Month: May 2016

Incomplete Saturday

Morning Folks… it’s been a bit since we talked.  Well in truth its been two days… but it feels like it has been much longer.  Now is the time for me to see if I remember how to write a blog post.  In truth this was an odd weekend for me, and in ways that I didn’t quite expect.  For three plus years now my mornings have centered around writing a blog post.  So when I suddenly removed it from the equation…  the morning felt somehow without meaning.  What I mean by that is all of Saturday it felt like something was missing, and in a way that I find it hard to articulate.  You know that feeling in the back of your head when you know that you forgot something… but can’t quite figure it out.  It was something along those lines, with the key difference being I knew precisely what was different.  However I survived and managed not to write a single word… though I did find myself significantly more active on twitter, slack and discord than I normally am on the weekends.  I guess if I am not dumping out things in long post form, they ultimately make their way out regardless into tweets and such?

Sunday however was delightful, and I felt zero remorse for not making a blog post.  I think a huge part of this comes from the fact that I already scurry around like mad on Sunday mornings making sure that everything is done for the latest AggroChat episode.  After waging that battle I found myself struggling to try and find the desire to write a blog post.  Honestly had I done nothing but cut out Sundays… I think in the grand scheme of things my quality of life would have improved massively.  As far as the streak… it is not good and broken and I no longer have it looming over my head.  That said…  I do feel a minor bit of lament over having done it.  Once a streak is over… it is over.  Now I could start anew and begin working to beat three years… but I doubt that is going to happen.  I also doubt that I am going to permanently take off weekends from this point on.  In the back of my head how, weekends are optional time… and if I happen to have a post I want to make awesome, but I won’t necessarily feel pressured either way.

Table Saga

One of the constant topics of discussion for the last few weeks has been the backyard and whether or not we wanted to replace the table and chairs we had back there.  I know it is heady stuff and of extreme interest to you all.  The set that we currently have was handed down to us by some of our neighbors and while perfectly cromulent…  it is not exactly the easiest thing to sit at for long periods of time.  At the beginning of the season we picked up a set of Adirondack chairs that sit up straight rather than being permanently stuck in an awkward partially reclining position.  The idea was that we would get some sort of new table to go with these chairs that would work at their height level.  Further idea being that we could eat at the table or at the very least comfortably use a laptop or something while hanging out in the backyard.  Something you should know at this point is that we do the majority of our grocery shopping at ALDI these days.  Another thing you should know is that ALDI has some truly bizarre shit at times… not the least of which last week was a garden table that fit pretty much the dimensions we were looking for.  Even better is that it was just shy of $50, which moved it into serious contention.

With our neighbors out of town this weekend, we borrowed their pickup truck and used it to go pick up a table and haul it back home.  There was of course going to be “some assembly required” but after having seen IKEA directions we figured “how bad could it be”?  Now I love ALDI, but apparently there are some minor issues with construction tolerances when you are only paying $50 for a large garden table.  The first challenge was the fact that some of the screws seemed too large for the holes that they were supposed to go into.  The end result involved me essentially using the screw and truly silly amounts of torque to try and “drill” the hole larger with little metal shavings coming off of the metal piece I was screwing into.  I had to torque hard enough that apparently I ripped a chunk out of my finger in the process and had to take a quick break to apply a band-aid to stop said bleeding.  That hurdle solved we moved onto the problem of one of the six holes that the metal braces went into was not lining up… and not even vaguely close.  The end result there was to use a screwdriver to sort of bend the holes until we managed to get them to line up enough to slide the bolt through.  The resulting table seems nice and sturdy but what we originally thought was going to be fifteen minutes of our time… wound up taking close to two hours.

Another quick note… the photos attached to this post were taken while sitting on the back patio and watching birds come visit the bush across from where we sit.  This whole bird watching thing has turned into a bit of a thing for me while we are back there.  I don’t really know what any of the birds are other than the obvious Bluejay, Cardinal or Robin.  They are adorable however as they hop around the branches looking for nom noms.  They can completely decimate a full feeder worth of bird seed in no time flat, and as a result I have started limiting myself to feeding every other day.  When I do this they tend to do a pretty damned good job of cleaning up anything that happened to fall on the ground between feedings.  The other interesting thing that I have learned is that sunflower seed hulls break down into compost extremely quickly for some reason.  I realize this is not exactly the most exciting post to make as my return from the weekend break, but screw it… its my blog and my birbs!