Scattered Thoughts . . .

D uring our last weekend out of town just last month, we noticed a few significant problems with Sheila's car.  Actually, between the poor weather and the car problems, our three hour drive to Saratoga became something like seven or eight hours.  That was a brutal trip.   To make matters worse, I was feeling pretty miserable.  I had the flu or some virus that started the day before our trip and I'm still trying to clear our my lungs a month later.  Well...  my lungs have been problematic since my first of six confirmed bouts with COVID but things have been worse this past month very similar to my bouts with COVID...   not as severe, but bad enough.  This started the day before we left for Saratoga. We made it back home safely that weekend and without any additional problems but her car definitely needed some work done before our next trip which happens to be coming up quickly. Once Christmas was out of the way, I ordered all the parts we...

A fter a week of exceptionally lousy health, I managed to have a fairly productive day today.   We went out-of-town last weekend and that took a lot out of me especially since we went out-of-town two weekends prior to that too.  Between the two weekends, my health had had enough and I spent all week in bed and on the couch.  I couldn't think straight...  I couldn't see clearly...  I had great difficulty breathing most of the time... I was often lightheaded...  my bones and joints were more painful than usual... I slept a lot ...  and I generally felt exceptionally lousy.   I was hoping things would be back to normal yesterday but I had significant problems shortly after getting up out of bed so I aborted my plans for the day.  This morning, however, I felt more "normal"...  my new normal, anyway...  so I jumped into setting up a new WiFi system through our house (which was supposed to be yesterday's project).   T...

I t has been a pretty quiet week.  The weather has been lousy and my energy level has been depleted so I have mostly been resting and sleeping this week.   We had a leaking washing machine.  I quickly determined it was a leak out the front door of the washer due to gunk, grime and sliminess on the door boot seal.  I spent a day and a half resolving that problem.   First, I spent half a day manually cleaning the inside of the washing machine as well as inside all the folds of the door boot seal.  I didn't want to be too abrasive on the seal because I knew that would only cause more leaking so I carefully and methodically cleaned it up, little by little.   While I was doing that, I also ordered a new boot seal for the front door in case my efforts failed or in case this fix only lasts a short time.  Plus, I don't want to be without a washing machine for a week or two so I would prefer to have a part that I know I will need on hand for...

It hasn't been what I would call a "terrible" week but, what the heck? As you probably already have heard, we had planned some extensive home renovations for the end of summer and early autumn but Sheila developed cancer again so we put all the renovations on hold until sometime after Sheila's recovery. We're now stuck in a cluttered house full of building supplies.  Over the past week or two, Sheila and I have been discussing what to do with all this clutter. I quickly decided to start finding a long term temporary home for each of the building supplies taking up our living space.  The kitchen and living room renovation is the biggest part of this project which is now on indefinite hold. We have Birch flooring, a lot of lighting fixtures, electrical supplies, windows, a range hood, a new faucet, a new kitchen sink, lumber, etc, all cluttering our home.  Yesterday, I decided to just go ahead and complete a little project... install that new kitchen sink an...

I'm still working on this custom door. The door is residing in our kitchen on top of the jig which is on top of two sawhorses. The weather has been lousy so I am stuck working indoors this week. Throw in Adam's wisdom teeth problems and my off-and-on lousy health, and things are moving a bit slowly... Since my last blog entry about making some progress in assembling the door for our new half bathroom, I've managed to drill out the holes for the pegs which are intended to hold each joint together. Unfortunately, like so many other things on this half bathroom project, this didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. Worse yet, I need to make three more of these doors so I need to figure out how to avoid repeating these mistakes. I figured that writing about the problems might help in avoiding these same mistakes on the next three doors.  Pegs are inserted through this joint to hold the pieces together. First let me explain how I intended to fasten each of th...