Volume 13 - Day 165/200, 2021 - Monday

We are reaching a milestone today, there are 200 days left in this year, and tomorrow will put the total at less than that number...a milestone, measured by me, and relatively impressed with self-described milestones. I totally understand that the majority of you, loyal readers, are not as crazy, anal retentive and/or as obsessive/compulsive as I am, and for that, I salute you. I often query as to exactly what caused this in me and who reinforced it in me, but I can remember being this way to some of my earliest memories. It's a curse. Whatever. The corn is coming along nicely out by the farm, although there is no hope for the wheat. It hit 100 degrees in central Texas today, the first of the season. It looks like we will be flirting with 100 degree temperatures for the rest of the seven-day forecast. Welcome to summer in Texas. We are already experiencing power outages in Austin, and the power grid is asking people to conserve energy where they can. It seems there were no lessons learned back in February. Go figger! 

Tomorrow I will be working from the Curious House, meeting some vendors there, and then possibly meeting some vendors out at the farm. 

Volume 13 - Day 164/201, 2021 - Sunday

I'm gonna be rich! AND...I just have to answer a few questions, and then wait for the debit card to arrive with $10M. Just three working days, and I will have it. I think I might go camp out at the airport and wait. These people are pretty honest it seems, since they said I should not deal with anyone else, because everyone else just wants to swindle me. I like transparency and full disclosure, so I am pretty sure this is the real thing! But...while I wait, I had a nice brunch with Candy this morning, and then I came home and took a nice nap. I went to the farm, cleaned the chicken coop, collected eggs, checked on everything (and everything was just fine, thanks), and then came home and took another nap. I got almost everything on my list checked off, and I still have laundry to do, but that will be started in about another 30 minutes. I got one of the guest bedrooms straightened up this morning, and that just leaves me with one more bedroom to do, and then I might have to consider vacuuming the house. I don't want to go too crazy quite yet, though! I have lost my phone and my car keys two or three times today, so I need to work on something to stop that. This week coming will be a slower week than last, just a few things every now and then that need to be accomplished. Nice and easy does it. 

Volume 13 - Day 163/202, 2021 - Saturday

I did a pretty good job of going through the magazines today. I got through about 10 of them, maybe more, but I have to tell you, the crossword puzzles in the People magazines are the easiest of all the crossword puzzles. I did not even need to go on the Internet ONCE to figure out an answer, and for me, that is saying something. I will go through a bunch more, and by the end of the coming week, I hope to have cleared out all the magazine stack, and I will start a new pile. I was pretty much useless today, I did not even go out of the house today except to go out with the dogs, until after two o'clock. At about 2, I left to go to the farm, and made a stop at the True Value Hardware store on the way and bought a few things. This is the first weekend in recent memory that I have not had a list of things to buy, and that was nice. Tomorrow I need to get some milk, but not at the hardware store. All was good at the farm, and I got back in time to take a nap. The third or fourth nap of the day. After the latest nap, it was off to the neighborhood driveway Saturday night social, and I had a lot of fun there. I am totally delighted that I am living in the Curious House, and I have met a lot of the

neighborhood peeps, and I is GREAT!

Volume 13 - Day 162/203, 2021 - Friday

I HAVE TO get through these magazines. I counted them (of course I did), and there are 37 magazines piled up on the kitchen island. I DO read the newspapers when they arrive, so I don't have them all stacked up, but I just got behind with the magazines. My goal is to get through several of them this weekend. I do pretty well unless there is a crossword puzzle in one of them, and then I get distracted and progress is thwarted. There were no zooms today, and I got plenty of stuff done in the office. I also got my haircut this afternoon, and then headed off to the farm. Barney was in evidence, and the chickens were all accounted for, so everything on that side of things is okay. Tonight for dinner, I had something out of the freezer that Jody bought before he died. It was good for being around for as long as it has been. I am planning to do as little as possible over the weekend (except for the magazines of course). 

 

Volume 13 - Day 161/204, 2021 - Thursday

Are we all really sure that we want to get back to normal? I fear traffic is the first thing that will remind us that we really DO NOT want to get back to normal! The Curious House is about fifteen miles closer to the office, and that makes it, easily, about thirty minutes less of a commute. I needed to get into the office early today for a nine o'clock zoom, and I always try my best to give myself plenty of cushion, and I made it to the office in plenty of time, but there were a couple spots where traffic came to a dead halt. It could have been worse, but it is something we all need to think about. My nine o'clock went very well, and I think it might have even ended a few minutes early (thanks Marvin), I got some more work done in the office, and then I headed back home for a one o'clock zoom. I was conducting that meeting, and we had scheduled it for FOUR HOURS, but we all got done early, and we were all ecstatic about that. After that, I headed off to the farm, got the cat and the chickens fed, and now I have pretty much finished up another day, and it is downhill for the rest of this week!

Volume 13 - Day 160/205, 2021 - Wednesday

Today was a LONG day...three zoom meetings and one face-to-face meeting. It has been a long time since I have had that many zooms in one day. I am totally miserable right now, because, since I worked (zoomed) from home today, I spent some of the time grazing. Popcorn. Chips. Pimento cheese. Bagels. String cheese. Diet soda. After my last meeting, I took off for the farm, and took care of what needed to be taken care of, and then I stopped on the way home for an order of chicken fingers. Miserable! The recent rains were a blessing and a curse. The hybrid blurse. The wheat that was grown and helped along with the early rains is now wasting and rotting in the fields. The fields are too wet for the tractors to harvest, so the wheat is just wasting away. Too late for this crop. It was hot and humid today, and I doubt there will be any relief until October. Life in central Texas. Two zooms on the schedule for tomorrow (it is obviously zoom season), but then that will be it for the foreseeable future. Did I mention earlier that I have new neighbors at the Curious House? They started moving in last weekend, then it has been quiet for a few days, and there is now another truck unloading more boxes and stuff. They have not been terribly friendly so far, but maybe they are just too tired. Or maybe I am just the creepy old guy next door. Either one is possible.

Volume 13 - Day 159/206, 2021 - Tuesday

Well, the rain was supposed to be out of the forecast, which would also mean that the rain pics accompanying these entries would be over, but it was just not true. So, with a little bit of luck, this will be the last rain pic for at least a couple weeks. We don't want to go too long with no rain, but we are well fixed for rain in central Texas at this red-hot minute. The rain gave out by about 9:30 this morning, and now it is just steamy hot. Steamy hot means the humidity is intolerable. It hit the mid 90s today, and overnight we are supposed to tie a record for the hottest low temperature on record for this date. Mid to upper 90s tomorrow, but a cooling trend towards the weekend. I hope my incessant weather reports aren't too disquieting, I will try to come up with more interesting topics going forward. I have the television on right now, waiting for Finding your roots, and there was a commercial talking about some drug that is supposed to cure some condition, and they were listing off all the possible side-effects of the drug. I think it would be interesting if one of the listed side-effects was to cure the condition the patient was taking the drug for. That would be worth something. They could just throw it in there, and see if anybody was really paying attention. I am especially concerned when they disclaim that you should not take the drug if you are allergic to it, but how will you know if you are allergic to it if you don't take it at least once. Do you guys worry about stuff like this? Okay, time to change the channel.