What did ya do today?

[kazoolaw]

A series of low tech days:
-picked peaches
-wrote a series of thank you notes
-spent an hour+ reading a book
-cleaned several fountain pens
-bought fresh blueberries
Today aiming to catch up on correspondence.

[Sailor Kenshin]

We picked some cherry tomatoes, aired out the house, had breakfast.

It's early yet.

[Dougc]

Finished cleaning the house and went out to double-check how the new landscaping is coming along.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

[dneal]

Hmmm. Been a while since any updates. Thanks for bumping the thread.

Over the past 90 days:
- Graded everything on the south side of the house, mainly between the shop and the house; and reseeded.
- Cleared out the overgrown pond bank with one of the neighbors (everybody owns a share of the acre pond).

Last few days:
- Cleaned the shop and replaced the lower control arms and brakes on the wife's Subaru. She wants to keep it, so I'll keep maintaining it. The transmission failed last month at 9 years and 98k miles, but Subaru extended the warranties on their CVTs to 10 years and 100k miles. That old joke of stuff breaking on the 91st day of the 90 day warranty worked in my favor for once!

[dneal]

A series of low tech days:
-picked peaches
-wrote a series of thank you notes
-spent an hour+ reading a book
-cleaned several fountain pens
-bought fresh blueberries
Today aiming to catch up on correspondence.

So the retired life ain't too bad after all?

[kazoolaw]

So the retired life ain't too bad after all?

Nope, not so bad at all.
Backed away from some of the online noise.
Look at trips down and back up a flight of stairs to retrieve frozen food as exercise, not a chore.
7 days in-a-row walking the dog.
Whoever said that career and retirement come in the wrong order may have been right.

[dneal]

Proper "what I did today", now that it's done.

Spent a lot of time on the porch watching it rain, which we sorely needed; and our annual swarm of hummingbirds play in it (when they weren't fighting and eating).

Storm turned to a tempest, and put on a big show right before we lost power (got it back 30 minutes ago).

Unfortunately had to put down an aardvark for violating the social contract.

[dneal]

Watched it rain some more, but I think it's about done.

Spent a few hours looking for new shocks/struts for the wife's Subaru. Bilstein B6's were out of stock/backordered everywhere I looked. Even more curious was that the few places that did have them only had the left side strut (shocks go on either side, but struts are side-specific). Who orders only one side? I don't buy critical components off of Ebay, but I eventually found the one set left in CONUS.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Yesterday, dentist.

Today, picking more tomatoes, preparing to make bread tomorrow, doing side dishes for chicken grilleration.

[dneal]

Watched more sporadic rain, unfortunately; and had smashburgers with the wife at our favorite burger joint.

They have one with a sort of compote consisting of sautéed onions and bits of pork belly in a mildly sweet BBQ sauce, on top of two angus patties, lettuce and white cheddar. The jalapeño cheese grits seem out of place with a burger, but they're so good I always get that instead of fries or tots.

The indigestion seems worth it.

[John Macmillan]

If your day was all about tackling chores, you might want to consider letting professional cleaners handle the dirty work. With Emop, you can enjoy a sparkling clean home and even get cashback up to £150 on one-off deep cleaning services. It's the perfect way to free up your time for more enjoyable activities. Check them out at https://www.emop.co.uk/ and make the most of your day!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Making bread, ordering pizza, and swapping around a couple of trash-picked large TVs.

[dneal]

Mowed everything (about 3 acres). We haven't had a lot of rain this summer, so I've only really had to mow the new grass the wife keeps watered; but all the rain over the past 4 days created quite the growth spurt.

Ordered all the other parts for the wife's Subaru (shock mounts and whatnot). Recently discovered the local dealership has online parts ordering, and is actually a little cheaper than the big "parts deals" sites. Weird, but I'm not complaining. Should be in next week, so I know what I'll be doing next weekend.

Also treated myself to a new scan-tool. A bi-directional tablet that can control the ECU functions for under $400? Those things used to be thousands, and you can't do anything without them anymore (steering angle reset, ABS bleed, or even change the rear pads and rotors on these new-fangled electronic parking brakes...).

The boy came over to do laundry and is playing cards with his mom.

Not a bad day overall.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Store run for lettuce and cake. Smoked ribs. Discussed various cookers/methods including those we are tired of. Restored sounds on my desktop. Dip-tested a trio of pens. All three scratchy beyond belief.

[joolstacho]

For the first time in about 15 years we went to the Footy (Aussie Rules) at the big roofed 'Marvel stadium' in Melbourne. We - Carlton, had a great come-from-behind win, t'riffic to hear the roar and feel that good natured tribalism again.

[dneal]

Sat on the porch this morning and listened to the racket that only pileated woodpeckers can make, closer to the house than normal, with one landing on the trunk of one of the oaks in the yard doing god knows what.

Wife left to visit a friend at Fort Knox for the week, the boy went home earlier than expected, so I sat around the house and enjoyed the quiet; and entertained myself reading Nature (and other essays), and watching nature.

The busiest I got was running into town for mediocre Chinese food.

[calamus]

Totally scattered. Doing six things at once. Arrgghhhh!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Totally scattered. Doing six things at once. Arrgghhhh!

My usual state of affairs.

Yesterday, I renewed my fascination with mules and spent a lonnnng time watching the 'tube and reading about them.

[dneal]

Clouded up and threatened to rain yesterday, but it was the first day with the house to myself; and I ended up binging the first season of Ted Lasso. Possibly the best television show I've seen in the last decade.

Today I sprayed about 2 gallons of roundup on the driveway. The rain means I can tear the gravel up with a box blade before I have about 15 tons of fresh gravel brought in - which I then get to spread.

[Lady Onogaro]

Went up to the University to learn a new annotation tool. My friend uses it and it looks interesting. It's called Hypothes.is.
Then we went to lunch and talked for about two hours. (We hadn't seen each other in a while.) I'm going to be teaching face-to-face for the first time since Covid, and I'm a bit nervous about it.
Then I went to the hairdresser and had a color and cut. She's a former student, so we talked about this and that regarding school, students, teaching, learning, and just stuff, including the fact that it's been over 100 degrees here for more than two weeks, and probably will be over 100 degrees every day for the next month. Well, it might only get as high as 99 tomorrow. And they are only predicting 98 for August 15.
Some rain would be good. We have a burn ban and watering ban in effect until further notice. Hoping for the rain they keep telling us will come next week (though we do not want any torrential downpours--just a nice steady three day rain would be good).