had an hour long fit because she couldn’t throw her clothes into the laundry basket without missing. After that the rest of the day passed decently. Breakfast, more pool company Quickbooks, Jane made a card for mommy for Mother’s day and it was interactive and had a pull tab and it was so cute and I should have taken a picture of it. For Mother’s day I cut Emma a rose from the garden, made her waffles, watched Jane in the morning and bedrtime, bought some weird ass decorative vases she wanted and a posh new vaccum and did all the dishes and — ha I am kidding I do all that shit all the time because I am a good husband. Except I didn’t do anything for Mother’s day because my mother raised me to not care about it and I am still working on that.
I fixed the mailbox at the new house Sunday. Someone had knocked it down a few weeks ago and broke both of the under-box supports, which were metal, and custom. Took me a week or so to find replacements online. They were screwed into the post with machine screws, which is a stupid choice for mailboxes because the first time they get ripped out the threads are ruined. Had to go to the hardware store twice for the project. First time to get some Lexel because the replacement kit did not include the silicone gel it said it did, second time to get some lag bolts because of the aforementioned ruined threads. After that, no problem. I painted the thing too. And I ran into a bunch of neighbors doing walks and such while I was out there fixing it. It was fun. It looks shiny and new. It lives, it dies, it lives again. It is awaited in the halls of Valhalla. Witness.
After that I got to the project I really wanted to do, which was start restoring this giant old workbench table that I found in the crawlspace of the new house. Took three guys to get the thing out and into the garage. First I pressure washed it, then I started sanding the top with a belt sander. Got pretty far on that but didn’t finish, and the day was getting close to ending, so I found the bolts bolting the top onto the legs. The top is three pieces of wood sandwiched together, nailed together, I think. Hopefully not also glued. The top piece has four coats of paint and a failing laminate. I can make it work, but the middle piece looks to be like a 2” thick piece of hardwood, so I’m trying to get to that. So I took the top off the base using my nifty new impulse purchase materials lifter that I bought last weekend and wasn’t sure if I would ever use but here I am using it the next weekend I am so proud. So the two are separated and now I will use a crowbar to see if I can take off the top layer of wood. I’ll grind the entire base to get the paint and rust off (no sandblaster, alas) and replace the casters. I’m very excited about this workbench, because once it’s done I’ll… actually have a workbench over there so I can get other projects done, the tool area is pretty chaotic right now.
Deeply satisfying work, refinishing. Might make a habit of it.
Forgot to take a picture, though. Maybe later this week.
Great weekend.
Some other updates:
Did you know that non-alcoholic beer in green cans (ahem Stella) can get skunked? I mean, I guess this makes sense but I’d not thought about it. Whoops.
Tennis elbow still happening, but improving now that I’m wearing the brace at night, per mother-in-law’s advice. I’m definitely getting pretty sick of this, it’s week six, I think? No fun.
Daddy Jane Dance Party three nights in a row it was lovely. Mostly the hits, but we got some good new stuff in. New Meghan Trainor which was so weird. She is huge, huh? 100+MM views on that video. I had no idea. Miley Cyrus, Client Liason, Cannons, Heavenly, a lot of more obscure Taylor Swift songs and the rest of the hits. It was great.
In theory tonight will be the first night I go do some real dancing in a dance club since DJDP has really become a thing, but I find it inconceivable that I will make it to the after party. But never say never I suppose.
Ugh the Spotify redesign has hit me. I guess I can live with it, but it disrupts my flow and is very stressful. Really is rough when some capitalistic company is like “hey let me force you to spend a bunch of time you don’t have to learn some new things that you wouldn’t need to learn if we didn’t force you to learn them and will add absolutely nothing to your life.” Not a fan.
Anyway, Justa mix today. All new stuff. New Lloyd Cole that is exciting. And new Brian Eno.
Okay! Talk soon. Wish me luck on this whirlwind trip.
i love a day full of chores! i may need to horde chores just so i can fill a day with them OR buy a couple houses with gardens/yards 😉
I was gonna ask you about the tarp on top of the cardboard... I never heard of that! Does it kill it faster that way? I've always just done cardboard with mulch on top. I got a big truckload of mulch dumped out in my yard from a landscaping place that mostly sells yard rocks and pavers. It was cheaper than buying it in bags too.