1 August 2024

My queen is traveling for work today and I was left alone with the princess. I’m 36 and she’s over 2 years old, still the idea of being left alone with her scares me. We did the same things as normal and she was fine, inside I feel like I’m not an adult and don’t know what to do with a kid. That feeling of doubt will probably never go away, nor do I want it to, complacency kills and I’d rather be safe than sorry. When it comes to caring for the newborn though I’m confident in my abilities, I can say I’ve done it once and the second time will be easier. Being handed a crying baby doesn’t scare me anymore, I have the muscle memory. In the beginning I had to learn how to make the microscopic movement a baby needs, all my life I’ve done big movement with heavy objects. After this I’ll go out to do some yard work, there’s a patch of grass that grows fast. When my mower went down it got to an unreasonable height, so the landscaper didn’t mow it either and now it’s waist high in some parts. I’ll spend some time with the weed wacker making some big swings, once it’s cut back to normal tall grass I’ll go over it with my mower. Having that area cleaned up will be good, it’s on the edge of the forest and from what the landscaper told me it used to be some forest which would explain why it grows faster than anything around it. The tall grass invites wildlife, good and bad, but even good nature brings bad to humans. Deer sleep in the tall grass and they bring ticks. Snakes will also hid in the grass or I’ve even seen them on the edge of it. A tortoise has been seen there, but it wasn’t hurting anyone. 

31 July 2024

Yesterday was my birthday, I’m now 36 years old and didn’t feel doing any writing. As of late I’ve been less motivated to write and generally felt low energy, my guess is allergies since I shouldn’t be as tired as I feel. We’re now in the last month before the new baby comes and as I’ve been preparing our home, I’m getting less invested in the internet. The blog has been doing well lately which I’m grateful for, but in the first days of a new born I know that will be the only thing I have energy for. Right now it’s like I’m in a trilogy of books, the second one has already concluded it’s action and the third has yet to start. Every year I write a letter to myself to be read the next birthday, last years letter was mostly that life is good and stable. Right now I feel the same way and am prepared for the next big adventure. The first day of school was yesterday in my county, by the time my second daughter is the age of the first, the elder will be starting school. The adventures continue to rotate through the cast of characters. For myself the ever changing adventure is the land, the landscaper had killed some trees that will have to be replaced some day. Around November is when my grapes will be shipped, and yesterday I finally added more frames to my bee box. It had been awhile since I checked in on the bees and they seem to be doing well, I’m glad the land is a good environment for them. We’ll see how things go with the new baby, but I’d like to get started on chickens in the next couple years, even if it is just one as a pet. There’s a lot to learn. Every Winter I’ll work on clearing more of the forest, it shouldn’t be too long until the parameter is cleared, but it’s work that depends on free time.

26 July 2024

We had a rough recording of the podcast last night, there were technical difficulties that caused the Bois not to hear or see me at times. The problems shouldn’t be obvious to the listener, but whenever this sort of thing happen it puts a fire in me since it’s no fault of the humans. We’re doing the same things as always, but the computers are having a problem. Still it’s my show and a representation of me, I don’t like when things make me look bad, which was also something we discussed on the show. The combination of that discussion and technical difficulties has got me energized to strike back with a vengeance, shaking me out of grind building a channel. It’s me against me, nothing matter except that I hit harder than I did last time. The technical side of things isn’t me, it’s just a means through which people have access to me. Getting tangled up will slow me down. All that means I need to study, first I plan to read Henry Kissinger’s book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy because I believe he shaped the world we live in today. He laid out his plan in that book and taught future leader in highly exclusive classes. Knowing the rules to the game will lead me to have better success in it. After that there will be a fury of growth as physically I’ll be bottle necked by caring for the newborn. I’m outraged with how people act and am going to assert the power I’ve always had despite people thinking we’re born to be controlled.

25 July 2024

I’ve been resting like I’ve never rested before, seriously I don’t think I’ve ever slept this much. My cough seems to be gone, so resting did it’s job. This wouldn’t be possible without my mower breaking down and needing to have someone else mow the lawn, even with everything taken care of I was stressing a little bit about the grass. Today the tractor repairman was able to fix my mower and I learned he was an artillerymen when he was in the Army. Of course infantry is my favorite, but artillery gets some of my respect, they are the queen and king of battle respectfully. I’m happy to live in the country, everything is cheaper than I expect and maybe it’s the military background that makes these guys easy for me to work with. When working with others in the past I’ve thought, I only care about getting the job done, the guy pulled up with his truck and got it done in the driveway in probably 30 minutes. With talking to vets my age I’ve noticed most spent time in Afghanistan, my thinking is that I might be from an older generation since I joined younger than most and Iraq was the bigger focus in my time. I’m grateful to have made these two connections for landscaping and equipment repair since they’re guys I liked and they’re two jobs that I’m most likely to need. Having these resources is a big weight off my mind going into the new baby as that will become my main focus. Something I would like to get done soon is building my bee frames, they need to be hammered together and then added on top of the hive I’ve got. It’s been awhile since I’ve opened the hive, they’ve probably built all over the place in there, but I think they could use some more room.

22 July 2024

The weekend of cousins visiting was a success. When playing in the pool one of the kids broke a pipe that sprays water and Alex said the prophesy was fulfilled of having guests break things, but unlike other guests it was fixed before they left. This concludes the end of my Summer visitors and with my princess back in daycare this week I’m going to lay in bed as much as possible to recover. The past couple weeks I’ve been having mucus build up in my throat causing me to cough a lot during the nights, it’s created some bad sleep for the queen and I. Now that I’ve got some time to rest she got me a steroid pack and we can get back to normal life. Some highlights from the weekend were celebrating my birthday with a big key lime flavored cake, so big that by the end of the weekend there was still half of a cake left. Having a traditional cake and everyone gathered around the dinner table was nice. Another nice experience was laying down a tarp inside so the kids could do some painting together. During the painting a wasp got in the house and the room we were painting in has a tall ceiling, maybe 20 ft, it made for the comical scene chasing the bug around with a long pool skimmer. The final night we played some bird board game on the Nintendo switch, it took hours and at the end of the night it was just the brothers talking. It’s nice to develop this new adult relationship, we all grew up sharing a room and needed some personal space after that. When it came to picking favorites or characters to related to everyone had to have their own to be an individual. Coming together now everyone provides a piece that makes up the family.

19 July 2024

Alex arrived safely and we were able to record the podcast last night without a hitch. Well the only hitch I can think of was that the headphones he normally wears have a USB end instead of AUX which I’m used to for headphones. We shared my computer and there are only two USB slots which are taken up by the camera and microphone, I did have spare headphones, so it wasn’t a big deal. Since he’s doing tourist activities today with The Ben, I have time now to edit the video while the princess naps. We spent most of the afternoon yesterday swimming and his queen was very helpful with my princess which is not something I’m used to. Normally I’m having to clean up the messes behind my visitors and making sure they don’t break anything. The princess is well behaved compared to a lot of people in my life. Today the princess and I took a walk down to the pole barn since she likes to visit the buggie and my mind is always on the grass. There is some grass that grows around the barn that the landscaper didn’t cut since it’s on the other side of the woods and most people wouldn’t even know its there or that it belongs to me. I was staring at that grass hoping the tractor repair guy doesn’t take too long, he said he would order a part I need as the bolt did break and the spindle needs replacing. The part shouldn’t take too long, but you never know, still that’s the annoyance of grass and nature, it’s always closing in on us. Once people are back in the house I’ll be too distracted to think about silly grass. 

18 July 2024

The queen had ordered a car shaped pool float for our princess and yesterday I inflated it, she is obsessed with it. The float has been very helpful in keeping her entertained in one spot, she’ll sit in it pretending to drive and do whatever else she needs to. The princess was eating in the float and when it came time for bed she carried it with her, I was sad to separate her from it. This morning “car” was the first word out of her mouth and she had her breakfast in it, she’ll probably be more excited when she finds out that it can be used in the pool. We’ll have to get her an actual car she can ride around in soon, then it’s only a matter of time until she has something motorized. With Prime day, I was able to take advantage of other shopping and got some weights. Ordering a barbell, curl bar, and bumper plates completes everything I want to have in my gym. The barbell I got was 40 lbs instead of of 45 that I think is standard, but it was a third of the price as the 45 lbs bars I had seen. Now all I need is more energy to exercise. Currently I’ve been increasing my daily stretching since I think tightness in my legs has been creating tension in my back. My brother should be arriving in about an hour, so I wanted to take this time to write. I realized that since the brothers visiting are on the podcast, they’re public figures and I can say their names. Since we’re all kings and priests it’s helpful to use an actual name when speaking of them. If you’re a fan of the podcast you’ll already be familiar with Alex and The Ben.

17 July 2024

This morning I took the princess to a park. She loves slides and the playground here had three of them. After going down the smallest slide she approached the big spiral slide, looked down it and said, “No.” Then walked away back to the small slide. That’s fine by me, I like seeing that she has the ability to judge when something is too dangerous and she’ll back away. There was another section that was like steps made of pipes, she went up the first two before getting back on solid ground. After a little time playing she was ready for the big slide and had no problem with it, she even went back again and again. My friend with the new baby said babies and birth are so amazing, why does the news report on anything else. Watching her explore the park was a lot of fun, there were trash cans she’d check out and say “hot” when she touched them. Then she wanted to get into the public grills there, but they were full of ash and I was not interested in dealing with that mess. After we got home and had lunch she grabbed her blanket and laid under it, in the living room, because she knows what time it is. My queen and I often talk about how important routine is, we hear about lots of babies that still don’t have a sleep schedule and this little lady is putting herself to bed. We’ll probably do more swimming this afternoon and my brother will be arriving tomorrow, so I don’t know whether I’ll have time to write. The next day another brother arrives and the cousins, this place is about to turn into a mad house, it’ll be a lot of fun.