Inside The Perimeter

Starting this Friday very slowly, not that my hurting knee allows me to do anything quickly these days. It’s nearly 8am and I have been awake and gone back to sleep at least three times this morning, with a break in that process to cook and eat some eggs (which have inexplicably given me a stomach ache), and could easily shut my eyes and return to slumber. What will get me out of bed in a few minutes however is the knowledge that I have registered to attend this morning’s Creative Mornings session that starts at 9am.

To break the monotony of yesterday I drove down to Aldi, completely forgetting that it is under renovation. Fortunately, the store reopened Wednesday and I must say that my little ghetto Aldi has been completely revamped and looks nice. Hopefully it will stay that way… On my way out of the store I saw Martha Screw It, which is always nice. After exchanging pleasantries we went our separate ways and I realized that we shall see each other again camping next weekend. Oh to have this weekend’s weather repeated next weekend… 🤞🏼

I’ll be hanging at the ITP Estate today after work, going out into the backyard to continue my cleanup and organizing. In addition to branch/tree work I may attempt to either rake/blow some leaves (seemingly pointless task this early in the Fall), or restart my efforts to rid more of the English ivy from the backyard. Until I get the trees in the backyard taken down I can’t set up my new garden beds because they are destined for the area into which the trees will be felled (someday).

This weekend will most likely involve no hashing for me, in part because of my knee, and in part because I want to take the opportunity to work outside during this beautiful weather. Oh yeah, don’t forget that we turn our clocks back an hour Sunday to enter Standard Time.

Well, it’s now past 8am EDT so I should attempt to get my day started. Hope all is going okay with you, and that you are remaining healthy.

It’s 6:30am and I have been awake since 4:00am. In the past 2.5 hours I’ve been monitoring the storm’s movement; the worst of it may have passed me now.

In my time awake I have rebooted my router, done a crossword puzzle, made and eaten breakfast, washed dirty dishes, and have started a large load of laundry (darks) in the tub.

With the exception of my hurting knee and lack of exercise, oh and that sheet metal screw in my flip flop, yesterday was decent. I managed to get out for a short while to get a haircut, drop a box off at Goodwill, and buy some firewood, disinfectant wipes, water, cheap white wine, and beer at the Kroger near Ansley Mall. I wish I were more successful at work, but I am in a bit of a rut currently.

Instead of eating leftovers last night I made a melange casserole from the following — a box of cornbread stuffing, a bag of frozen green beans, two banana peppers, two jalapeño peppers, garlic, a can of Rotel tomatoes, and some meatless meatballs — it was incredibly tasty, and look at all of the things I used from my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer! If I had any onions in the house I would have added one of those as well.

What didn’t get accomplished, thanks to passing out on the futon not long after completing a phone call with my mother once virtual Top Chef had ended, was German homework. COVID Days have made me feel okay to be selfish with my time (though I wish it was a completely healthy time), and may convince me that this will be the end of my German classes. I have not definitely decided to quit, but it is an option that would save me a good chunk of money and return a night of freedom to me. Time will tell.

Once the rain has passed completely and daylight has arrived I will go outside to look for any damage caused by the storm. I don’t reckon that the storm has taken down any of the branches or trees that I have now committed to trim/fell, but who knows…

Hope you have survived the storm, and are remaining healthy.

We are in the homestretch of October. Crazy. Apparently it’s going to be another month in which I have accomplished few, if not none, of my monthly tasks. Yesterday I came close to marking one as “completed” by having a tree company come out and look at the work I want done; I await the estimates.

Yesterday was alright.

The City of Atlanta came out as scheduled and picked up the pile of yard waste that I had on my curbside. The truck also picked up some bulk items from across the street, which makes me wonder if all of the bulk waste winds up in the same landfill. Pardon the pun, but that seems like a waste if that’s the case.

I also spent a couple of hours cleaning up the back yard; it’s starting to look good. I stacked a bunch of the wood that I have previously cut, and covered the stack with a tarp to give it some protection from the coming rain — not that the wood is “dry” to start. I also moved and chopped a bunch of branches, and then used the leaf blower to, well, blow leaves. I know I’ll have to blow more leaves before my next fire, unless I want to set the entire neighborhood ablaze, but it felt good to see the brick patio so clean and tidy. Of course there is still more work to be done, but I keep making “progress”.

The evening was spent watching YouTube videos, and then doing some German homework when I awoke again on the futon. Whoops!

I have become quite adept at shutting off my alarm clock, realizing 45 minutes after its noisemaking that I must have done so in a half-sleep. Whoops!

Today it’s work, yes, with an interruption for a trip for a haircut and to give a box of things to Goodwill. I must keep reminding myself that I am trying to reduce the number of items that I own, though you’d never know this by the number of purchases I have been making, mostly in the gardening and cycling realms.

I’ll also be trying to clean out the pantry/refrigerator/freezer some more today and tomorrow ahead of a possible grocery store run on Friday morning.

Hope that you are having a good week and are prepared for the rain (although less than originally predicted?) that arrives over the next two days.

We did it! Last night about fifteen hashers showed up to run the trail laid by Bonnie and me. The 4.5-mile (ish) trail took them around Oakhurst through streets, parks, and muddied trails, before winding them at Universal Joint, which was a block from the start. Each person with whom I talked said it was a good trail, and easy to follow. Job done!

Now I return to a life of chores, which reminds me that the tree company I called is scheduled to come out today to survey the work I want done and give me a few estimates. This ought to be interesting, and hopefully not too costly. I have a few other commitments this week, and with rain supposed to arrive tomorrow and last through Thursday thanks to the remnants of another hurricane, I’ll save my indoor chores until then.

Hope all is happy and healthy in your world.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 189.0 pounds (-1.2 from last week’s weigh-in); woot! And, some of the chores scheduled for this week are in the backyard, so more manual labor! Double woot!

I’m officially at the office already since I have another long day ahead of me. I’ll need to leave the office ASAP today so that I can help Bonnie lay tonight’s Moonlight trail. Fortunately my commute today will be very easy. 😂

My weekend was fun, but limited fun due to my injured left knee. At some point in time I might have to make yet another doctor visit. 😞

On Friday afternoon Bonnie and I did some preliminary reccying over in Oakhurst. Things went fairly well, so once we were done we picked up some food from Midway and walked it back to the ITP Estate. At my house we consumed the food in the carport and then retired to the back yard where we sat around a lovely fire and drank a couple more beers.

Saturday morning I did my weekend morning walkabout with Betsy, and then Bonnie and I cycled over to Oakhurst to finish our reccying. Looking at the radar I saw that rain was coming, so we cycled back toward EAV to do our celebratory drinking. We decided to park the bikes at the ITP Estate and walk up to Midway. While there the Atlanta United game started, and so did the rain. We were safely under cover of the Midway’s patio so we stayed for a few extra beers. However, the walk from Midway to my house after the United game ended got us both soaked. Oops.

Yesterday was the annual Boo Sheep hash. Of course I am unable to run/walk the hash like the healthy kids can, so I did a piddly 1.5-mile amble around the horse grounds while everyone else went out and did an epic six-mile trail. Poop on me!

Like I said above, tonight I’ll be helping lay Moonlight so at least I normally do that walking and since I’ll be walking the entire trail I won’t feel as if I am missing out.

Hope that you had a happy and healthy weekend.

Some days I think I should register the domain “www.InsideThePainAndAches.com” because nearly every day in the past two months I have had to deal with a new or existing one. 😢

Regardless of the aches and pains this morning finds me at the Waschsalon taking care of a couple of weeks of dirty clothes. Last night I estimated that it would take me more than two hours to wash, rinse, and dry my clothes by hand so it’s worth it to knock it out with a ninety-minute trip to the Waschsalon. It’s a pity that the Waschsalon no longer offers wifi (as far as I can determine), otherwise I could be knocking out work while I am here.

This weekend I will be reccying with Bonnie for Monday night’s trail (tentatively scheduled to take place in Oakhurst). My plan is to also attend Black Sheep on Sunday, though I am uncertain if I am physically capable of running trail. It’s funny how I can manage to cycle with my current physical limitations, but “running/hashing” seems impossible.

Hope things are going well in your world and that you have a happy and healthy weekend.

It’s 7:25am and unlike the plucky early days of Shelter In Place I am no longer getting up and performing chores at 5:00am, instead I am making every effort to sleep more and allow my body to recover. This morning I still suffer knee pain, and my left eyelid is battling every attempt I make to keep it from puffing up again.

One thing that has not changed however is my being unprepared for German class. Ugh, I don’t want to give up, but it also appears that for nearly as long as I can remember I don’t want to work at it either.

I can be proud of the productive ninety minutes of work I put into yard cleanup yesterday. I trimmed, bagged, lopped, and dragged branches, bringing large sections to the curb for my scheduled pickup next Tuesday. There is still more work to be done back there, I sound like a broken record (add that to the list of similes to which most young people won’t relate), but with every effort I get closer to having useable space. I am hoping to blow the fallen leaves off the brick patio and burn some of the dried branches in my fire pan this weekend. Who knows, I might even celebrate my efforts with beer. 🙄😂 At my current rate I probably won’t have a Winter garden, but should be ready to give it another go next Spring/Summer. Gee, I hope that I will have time to tend to a garden then.

Last night I spent being a bump on a log, watching videos. In my Instant Pot I cooked an “interesting” pasta dish, which turned out much spicier and saltier than I expected. In retrospect I realized that I shouldn’t have added additional salt since I substituted broth (essentially salt cubes) for the water. I’ll chalk this up as another of those meals that will pass through no other lips than my own. Heh, that’s actually just like most of the meals that I have prepared in the past seven months.

Due to last week’s cycling outing and the yard work that I have performed this week I have amassed a lot of dirty clothes. I may try to be at the Waschsalon this time tomorrow morning rectifying this problem.

Hope you had a happy and healthy Hump Day.

Hey everyone.

Yesterday was a big day for the ITP backyard, I felled some large branches/trunks of (mostly dead) privet trees. The trees came down with a much louder crack than I imagined. Fear not, the sound was not from them hitting the deck or house, nor from any unexpected underground impediments. I may have underestimated the amount of limbs on privet trees because I spent about two hours doing cleanup and I still have a good amount of cleanup work ahead of me. I am also amassing a large pile of branches to burn this winter, and larger pieces that can start to dry for use next year. That being said, all of this must be done prior to the installation of my raised garden beds.

I was hoping to get back out in the yard this morning, but I am feeling lazy. Also, sunrise now happens later, about 8am, making it hard to do yard work on a weekday morning. Perhaps I can go outside and lop some downed branches and drag them up to the curb on my lunch hour.

In the category of frustrations, my left eyelid is tender again. I hope that I am not going to go through another cycle of inflammation…

Hope you had a happy and healthy Tuesday.

Yikes, it’s already 7:25am?
Yikes, it’s already October 20th?

Most of yesterday was not worthy of mention. The biggest decision I made before the end of my work day was to give up on the radishes that refused to grow up (“Wee Little Farm’s” alternate name could be “Peter Pan Farm”) and pull them; the teeny tiny radish plants now have a home in the compost bin.

After work I met up with Bonnie for a little scouting for an ending to next week’s Moonlight trail. Unfortunately we kept coming up snake eyes because the locations we visited were lacking a food selection, weren’t opening to the public until next week, or were not providing a public restroom. While I certainly understand and respect COVID precautions, it seems unreasonable (illegal?) for a restaurant to allow patrons to eat and drink on their property and not provide a restroom for use, especially when selling beer. Just my opinion. I can certainly choose to not visit places whose decisions don’t please me. The evening ended eating a lovely pizza and garlic sticks. You’ll see below that I am “suffering the ramifications” of my personal choices.

Today I will occupy my office chair, starting ASAP, and then hopefully get out into the backyard to do more clearing and dragging items to the curb for next Tuesday’s yard waste pickup. Who knows, maybe my magic exercise routine will start correcting the ship again.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 191.2 pounds (+2.0 from last week’s weigh-in); proof that all exercise is not created equal, or, that overconsumption puts on weight.

Oh hello again. I’m sorry about missing Friday, but I did warn you that a lack of blog post may occur. I was living a semi-dream life where I forgot what day it was, and then had a day of cycling and beer drinking ahead of me.

This weekend was spent riding three days in a row! And, I only managed to give myself one more injury in the process — a seemingly strained left IT Band probably from slightly changing my pedal stroke in order to protect my painful left knee. Ah the human body… On Friday I rode 36 miles, on Saturday I rode 53 miles, and on Sunday I rode 28 miles. In total I only rode fourteen fewer miles than Bonnie, who killed it on Friday by riding fifty miles, and then slummed by riding with me the following two days.

This morning I am heating the house by cooking up a breakfast casserole. Sadly my casserole has no fake meat because I had to leave all of the packages behind at Kroger last Thursday. I have yet to try the new HVAC furnace so I didn’t let it turn on while I was away, subsequently the house has been at 65°F since I have returned home. I could have gotten out a space heater, but I am letting my inefficient 1950s oven do the job instead.

Tonight I’ll be skipping Moonlite because Bonnie and I realized that we are laying next week’s Moonlite trail and need to reccy.

Hope that you had a fun and healthy weekend.