Author: gallopingcow

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Two Cool for School

Just as I was about to walk out the door this morning, I got a call from the Lowe’s delivery Hispanics saying they would be at my house in 30 to 45 minutes. It took them a little longer than that, but it gave me plenty of time to clear a path since Summer didn’t show up until they were waddling the thing through the front door. The whole process went through without incident, though they wouldn’t hook up my water line for me, so I just had to leave my unstoppable, dripping line hanging over a bucket until I could look at it after work. Summer went back to work, and I quickly wiped down the inside surfaces before going to work myself.

It was quiet downstairs, but Jacob came into my office as soon as I got there and needed help stopping his junior high kids from downloading Roblox from the Microsoft Store. I got that figured out, but accidentally broke the calculator and other Windows apps in the process.

I kind of worked through lunch, though most everyone ate there anyway, which made me feel a little guilty for not actually taking time off for showing up late. I brought the leftover breakfast sandwich and snacked on apples throughout the afternoon. I figure I still had days worth of comp time that I never cashed in anyway, so it’ll all come out in the wash.

I had to go by Oakland a couple of times, but otherwise it really was quiet. I ended the day there, and took Eaddie home with me at quitting time. She didn’t stay long though, because she wanted to go to a dinner gathering with the tennis team. Summer picked her up and left me to finish setting up the new refrigerator. Dad came to the rescue with some parts to help me hook up the water line, since I couldn’t get it to quit leaking.

Doug came knocking on the door a little while later and wanted me to come next door to work on Bác Vân’s sewing machine. I had concerns about how much time it would take, and I wasn’t wrong. In the end, I got the new gear in place, but couldn’t get the timing right so the needle would pick up the bobbin on the downswing. I might be able to figure it out with some research time, but she seemed to be in enough of a rush to get a professional on the task.

I ended the night moving some food around, and got the freezer and the door of the refrigerator loaded up. The main body of the refrigerator is mostly full of junk, so that will take some sorting tomorrow. For now, I just hope it keeps everything properly frozen. Then as soon as it stops raining this week, we’ll get the old fridge up to Summer’s house.

Here’s hoping for heavy sleep.

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Scheduled for 2022

I got up this morning and got the okay to make breakfast, so I got the grill out and started heating up the griddle. I’ve been wanting to cook breakfast on it for so long just to try cooking on a flat-top to see how I would like it. The cast iron was a new adventure too, but I thought it turned out pretty well. I had some garlic and herb French bread in the freezer that I threw onto the top rack to heat up while I cooked a bunch of bacon. The bacon cooked a bit slower than I expected, but I think bacon always does. I’m so used to just cooking an entire package in a pot now that I forget what it’s like cooking a single layer. After that was done, I could set it on the grill grate to drain, and then fry up some eggs.

Summer enjoyed her sandwich, but Eaddie took one bite of hers and complained that the bread was too hard, and then said she was leaving to go out to eat with her father. He showed up moments later to pick her up, so I just sat in a computer chair with my ghetto fan box as a table, and ate by myself after Summer ate in bed.

We laid around for a while, and I kept trying to drift back to sleep, but couldn’t without my CPAP. I finally got up with a pretty bad headache when it was time for Summer to leave for her employee’s baby shower. I got around to clean up a bit, and missed a delivery confirmation call from Lowe’s while I was in the shower. We’ll finally get our new refrigerator tomorrow.

Summer and Eaddie came back over in the evening so we could go to my parents’ house for Mom’s birthday. I loaded up my old Denon receiver to set up for them since they haven’t been able to use the speakers I brought them after their receiver blew a component. On the drive over, I got another call from Lowe’s. This time it was an automated call confirming my delivery was scheduled for between 10AM and 2PM on Monday, April 11th, 2022. At this point I was just glad it wasn’t going to be 2023.

When we got to my parents’ house, we chatted for a while about housing. I explained my plan to build a workshop to house everything while we renovate, and finally got some traction. For some reason, Mom still thinks it’ll be cheaper to buy land and build somewhere, but that just sounds like too much for me. I would literally spend the rest of my entire life trying to plan out the perfect layout, and would never build anything. I can handle a simple workshop. What I can’t handle is my need to over-design and wire a custom home with too many custom rooms with a fully climate-controlled data closet, solar, house batteries, home theater wiring, storage, and anything else I think up along the way.

Autumn got off work a little late, and we had her pick up some Pizza Hut on the way over. We ate, and then she took Eaddie home. Summer was stuck with me while I set up the home theater receiver again. The power and input controls never work like I want them to, but I think I got it set up well enough for Mom to figure out. We headed back to my house after that, and Summer helped me move some stuff before she left. Then I did some last minute cleaning before the big delivery day.

Taxes, taxes, taxes. Taxes are next.

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Get Busy; Stay Busy

Summer got up early this morning to go to Cabot for their grand opening, but then arrived back home a few minutes later with Wendy’s breakfast instead. I was glad to have her home for the weekend, though I didn’t see her much. She took Eaddie out to practice driving and play tennis while I went home to clean house.

I was super hyped up about cleaning up the kitchen, and felt really good about the progress I made. There’s still so much to do, but with something of a vision in mind, I felt like it might actually be possible to turn this into something great.

Summer eventually came back over after taking Eaddie and Zane to the park to play tennis, and we went to Walmart to shop for a baby shower gift. I scored some really heavy-duty ice scrapers on clearance for like a third of the markdown price on their stickers. Afterward, Summer dropped me back off at home while she went to play with the kids.

When they finished, they came and got me for dinner. We went to New China, where the kids ran into some friends and left our table. After we ate, we came back to my house and I made a small fire. I was a little disappointed that the kids only roasted like four marshmallows and then went back inside. Autumn stopped by to give Summer the medication she forgot at home, but then was quick to leave.

Eventually Summer ran Zane home and came back, straight to TV in bed. I was pretty tired after a relatively busy day, so I finished up what I could and went to sleep.

Rude.

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Winter 4.0

I made it in to work early again today, and it was COLD! The wind never really let up, so it felt like winter was coming again. We had a longish, quiet meeting over donuts before people wandered off. I had to do some rearranging with my CPPC minutes because Janie waited until after I sent the final draft to remind me about the update we got for employees that were hired in with a step cap.

Otherwise it was pretty quiet until lunch time. Kyle went with us for the first time in a little while. Thomas left before lunch and said he had a doctor’s appointment, but then we ran into him with two of his sons at Brangus. He ended up paying for all of our meals on their way out, which was a big surprise. It is nice that he’s so generous so often, but I hope he doesn’t feel obligated.

The afternoon was quiet too. I went to Oakland at the end of the day to take care of a pesky vacation auto responder. Mollie was actually there in person to work, so everyone in the office was super excited. I didn’t stick around too long to chat because school was about to let out and I needed to disappear for that.

Everyone eventually filtered out at the end of the day, but Tammy was left behind waiting for time to meet up with some friends. I stayed to keep her company for a bit, and then went to my parents’ house to visit with them. Eaddie had an all-region band event that kept her late, so I had some spaghetti with my parents until time to pick her up.

On the way home, we stopped at Sonic for a couple shakes. Then we finished the second season of Stranger Things. Summer stopped in at the end of her day, but Eaddie said she wanted to stay the night with me. After the last episode, she changed her mind though, and we went up to their house for the night.

What else?

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Virtually Unbusy

At last, I made it to work a bit early. I probably slept for about nine hours last night, but still awoke begrudgingly to my alarm. Greg drew the short straw and got the lion’s share of the Brody calls all day, which left me to do a bit of cleanup on some old tasks I had been neglecting.

I convinced Gary, Zach, and Greg to let me drive them to La Huerta instead of La Chiquita for lunch, which was a treat for me. Greg complained about still being hungry after his meal, and Gary didn’t even take a swing when I tried to flirt with the cashier, who had her opposite arm in a sling, on his behalf. Otherwise I thought it was a super fast and tasty lunch.

When we got back, Gary wanted to show Greg and me his process for upgrading VMware on four of our physical servers. That took the rest of the afternoon until eventually Zach and Thomas came to the back and we had a relaxing sendoff for the day.

Just after I got home, Summer asked me to get Eaddie from tennis practice at the high school. Her phone was allegedly delivered, but after trying five neighbors, she was unable to locate a package and came over to my house empty handed. Eaddie had to work a band event, so Summer took her to that while I chatted with Fi support to report the missing package.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning up in the kitchen, and then looking around on Zillow for anything new. I thought about it some more today, and felt like maybe building a workshop/garage out back would be a better first step so I could have somewhere to offload some things before doing the rest of the renovation. With Summer’s loans nearly paid off and both of us fighting for better pay, more of this feels within reach than ever.

It won’t cost much. Just your voice.

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Market Price

I was out of step again this morning, and a few minutes late into work. I felt like I was on track, so I guess it’s just that time of year when I need to roll my alarm back a bit. I had a CPPC meeting pretty early, so I didn’t get up to a whole lot before that. I also didn’t have a whole lot planned for the meeting, so it was a relatively short one.

Without any donuts at the meeting, it was a struggle to make it to lunch. I forgot to bring any apples to snack on, and everyone else brought food, so I just went home and ate the last hamburger from the other night. On the way back, I stopped by Oakland for a little while. Then I was at the shop for the rest of the afternoon to work on my meeting minutes.

Immediately after work, Summer and Eaddie came by to pick me up, and we went to look at a house. Alisha and another lady met us there, and my parents showed up shortly thereafter. Parts of it were really cute, and other parts were really old. It ticked a lot of boxes for us, but ultimately the high price and a fear of the cost of upkeep were predictably too much for us to be serious about it. It looked like it might have been Judy’s parents or grandparents that lived there though, because there were pictures of her family on every single flat surface in the place.

Summer dropped me back off at my car and I headed home. After looking at a new place, I found a familiar comfort pulling back into my own driveway where I’ve lived for nearly two decades. It’s not perfect, but I think I can make it better. I finished up the corned beef for dinner, but my head continued to feel a little bit worse, hour by hour, as the night carried on. I was up late last night, so I figure I’m due for an early bedtime.

You’re not listening.

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Whims

I’m not sure what happened, but I did not make it to work on time this morning. I felt like I was in step with my routine, but something got out of whack. It was pretty quiet though, which was fortunate because I was charged with answering the phones while everyone in the front of the office had a top secret meeting. Gary was out after being aggravated yesterday, but the meeting continued. Greg was there with me at first, but had to leave for a while, which left me to my own devices. Luckily we only ever got one phone call that I had to answer, and it was an easy one.

As lunch time approached, Zach informed me that our meetup with Dale had been postponed. This was after I had invited Allen to meet us as well, so I had to see if he wanted to wait or come out today. He chose today, so I invited Thomas, and then found Greg as he was walking back to the office from across the street. We had a good lunch though, with just a dash of awkwardness as only Allen could provide.

When I dropped the other two off after lunch, I went to Oakland for a little while to take care of something and then just to hang out for a bit before going back to my office. It was quiet all afternoon until quitting time when I went by my parents’ house to drop off a letter I printed for Dad. He had gone to pick up Mom from work, so I had to wait a bit for them to show up. Then Eaddie called and needed me to let her in after riding her bike.

I stopped by Kroger on the way home to pick up about 16 pounds of cosmic crisp apples. Dad said they were on sale for a buck a pound, and the piece I had at their house was really good. I figured they’d make a good snack at work, and the girls would probably want some as well.

Summer came by after the gym to get Eaddie, and shared the article that Splash was publishing about her in their newsletter. It was really good to see, even if it was a pre-release copy. They left pretty quickly, and I cleaned up a few leftovers before settling in for the night.

It’s the time of year when things get warmer and I get more anxiety about all the projects I want to complete before the attic becomes too hot to bear. I’ve been wanting to move the girls in so we could save money, but this house just needs so much work and I just have so much stuff. There’s simply not enough room for everyone. Another house on Zillow caught my eye, and upon further inspection I noticed my old friend, Alisha, was an agent for the realtor that listed it. I messaged her on Facebook, and we arranged to have a look at it tomorrow, completely on a whim.

As it turns out, without all these expenditures, we’re rich!

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The Begrudging Return

It rained most of the day today, but I spent almost all of it inside. I still don’t feel properly rested after all of that vacationing, but what else could I do? I caught up on a bunch of email and dabbled with a few things that were still left over. Jacob called me a couple times, concerned about the Windows upgrade process at the junior high. It went predictably poorly, but progress was still made.

There wasn’t a group for lunch today, so I took the opportunity to go home and clean up some leftovers. The steak, potato, and vegetables from Porterhouse actually reheated pretty well. I felt pretty bougie, apart from sitting in a computer chair and using a ceiling fan box as a dining table. All of the rearranging has left me without any usable space, and it feels like the opposite of progress most days.

I went to Oakland for a little while after lunch, and took care of several things there. Then I finished the day at the shop before making it back to Oakland to drop off a couple laptops and pick up Eaddie. We came home and watched a couple episodes of Stranger Things until Summer got home from Conway. I fed them some leftovers, then cleaned up a few more myself after they left.

It’s nearly tax time, and I’ve done nothing. I also have a lot I’d like to do around the house before it gets hot. Time just keeps on flying by. I feel like crap most of the day because of all the coughing, so all I want to do is sleep.

I just need less stuff everywhere.

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Lessbius

About every other night, I’m up every hour. I still feel exhausted all of the time. I thought I’d get up today and make breakfast, but nobody was hungry. Summer and Eaddie left me for a while, and I started a corned beef in the crock pot, then cleaned up for a matinée. Eaddie wanted to go to the 1:50 show so her boyfriend could come along. His father dropped him off at the theater, and we met him there after I picked up Summer and Eaddie.

I was ready for a letdown after reading some reviews of Morbius. It was pretty bad, but overall I wasn’t upset to have watched it. The action scenes were highly stylized, but mostly garbage aside from that. It was all just blurry, dark, After Effects nonsense. The story wasn’t great either, but I guess I’m used to that from Sony.

After the movie, we had some time to kill before dropping Zane off with his mother, so we went to the park and let them wander around. Summer took a phone call, so we just sat in the car until they got back. Then I dropped him off, followed by the girls, and then went home to add some carrots and cabbage to the crock pot for the last hour.

Autumn worked all day and went straight home afterward to do homework, so just the other two came over for dinner. They ate and watched TV, then went home for the night. I cleaned everything up, and then went to bed as early as I could.

Sony, wat r u doin? Staaahhhhhp.

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Sleep on It

I couldn’t sleep in very late today because of the light and phone noises. The girls all slept in a little while, but Autumn had to wake up for a full shift at work. I had some coffee and split a bagel with Summer, then had a bath while she and Eaddie went out for lunch.

After they got back, I went home to clean up. Summer and Eaddie took apart one of her twin beds and brought the frame over, so Summer helped me clean out a corner in the bedroom for it. Then we left Eaddie at my house while we went to Walmart for food, then back to their house to pick up the mattress and box spring.

The girls got the bed put together and then went home to shower before coming back over for the night. I used my new griddle plate on my grill to cook some bacon, and grilled burgers for dinner while the other two watched TV. Autumn ended up staying home after work since she had to do some laundry.

Eaddie spent most of the night in her room. Summer and I went to bed and watched Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material. By the time that was over, we were both ready to fall asleep. Tomorrow, I’ll try to griddle breakfast.

Recharge