Volume 12 - Day 335/31, 2020 - Monday

I have seen a lot of interesting things in the twelve plus years I have been commuting to my office from the farm. LOTS of interesting things. At least a couple car fires, but I really could not swear to that. I can swear that, a good car fire will considerably slow down your commute time. Guaranteed! The commute in to Austin was not really memorable, not that there is anything wrong with that. I got in to the office WAY before anyone else this morning, and I like that, I have the whole place to myself and there are no distractions. I had an appointment at 11:15, and got back and just kind of sat around and talked with the office peeps. I let after my zoom call that ended at about 3:15, and then had a couple errands to run on the way home. If I had not done the errands, I would have totally missed the car fire, so that was definitely worth it. AND...the fact that I wore grey socks with ketchup and mustard bottles on them caused there NOT to be any tsunamis anywhere in the world today. Your welcome!

lume 12 - Day 334/32, 2020 - Sunday

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord, my soul to keep, If I should die, before I wake, Ask the coroner to check the green beans, I am not sure they kept very well. Whatever... I spent a lot of the day doing nothing much of anything, mainly because I did most of it yesterday. I managed to get dressed by noon, and I headed in to Georgetown on a quest to buy dog food. Three stores later, and I am good for another two or three weeks. I think dog food is a lot like toilet paper and disinfecting wipes. I always think I need it, then when I get it home, I discover I could open my own general store catering in those things. I looked at a house on Saturday, and the seller's had (no kidding) at least 500 rolls of toilet paper. Every closet I looked in had two or three of the giant Costco toilet paper packages. I am certainly not that crazy, but I have bought in to the whole hoarding thing. I bought a package of toilet paper last week when I was at Costco, and now I think I have three packages out in the garage. I wonder if I have any anywhere else, stashed away. It is colder than a fart in a dead eskimo (that being the coldest thing in the world just in case you were wondering) outside here tonight, and it is going to get colder overnight on Monday. We will have two or three days this coming week where the overnight temperatures will be below freezing, but the daytime temperatures will be in the 40s and 50s. Just an inconvenience. Like 2020. Overnight last night, we got 0.29" of rain, which will give us 0.69" of rain for the month of November. We could use some more rain! And when I got in line, they were serving number four. It took them about an hour-and-fifteen minutes to call my number, only to tell me they could not provide the dog drugs (HeartGard and NexGard) that I needed. 

Volume 12 - Day 333/33, 2020 - Saturday

Today was cold, wet, grey, miserable. I am out of adjectives to describe the day. I am proud of the fact that I made the trips into Austin on Thursday and Friday, so that was done. The weather prognosticators were predicting rain, and I knew if I did those chores, it would most likely NOT rain. That held true until about 12:30 this afternoon, and it has been just dribbly ever since. At last check, we have received about a quarter-inch of rain, and it is supposed to keep raining overnight. I was relatively ambitious today, though; I was able to clear and organize the garage, move a few pieces of furniture around in the house to make room for those changes, I got the exterior faucets wrapped and covered, and all the pot plants are either in the front barn or in the garage. I also got the Christmas lights on the fence up by the road re-strung, and they were lighted until the dribblyness caused the GFCI to trip. I am just going to leave it for a while, and hope it dries out tomorrow. We are expecting freezing temps for two or three days this week coming, but not really a hard freeze. Mrs. Google defines a hard freeze as a freeze sufficiently long and severe to destroy seasonal vegetation and ice to form on standing water. I think a hard freeze needs to be below freezing for 24 hours or more (to mess with pipes and protected stuff), and that is not expected next week. I do expect that most of the bedding plants will be lost, but they will be back in the spring. We shall see...

Volume 12 - Day 332/34, 2020 - Friday

I got some more chores done today, made one trip in to Austin, so that part of the weekend chores is completed. I spent a good part of the day just driving around. We were supposed to get some rain overnight, but we did NOT. There were a few sprinkles late morning, and when I got home, our gauge recorded 0.02" of rain. There is supposed to be rain again overnight, but we shall see. While I was out driving around, I saw this manger scene. I actually stopped, turned around, and took a couple photos. Something about the juxtapositioning of the two very different subjects beckoned to me, so I thought I would share it with you. Greetings of the season, y'all!

Volume 12 - Day 331/35, 2020 - Thursday

On this Thanksgiving Day, I find it hard to adequately give thanks for all the things and people I am thankful for. I am thankful for my friends, near and far. I am thankful for my health. I guess I am healthy, I can still taste, smell and breathe. I am thankful that I can afford to have a lovely dinner, and I am kind of sad that much of it will ultimately not be eaten. I am thankful that I have a roof over my head, and I am thankful that I have two needy girl dogs to share the roof with. I am thankful for the things that I complain about, and I am thankful for the things that happen to me on a daily basis that I hardly even think about. At the end of the day, I know that I am a lucky man, and for that I am thankful. Let's now talk about my Thanksgiving dinner. I am thankful that I could buy a prepared dinner (serves 2 to 4), and that I will be eating on it for at least a week. The girl dogs will be eating on it as well! Even though I am not really that good at following directions, it was more 'heat and serve' than cook this. Even though I failed to follow the directions that said 'cover the turkey in a shallow pan with aluminum foil,' it tasted really good and it was much more than I needed. I ate about a third of what is shown on this plate, but everything in now covered with aluminum foil and is tucked securely in the refrigerator.

Volume 12 - Day 330/36, 2020 - Wednesday

Okay, I honestly think I am in over my head here. I picked up pies this morning at Costco and distributed them to folks here and there. This afternoon, I picked up my Thanksgiving dinner (serves two to four) from HEB. It looks kind of complicated if you want to know the truth. The directions are kind of like those you might get when assembling a cabinet from Ikea. Except not really enough pictures. There is a prep time, and then a cooking time. Different cooking times for the four (OMG4!) side dishes. And then there is the gravy and the cranberry sauce. I may just have the cranberry sauce and call it a day. I have a couple more pies to deliver in the morning, and then an errand or two to complete in Austin, and then I expect to start the oven an see where that leads about 2 o'clock. If I don't post in this journal tomorrow, you might want to take a road trip to Bartlett and see if the house is still standing. What was I thinking?

Volume 12 - Day 329/37, 2020 - Tuesday

Is it the NEW normal or the NOW normal? Or is it the NEW NOW NORMAL? I participated in a little bit of a conversation regarding this issue this afternoon, and there was no conclusion, so we went with NEW NOW. You can do whatever you want, but if you want to sit at the cool kids table, you had best go with NEW NOW. As I write this entry, it is 75 degrees outside. There is supposedly another 'cold' front coming through overnight, and it will bring us a chance of rain. We got about 0.03" rain this morning, and maybe we can get a little bit more. It is supposed to be a pretty good chance of rain on Saturday, which is a pisser because I need to run some errands on Saturday that include the truck and moving some stuff for a friend. I stood in line at Trader Joe's this morning, in the dribbles, and bought five bags of potato chips. That is the only thing I am allowed to buy at Trader Joe's, because I am not cool enough to sit at THOSE cool kids table. I know my limits. It has been a pretty slow week in the office, just like I like it. I don't have too much more to impart this evening, but I will leave you with this pretty moonrise. If you get a minute, just go outside and look up, let me know what you see.

me 12 - Day 328/38, 2020 - Monday

I wasn't around for the first Flu pandemic, but it seems that history has a way of  repeating itself. It is perfectly okay with me if you don't agree, this is MY journal, so I can say whatever i want. Simple things are often the easiest and the best, and many times we just need to stop overthinking stuff. I have a tendency to make easy things difficult. Take for instance my mobile banking app. I worked all day at trying to logon to my mobile banking app, and I KNEW what the login and the passwords were, so why couldn't I logon? Okay, it was probably because of a update to my cell phone, so I uninstalled the app and reinstalled it. Still nothing. Then I looked up the password, just to make sure, and I had been using the wrong password the whole time, and the wrong user ID, and when I uninstalled the app, I had to re-enroll AND change my password and login. Only I can make mistakes like that. We had an issue with a piece of hardware in the office today, and on-line tech support could not fix it. Several of us had crawled around on the floor to make sure everything was plugged in, and it all was. While I was on the phone with tech support, I decided to unplug the power at the piece of hardware, waited a couple seconds, and plugged it back in. The whole thing came to life, and for once, I can claim that I was smarter than tech support. It is not often that I can make that statement without crossing my fingers! Problem solved. Let's just wait and see what Tuesday brings...

Volume 12 - Day 327/39, 2020 - Sunday

Well, this just goes to show you how much I know. I did not even know there was a thing about 'mask breath,' but there was a cure for it advertised in the morning paper, so it must be a thing, right? The newspaper is much more reliable than the internet, right? I think so. So, I guess that just gives me one more thing to be worried about. Great! The cold front came through about 3:30 this afternoon, maybe a little bit earlier. We recorded 0.05" of rain in the official gauge, so we will take whatever we can get. I got all my chores done, and I purposely abbreviated the list. Abbreviated is a pretty long word for its' definition. But I digress. I got all my chores done, went in to Austin to pick up my Empty Bowl bounty, and then did a few things on the way back. All is well, we expect the temperature to be down in the high 40s or low 50s overnight, and still no sign of any freezes in the forecasts. That will work okay for me.

Volume 12 - Day 327/39, 2020 - Saturday

I stayed in the bed much longer than the girl dogs (one in particular) wanted me to. But, she will get over it, she is not gonna starve any time soon. I let the chickens loose, and they were all accounted for. Then I just had a leisurely morning, did a little bit of work, and after noon I just got in the car and rode around for a while. I did make a stop at Walgreen's for some glucosamine and some Zyrtec. It was really just a nice, lazy day, no rushing around to get anything accomplished, and that was nice. I did participate in the Austin Empty Bowl Project silent auction, and I won two items. I will drive in to Austin tomorrow to pick them up, and then I will see what kind of mischief I can get into. Otherwise, it is going to be a slow evening, too. There is supposed to be a cold front come through tomorrow, bringing with it a chance of rain. That would be really good. My phone says there is a 60% chance of rain tomorrow, and the low temperature forecast for Sunday night/Monday morning is 48. Thanksgiving day looks like it will be okay, though.

Volume 12 - Day 325/41, 2020 - Friday

I did not venture out of the house today, except to clean the filter basket in the pool, feed the cat and feed the chickens, stuff like that. There is no more chicken morbidity to report, and I am happy about that. I hope that locking them in their coop at night will discourage whatever has been getting them. I guess only time will tell. I had three zoom calls and some work to do in between those calls. the first on was at 8:30 this morning, and the last one ended at 3 this afternoon, with breaks in the middle. Nothing to complain about, and I did get some major accomplishments completed. I am not sure what I will need to get accomplished over the weekend, but I am pretty confident that I will be able to find something. In the meantime, I realized that the girls have not been properly appreciated by my mass of followers, so I hope you all enjoy this little picture!

Volume 12 - Day 324/42, 2020 - Thursday

I am not sure, but I am pretty sure that this week has seemed to be about three weeks longer than necessary. So many questions, not enough answers. It just seems odd. I know that it probably has something to do with the fact that this is 2020 but I can't really put my finger on it. I have started doing crossword puzzles (trying to keep the mind sharp), and it helps that I can look up answers on my phone for many of the answers that I am TOO old to know. And answers that I am too old to have ever heard of. Or answers that are people that are too young to have ever used a dial phone. You know, that kind of stuff. I am pretty sure, too, that this will pass at some point. It always does. But for now, I have moments that I just sit here in front of the computer and daydream. Like just these last four minutes, and than I remember, oh yeah, I am in the middle of a journal entry, I should finish that. I had baked mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. I had an egg salad sandwich for lunch, so I wasn't really hungry when it should have been dinner time, so I did not press the issue. The dogs were a little bit disappointed, but they will forget about it in a couple minutes. Nice moon out tonight, still lovely fall like weather here in central Texas. Lovely.

Volume 12 - Day 323/43, 2020 - Wenesday

I just watched Candy be inaugurated as the President of REBI (The Real Estate Business Institute) of the National Association of REALTORS®. Congratulations to her for this great accomplishment! Right this very minute, she is giving her remarks, and doing a great job, as usual. Apparently, my technology skills are not up to the minute, because I can see and hear the proceedings, and it says my camera and microphone are connected, but I am not able to be seen or speak. Which is really okay, because I am not wearing pants! Otherwise, it was not a bad day. My overnight was better than the previous two, probably because I turned the heat up a couple of degrees. Another beautiful day in central Texas, and the ten day forecast promises more of the same. One day with a 30% chance of rain. I ordered my Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon, and will do a curbside pickup on Wednesday, after I make my traditional Wednesday morning visit to Costco for pies!

Volume 12 - Day 322/44, 2020 - Tuesday

It was a totally beautiful day n central Texas today, although it was a chilly start. The last two nights have been three dog nights, and I am the big dog. The girls have taken up residence, one on each side of me on the bed, which for all practical purposes means I am paralyzed...I cannot move. It may be keeping the dogs warm, but I was freezing to death. That could be an exaggeration. I had the heat set on 68 degrees, but I was cold. And, I truly believe that I woke up at 7 minutes past the hour for eight hours. I do not think that is a healthy way to sleep. I understand that, as one ages, good DEEP sleep is important for the brain to get rid of stuff that helps you remain healthy. Something like that, I forget exactly what was reported. Anyway, I am pretty much enjoying the leisurely mornings and late starts to the work day, but I am making a conscious effort to go in to Austin as much as I had been. I think I have been pretty lucky so far, maintaining the status quo, but I think a few more decisions on the side of caution are in order. I am not getting any younger! There was a lovely sunset this evening, and I hope you enjoy it!

Volume 12 - Day 321/45, 2020 - Monday

Just in case you think the photo accompanying this journal entry is false and misleading, get over it. When has this journal ever REALLY been interesting? If asked, I always reply that this journal is about NOTHING. Just nothing. Nothing really important, nothing really significant. Just nothing. I think some days are better than others, and I am generally more proud of entries in which I have gone off on a tantrum than those entries in which I am trying to be interesting. Nothing interesting here, move along. I am trying to think if I did anything interesting today. Nothing really comes to mind. I did take the trash can up to the road this morning, and I got it there before the sanitary engineers made it past the house, at which time I retrieved the trash can and put it back in its' proper place. There is a distinct possibility that that was the most interesting thing I did today. I had left over BBQ for dinner, which included a glazed sour dough donut sprinkled with BBQ sauce. That was pretty interesting. It gets dark too early for me to really do too many interesting things after I get home from Austin. I did check on chickens both this morning and this evening; no more casualties, and they all look pretty healthy if you ask me, which you did not. I did see Barney a couple times this late afternoon and evening. That is always pretty interesting to me. Maybe not to you, just don't go all psycho on me if you don't like cats. Although that would be kind of interesting. I got no really interesting mail today, and the catalogs are really not that interesting anymore. I am not too interested in buying too much of anything this year, but I expect that will change. That could be interesting. Did you do anything interesting today?

Volume 12 - Day 320/46, 2020 -Sunday

I got all my chores done today, with plenty of time to share. I had a great afternoon, with friends for lunch at the farm today, and it really re-emphasized to my how socially awkward I have become. But, I will work on that, and I expect I will feel better about things by the end of the year. Two days, two dead chickens. It is an interesting phenomenon, but that is just the way things work sometimes. I went out later this afternoon to feed the chickens and make sure they had water, and the survivors all look just fine. They actually look really good. These remaining chickens (10 out of 12) seem to actually have recovered from the challenge with mites, and the molting process looks like it may be winding down. I have gathered only five eggs in 15 days, so that is really nothing to brag about. I gave the chicken coop a good cleaning this morning, and I am happy with that. We will see if there are any more casualties in the next few days, but I am not really expecting any. Time will tell. These little daisy like flowers caught my attention this morning, and they are just volunteers, nothing that I planted. Sometimes things just decide to pop up and show themselves!

Volume 12 - Day 319/47, 2020 - Saturday

I really did get a lot of things done today, including giving the dogs a bath. I have also decided that, the fact that I have not yet put the house back together, is a proclamation of the state of my mental health. I am not sure if that is a positive thing or a negative thing. On the one hand, it shows that I really am in no hurry to get things back together that would say I am finished with that part of the challenge. On the other hand, it shows that I am in no hurry to get all that stuff put back together, and there is no need to rush to the ending of that chapter. See? I have no idea what that means. I have been having interesting dreams, too. Not creepy or anything like that, just odd and interesting, with a really interesting cast of characters from my checkered past. In my dreams, I experiencing some interesting circumstances. They are all fuzzy right now, and I can remember a few details from the dream I had last night, but not a lot. The dreams are not particularly concerning to me, I just find them interesting, and I try to think of their meanings when I wake from them. Then I go back to sleep. I have had one egg from the chickens in the last seven days. This afternoon there was a dead chicken in the coop, so I guess it is about that time. They are about 30 months old, and this is the first casualty. Not a bad average. Earlier in the day I had a nice facetime chat with Michael and Lynda and their two month old (on the 16th) grand daughter Olivia. She slept through most of the call, but she is certainly a cutie pie! It has been cloudy most of the day, and there is supposed to be a 'cold' front come through overnight. We shall see.

Volume 12 - Day 318/48, 2020 - Friday

It is Friday, and for most of this week, I thought Thanksgiving was next week. Oops. It's okay, it seems I was just trying to short-change myself, and skip a week. I got up a few minutes early today, and left for Austin a little bit earlier than usual. I had a zoom call at ten o'clock, and I wanted to make sure I got to the office in plenty of time. I am not sure of the exact length of the zoom call, but I think it was over about 1:45 this afternoon. That is a new record for the longest zoom meeting I have had the pleasure of attending. It was long, but we made some good decisions and I think those decisions (all of them) were in the best interests of all my colleagues. You know who you are and you know of which I speak, if you know who you are. After the zoom, I was able to get a couple phone calls in, and then it was a haircut day, and I got to that appointment with plenty of time to spare. I am all set, haircut wise, for the next three weeks. I get my haircut EVERY three weeks, and I don't know if that is a lot or not, but it is what I do. I wash my hair every day, too, and I know for sure most wimmin do not do that. I think most guys do, but I have never brought that up in polite conversation. I think we qualified for a 'trace' of rain today, not sure, but that is what I will record in the morning. It was more than a heavy dew, so I am going to record it as a 'trace.' Enjoy the weekend!

Volume 12 - Day 317/49, 2020 - Thursday

My penultimate zoom meeting today started at 5 o'clock. It was daylight when it started, and the sun went down while it was going on. That one ended about 6:25, and my last one of the day started at 6:30. It is just that time of year. The first zoom meeting of the day started at 8 o'clock this morning, and it was supposed to last a couple hours, but it wrapped up early, which let me get in to the office a little bit earlier than expected. Oops, it looks like that one ended and another one just began. Lots of meetings and stuff going on this time of year. So, I made it into the office by about 10 o'clock, and did a little bit of power real estate, and then went to a 2 o'clock appointment, then off to the house. All was good today, I got to hang out with our nice neighbor, and took a nice call from a client that wants to list a property. That will be going on the market a week after Thanksgiving. All in all, not a bad day!

Volume 12 - Day 316/50, 2020 - Wednesday

There is really not too much to report this evening, the day was really not very eventful. I did the usual weekday stuff; got up, turned on the news, let the girls out, made coffee, checked e-mails, let the girls in, tried to read the newspaper on-line (that didn't work), fed the girls, let the girls out, fixed another cup of coffee, took care of personal hygiene stuff, let the girls in, made the bed, let the girls out, tried to read the paper again (it still didn't work), let the girls in, gave the girls a treat for being good girls, looked at the bank balance, paid a credit card bill on-line, let the girls out, put my clothes on, checked my schedule for the day, let the girls in, turned the tv off, turned the radio on (for the girls), said goodbye to the girls, got in the car, closed the garage door, hit the road for the office, checked traffic, decided which way to go in to the office, proceeded down IH-35, arrived at the office, opened the blinds, turned on the coffee maker, turned on the tv, made a cup of coffee, wanted to watch Kelly & Ryan (but they weren't on), turned the sound down on the tv, checked e-mails again, checked my schedules, made a couple appointments, talked to a couple clients, talked to Maggie, talked to Carrie (told her I needed her to be a sounding board for an issue I am having), did some paper work, signed a disclaimer about the Covids, made a bank deposit, approved landlord statements, talked to another client, talked to Carrie about my issue, coordinated a couple things for a future TREPAC meeting, moved my 1 o'clock appointment up to 12:30, got in the car to go to Texas REALTORS®, got to Texas REALTORS®, told Leslie I was in the garage (so she can let me in the building), started my meeting with Andrea and Leslie, lunch arrived (a nice salad, it was really good), did more meeting stuff, got too loud in Leslie's office and Tray came in to complain (kidding), did more meeting stuff, left there to go back to the office, called the office on the way to ask Tosalyn to do something for me, and changed my mind about it, made three more phone calls on the way to the office, left two out of three voice mails for those three phone calls, checked the mail, remembered it was a Holiday so there will be no mail, met with two clients, finished that meeting, checked my e-mails, checked Facebook, checked new listings, checked my schedule for tomorrow, left the office, went directly home (no stops), listened to NPR on the way home, listened to the AM radio station news a couple times, went back to NPR, got home, did NOT check the mail, let the girls out, fed the cat, read the meters, fed the chickens, gave them their daily treat, made sure they had plenty of water, watered the pot plants in front and back, untangled the polaris in the pool, checked the skimmer basket, let the girls in, watched some of the news on tv, got tired of that, fed the girls, fixed myself a bowl of Trader Joe's potato chips for dinner, took a look at my camera roll to see what I have for this journal entry, uploaded a photo, sat down and recorded my meter readings, started my journal entry for the night, and that pretty much brings us up to date for the day. You can make up what I do for the rest of the day, and you can make up your own story about the picture I am posting with this journal entry.

Volume 12 - Day 215/51, 2020 - Tuesday

In the old days (two weeks ago), I could sit outside with the dogs in the evenings and watch the sun go down, if I wanted to. Now, by the time I decide to let the girls out for a little while, it is already dark. AND, it is not light that much earlier in the mornings, either. My mornings are a little bit lazier, lately, even though I get up about 6:30, I take more time getting started and getting into gear. If I leave the house by 8:30 or so, I think that is just fine. That generally gets me into the office about 9:30, and I think that is very civilized! Today, that was the routine, and it worked out just fine. I got some things done, there are no meetings on my schedule until tomorrow afternoon, and then there are a couple zoom things on Thursday and Friday. Next week looks pretty good as well. I guess we are working our way to Thanksgiving week, I guess a little more than two weeks from now. I have no plans, and I have no plans to make plans, so please don't ask me to make plans. I may just go and hang out with the chickens. I had thought about maybe opening the house to folks if they had no place to celebrate, but with the Covids and all, I changed my mind. The chickens has a nice treat this afternoon! Usually they get a treat of mealworms in the afternoon, but Tractor Supply had something new the last time I was there; a mix of mealworms, flies and beetles! I think it harkens back to Chicken Delight. Perhaps...

Volume 12 - Day 314/52, 2020 - Monday

Overall, not a bad Monday for a Monday. I drove past the Tesla service place this morning to retrieve the box of coffee pods I had left in the loaner last week, the transfer of caffeine went off without a hitch. I got in to the office and got my desk relatively cleaned off, and that is a positive thing. I had a three o'clock appointment at home, and I wanted to get one errand done on the way, so I left the office about 1:30. All was good, traffic did not suck (at 1:30 in the afternoon), and I got everything done and got home, AND the vendor showed up like five minutes after I got home. The appointment was not until three, and we were done by 2:50. Perfect! Nap time! I did snooze for about 20 minutes, and then I went out and fed and watered the chickens, fed the cat, did a few other things, and the watered all the pot plants. I have gone from a three day watering schedule for the pot plants, back to a two day schedule. I also got a couple of the trees watered while I was at it. We have had NO measurable rain this month, and we were really below average rain in October. There is a 30% chance of rain on Saturday, but I would not count on it, and I would definitely NOT take it to the bank. I think this will be a relatively calm week, fingers crossed! This is what fall color looks like on the Edge of Nowhere!

12 - Day 313/53, 2020 - Sunday

This is what happens when you post on Facebook that you are going to be holding an (an interesting) open house, and it is within 100 miles of where I am. I just might drop in for a quick visit. Kylee posted Friday that she was holding a house open, and it looked like (and it really was) a cool early 20th Century Victorian cottage. It is a really cute house, and if I just wanted more anxiety in my life, I would consider buying this little precious house that is only about 80 or 85 miles away from where I am living now. BUT, right now, I am not looking for more stuff to worry about, I have plenty! It is a really NEAT house though, and I wish I could just buy the storage shed and everything that is in it. I would love to spend about an hour or two rummaging around in there to see what I could find. The open house was in Somerville, and it was a really nice ride down there. I cranked up some old music (Yes, Boomer), and had a nice ride and saw some nice places on the way down there. I was going to come home via Round Top, but I was afraid I would never get back if I stopped, so I went through Giddings, Elgin, Copeland, Taylor and then home. I did stop at the HEB in Taylor and spent less than nine dollars. I really did not need too much. After I got home, I cleaned the chicken coop, and crossed that off my list. I do not have a lot of things on my list this week, but I am pretty confident I will fill up the days!

Volume 12 - Day 312/54, 2020 - Saturday

I wasted most of the day today, waiting on a vendor that was supposed to arrive on Saturday, between between 11:30 and 1:30. After waiting patiently until 1:45, I called the company, and spoke to the person that had made the appointment. She was apologetic, and transferred me to dispatch, where they told me the appointment was for next Saturday. I asked to be transferred back to the lady that made the appointment, and she was very apologetic. She said the dispatcher had told her 'Saturday,' and she assumed that meant today. The only saving grace to this is that, the lady that made the appointment did not try to wriggle out of it and tell me she had explicitly said it was Saturday the 14th. So...now I will wait around again NEXTR Saturday for them to show up again. They said I was their first appointment NEXT Saturday. Really? 11:30 is your first appointment of the day? Wowza! So, after that disappointment, I did run a few errands. I was able to cross 'house slippers' off my to-done list. That little chore has only taken me about 14 months to accomplish, but it is done with. I also got chicken feed, cat food and some dog treats, and made my way home. While I was checking meters and feeding the can, I encountered this spider. I see these spiders out here all the time, and we generally respect each others space, but this one seemed to be even bigger than usual. It had to be about six inches stem-to-stem. I was going to say four inches, but when I looked at those measurements with a tape measure, I am going with six.

Volume 12 - Day 311/55, 2020 - Friday

My iPhone updated itself the other day, and I am still getting used to a few things that changed...but this showed up on my screen yesterday, and it is kind of interesting and disturbing at the same time. I expect I will get used to it over a couple weeks, but I am also a little bit concerned that the Apple Watch has decided to give me life lessons and how to remain calm. I do not really think I have more Karen moments than the average person, but my watch interrupts my stream of consciousness with requests like 'the weekend is coming, try to relax' or 'just take one minute and concentrate on your breathing.' Just now, while researching this blog entry, I learned how to 'ping' my phone. That will come in much more handy that any of you can imagine. I assume there is some kind of button I can push that will remind me about what day it is, that could be really helpful. I do not have any great big plans for the weekend, I do have a list of things that I would like to accomplish, one of which is to go to an estate sale that Candy told me about. I also just thought of another app that I would find useful...something that could tell me what the girl dogs are thinking. I think the girl dogs are much more enlightened than the chickens, and I have seen no real evidence that the chickens really think about anything, but I would like to be able to better interpret the needs and thoughts of the dogs. Someone should stop whatever they are doing right now, and concentrate on that.

lume 12 - Day 310/56, 2020 - Thursday

This is what it looks like after months of planning, and two weeks of hard work to present a statewide virtual meeting is over and done with. I am constantly amazed by the dedication and passion of a whole bunch of staff and volunteers to make our meetings relevant, informative and fun. It is hard to do all three of those things at the same time, but Texas REALTORS® staff and volunteers did it, and we have closed another chapter of TREPAC Orientations. Kimmish stayed at the farm last night, my first guest this year. We had a lot of fun, talked a lot, shared an egg loaf this morning, and I took her to the airport. It was good for all of us (Jef, Kim and me), and there were plenty of hugs to go around. I made a quick visit to the office this morning, before heading to the Hyatt to get ready for the days final broadcasts. We were done by 2:30, and then a got a couple errands done on the way home. I have an 8:30 zoom in the morning, and then I will be off to Austin again. I left a box of coffee in the loaner car earlier this week, and I will go by and pick that up, then a couple errands, go to the office for a while, and then head home for the weekend. All in all, I am a lucky guy, and it is time to call it a day!

Volume 12 - Day 309/57, 2020 - Wednesday

If you feel like you are experiencing deja vu all over again, I regret to inform you, you are wrong. Your mind is playing tricks on you. It is an optical illusion. This is NOT the same photo you might have thought you saw somewhere else. More about that later. What a day! I finally was informed that my car was ready to be picked up, that was at about 8:15 this morning. I had a really full schedule today, so I drove in to Austin to pick up the car, and made it back to the house in time for my 10 o'clock zoom meeting. That was followed by another zoom, then a lunch break, then two more zooms, followed by another zoom, and then I headed back in to Austin and did another zoom in the car on the way to Austin. I got to the office right at five o'clock, did some office stuff, and then went to visit the two peeps pictured with me in the photo. Jef and Kimmish. We had dinner tonight at Green Mesquite on Barton Springs, and I brought home a couple bones for the girls, and some meat that Kim donated to the cause. Kim came in from Nebraska for dinner, and she will fly back home tomorrow (early afternoon), but it was great seeing both these folks. I will see them both again tomorrow, and then I think I might just get a wild hair every now and then, and get on a plane and just see where I end up. Why not?

Volume 12 - Day 308/58, 2020 - Tuesday

In between my one in-person meeting today and my two zoom meetings, I did a little bit of retail therapy. NPR said the best thing we can do right now is to keep busy, and I am pretty sure I have that down. After my in-person meeting this morning, I was about to be late for a zoom meeting, so I logged on to the wifi at a DR Horton model home and everything was good. Now that I think of it, I was not able to actually log on to their wifi, I ended up using my hotspot on my cell phone, but I was comfortable. Kudos to Veronica at the DR Horton model, she was not a bit hesitant to let me try their wifi anyway. The rep at another home builder in the same community was not so accommodating, and I won't mention any names or the company name, but I will spill my guts if you send me a message. Anyway, after the in-person meeting and the first zoom meeting, I went in to Austin to pick up a prescription at Costco, and I saw this Baby Yoda and it just jumped right in to my cart. Maybe it will be worth a million dollars (new condition in box) after I am dead and gone, but in the meantime, I have it and I am keeping it. Tomorrow, I will be home most of the day, attending meetings while not wearing pants. I have a dinner date tomorrow night in Austin, so my plan (so far) is to leave about 3 o'clock and see if my car is ready, then make a quick stop at the office, and then head off to dinner. We will see how those plans work out, and I will let you know later tomorrow evening.

Volume 12 - Day 307/59, 2020 - Monday

At this point, I am relatively certain that I can survive almost anything. I took my car in this morning, everything was done by text. I did not talk with anyone in the service department, I did not go in the building, there was no interaction at all. They sent me everything by text: Where to drop my key fob, what they had lined up for me as a loaner, where the car was, how I could access the key in a digital lockbox (number 12). There was only one problem, and that is/was that there were about a dozen, white Model S's on the side of the building, so it was the very last one I tried to break in to. Where did you find your keys? In the last place I looked. After I got the loaner, I went to Trader Joe's in Great Hills and bought four bags of potato chips, so I am ready for whatever you can throw at me. I made it into the office about nine o'clock, and left a little after two. It is hard to talk on the phone when it does not connect to the loaner bluetooth. Nothing but first world problems.

Volume 12 - Day 306/60, 2020 - Sunday

I revised my to-do list today, and I ended up with 15 things to get accomplished today. I got twelve of them done, so I don' think that is too shabby. I did four loads of laundry (that is only one to-do list item, so I am happy with those results. I have been listening to a book on audible, and I am down to less than an hour to finish that, another accomplishment. I have to get up early (it's all relative) again tomorrow to take my car in for the windshield replacement, and I doubt they will get it done in one day. BUT, I am pretty confident this time that they will have a loaner for me, and hopefully I will get my car back on Tuesday. I have another appointment on Tuesday as well, but I think it will all work out. I am also going to make trips to Trader Joe's this week (for nothing but potato chips) and a trip[ to Costco (just to see what I can find). I will also have meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, and I think Friday is a pretty open day. This afternoon, I went to Lake Georgetown, just to see what it was like. I do not think I have ever been there before, even though Jody and I drove past it a couple times, we never stopped by. It is rather unremarkable, but it is a place to go every now and then. The sun was dazzlingly bright, and the temperature was in the seventies, and I could have easily gotten a sunburn if I had sat and stayed a little while. I imagine it is really HOT in the summers, and I do not think there is any place there to actually get in the water. That sentence does not really make sense, so I imagine I just did not get to the right section of the lake. Another adventure for another time. Oh, and before I forget, welcome to November!