12 June 2024

There’s a lot of mowing that needs to be done, last night my mower belt got delivered. I installed the belt and mowed some grass around the pole barn to make sure everything was working. The new bolts I got to attach the pulley covers worked well. An unexpected problem was some bug had covered the hole where the key goes with dirt, I was able to push the key through and pull it out enough times to clear the dirt so I could start the mower. Hopefully I’ll get a good chunk of grass done today, first the bees are overdue for a feeding. The process of feeding the bees has gotten pretty streamlined and it shouldn’t take long. With starting to mow again I also started up my audiobook, and the place in the book(Chronicles of Narnia) I left off at was right before the characters were to begin a new adventure, so I felt it was appropriately timed. All I can think of now is going around in circles cutting grass, I’m going to do that and will let you know tomorrow how it went. There will also be more mowing tomorrow and then again next week.

11 June 2024

After dropping the baby off this morning I swung by ACE hardware again since last time I forgot to look for lawn mower belts and other things. The store didn’t carry belts big enough, the other items on my list were more sand to weigh down a shade canopy and a hose for a refrigerator ice maker. After the last sand debacle I layed a tarp in my trunk and told my wife of course it won’t make a mess this time, it was even worse as the store was sold out of sand bags. Thankfully I did get the hose I needed for the fridge, we’ve been waiting a long time for this part as I’ve been trying to figure out what the part we needed was exactly. Last night my wife was able to do some research and solve the question, I know there are gaps in how I learn and am eager for her to help with projects. Manual labor is no problem for me, but I read fairly slow making the research side of things take a long time. Once I was home I was able to connect the hose while boiling some water to make syrup for the bees. After that I needed to do mowing around the pool with the push mower and I made some walking paths to the woods and trampoline since it’s the best I can do. There are ant hill on the boarder of the pool grass and I finally got around to spraying them. Finally I used the head trimmers to clean up a couple areas, first was where a tree was removed earlier this year, the roots underground had sprouted branches in about a 30 foot area. Since I don’t want to risk driving the mower over the stump area I needed to clear that up, then I trimmed back bushes that were touching the house. Here’s a photo of a cute church I saw on the way to ACE.

10 June 2024

Hopefully everyone had a good weekend, I don’t remember much from my weekend, so I assume it was pretty standard with a lot of baby games. My daughter started showing affection to a stuff Mickey mouse, it’s the first time she’s really played with a stuffed animal. She likes to push a toy stroller around and whenever I’ve tried to put something in the seat she will immediately throw it on the ground. As I was leaving this morning I noticed another limb had fallen from the dead tree. Before I had mentioned a tree that is dead and doesn’t know it, this is a tree that is dead and knows it, thankfully it’s fairly straight and unlikely to fall over because dealing with a tree that big would be a pain. The limbs on the tree have been falling down with some regularity and I stack them at the trunk. It’s not very visible in the photo, but the limb that fell last night was hanging over the driveway, it was the only one I’ve worried about falling as I drive under. The branches that broke from the fall were easy enough to clean up, the limb luckily made a bridge over the water way as not to disturb anything because it’s not getting moved anytime soon. Over the next couple months it will continue to degrade and I’ll jump on it to break it into manageable pieces. An event that did happen over the weekend was my Youtube channel for the podcast hit 100 subscribers, it was only a couple weeks ago that I was getting excited about getting 40 and as I write this it’s already up to 119. Once the ball gets rolling it gathers momentum. There’s a lot of individual skills I’ve improved to create that growth and I imagine there are more I will have to learn in order to get to higher levels.

7 June 2024

On the podcast last night I talked about how every task becomes more complicated with a kid. We went to the grocery store this morning and there were plenty of example of how the shopping was made more complicated. Even though we’re only driving 10 minutes down the road, we’ve got to have snacks packed and a bottle of milk. Of course I’m always paranoid an employee is going to think she’s eating store food, so I put snacks in sandwich bags. Before even starting the car, my daughter wanted some time driving it and pressing buttons. Then we were off and in that short drive she finished her milk, this can be a scary situation because milk is the best way to calm her from a tantrum. Thankfully there were no major meltdowns today, just a gradual dislike of being in the shopping cart, it started with taking her boots off and I had to help take her socks off since she could reach them. In all her twisting she somehow managed to get both legs in one of the leg holes. Around that we had gotten to the check out and the cashier must of have been newer since the person before me got a lot of produce and she had to keep asking what things were than looking them up. She was young and I remember working as a grocery store cashier when I was 17 doing the exact same thing. By the time we were up I needed to be holding baby to avoid a fight. For fun she likes to jump out of my arms, so task was complicated by keeping a hold of her, putting the bags in my cart and finding my wallet with one hand. When it’s all done she gives me a hug and it’s worth it. 

6 June 2024

Not much got done the past couple days, I needed some rest, can’t keep burning the candle at both ends. Allergies are hitting hard this year as we’re not in a warmer climate, there are plants growing here that couldn’t at our previous location, I can even grow citrus now. The ball is back rolling today, I went to ACE hardware to get screws for the mower and some sandbags for an umbrella holder. As I was loading up one of the two sandbags I felt some sand on my hand and decided it wasn’t a big deal. Fast forward to when I’ve arrived at home and my trunk was a sandy mess, that’s what happens when you’re in a rush caring about time over quality. Then I had to waste more time cleaning up the sand than I would have if I swapped it for a new bag. Finishing up with the sand I had some podcast ideas I wanted to record, so I knocked that out and while I was dressed in my kingly outfit, took some photos for thumbnails. The program Canva has been helpful in a lot of image creation, it even utilizes AI. There hadn’t been a purpose for AI in my life until now, people would show different images it creates, but they had no value; it was just a trick. I believe in fine art as art where the reality of paint strokes can be felt. AI is useful to me for churning out images quickly as ascents. Now I’ll do some editing of the stuff I created and we’re recording tonight. We’re past all the shocking content, so it’ll be nice to relax with some multidimensional musings. 

4 June 2024

Today is the earliest my replacement mower belt can arrive, checking on the tracking it doesn’t seem likely. To prepare and possibly speed things up I’ll go to ACE hardware and see if they sell the belt I need, I need to go there anyway for bags of sand and to match a screw. The sand is for the base of an umbrella stand and the screw is actually mower related. Around the mower belt pulleys are metal covers held in place by two screws, I’m guessing I hadn’t been tightening them all the way and have lost two screws. Since there is a pully on each side I still have enough to attach one cover, but I’m hoping to find some replacements at the store. Since my Youtube presence has gotten off the ground I turned my attention towards Spotify today. Every platform has it’s own rules and regulations, it gets frustrating trying to fit them all. Even this website has it’s limitations. In making an ad for my podcast I needed to record a 30 second audio clip and got frustrated when I tried to upload it. I recorded on the same platform I record the podcast, so I thought it’d be easy. My first attempt was with an MP3 file, it was rejected telling me it needed to be in stereo, I don’t know what to do with that info as it seemed to be in stereo. Next I reprocessed the clip and saved it as a WAV file, when I tried to upload that, my rejection note was “check creative guidelines”. Too bad there was no link in sight to check those guidelines, I went through a couple programs to record audio until I made progress with Garageband. Thankfully I have been learning Garageband to prepare for making an intro for the show. The problem then was the audio sounded much different, but after some tweaking everything got resolved and submitted, now I can return to the physical world.

3 June 2024

Happy June everyone. Last Friday was indeed a good day, the short video I made did better than I would have ever hoped and my Youtube channel has nearly doubled in subscribers since then. The only goal I know of for Youtube subscribers is 1,000, so I had said we’ll get that by the end of the year. When I said that it felt unrealistic, as time goes on I’m figuring out how the systems work and am gaining speed to where that goal seems more possible. This doesn’t mean all I care about is views and subs, but that’s feedback. For months trying to get feedback from people is like pulling teeth, this is a new endeavor where things are far different than my normal life, any information I can get is useful. The other big event on Friday was at the end of the day I looked out my window and saw the neighbor across the street had put out a UTV for sale. We have been looking at various options for weeks, the conclusion I came to was the nice ones would cost too much and the ones in my price range would leave my mind uneasy. The other problem I was faced with was how to get it home, I don’t have a truck anymore nor a trailer. The vehicle my neighbor put out was in my price range and nicer than anything I was looking at, he even drove it to my doorstep. It’s electric and can be charged with a regular outlet, which is what I was hoping for. Being able to work on a gas engine would be a valuable skill though I’m happier to not deal with one at all. My daughter is obsessed with cars and was screaming with excitement just to sit in it. She’s already claimed it as her own and will push me out of the driver’s seat. 

31 May 2024

The end of the week, the end of the month, and so far it’s a good day. Often on Fridays the baby doesn’t go down for her nap since she doesn’t nap at daycare and it usually takes a day for her to get into our rhythm. She’s sleeping right now which is always the best feeling of accomplishment to get her down. There was also a new Eminem song released today, which if people don’t know I’m an Em stan and am excited that he’s got a new album coming out this Summer. There was some news released yesterday about a former president, since we were recording the podcast last night I shot a video to use on social media and it has been already paid off. In the future I’d like to make at least one relevant short a week since that stuff is popular and what I talk about leans closer to esoteric. A slight negative I came across was that I’ve been trying to get an achievement of five Instagram stories and I learned that it was five in a week, so the ones I had previously done don’t count. Luckily their new week started today and I’ll try to make one everyday for a week and I think that will be another achievement. At this point I rest, I especially need to rest my right arm. My default is to hold the baby in my right arm and lately my elbow has been hurting, consciously shifting her to the left will hopefully be enough to let it recover. There’s a box spring being delivered today, the new bedframe has gaps that cause our mattress and pillows to fall through and a box spring should close that up. Have a good weekend everyone!

30 May 2024

Last night my wife and I was sitting in the bedroom starring at the new furniture, trying to process our life as it still doesn’t make sense. Before the podcast last week I was asking my brother if he remembers the first time he experienced central air. When we were young I remember all of my siblings pilling on my parent’s bed with our faces next to the air conditioner because that was the only AC in the house. At that time my bedroom was shared with my three older brothers and the room itself might have been half the size of the one I’m in now. I still remember those days and try to live like I did then, waste not want not. Today I was putting together an outdoor table and the table was inherited from the previous owners of our previous house, that’s how we acquired a lot of our possessions.  We’ve lived in a lot of places over the years and people leave things behind, or friends will give us something they’re about to throw out. Their trash is our treasure. As I write this I’m sitting at a table that belonged to my wife’s grandmother, we keep it not because it’s special, but because it still works. Avoid unnecessary purchases, I always tell people there’s two ways to get rich, make more money or spend less than you make. It’s nice to be able to buy our own things, I’ll remain cautious not to make a habit of spending. Most of my joy comes from doing work and building something of value anyway. When the moving truck was almost full I told the movers that tools are the most important thing. As a teacher told me, tools don’t cost you money they make you money. 

29 May 2024

We’re getting bedroom furniture today, I’m currently waiting for the delivery. My wife and I have had an expression for years, “it’s happening”, we’d say whenever our plans are becoming real life. We said it last night while getting ready for the delivery and it struck me how much has happened, that we’ve been through so much together. When we started dating everything I owned fit into my car, and it wasn’t a big car, we had to move around the country a couple times as part of the plan. Our last house seemed like a forever home and led us to have a kid, but the job wasn’t right yet. That’s been corrected and in terms of the big stuff it seems like we’ve got everything we wanted from 10 years ago. Now we’re finally settling in with the small stuff. We’ll have dressers, currently my clothes get dumped in a rubbermaid bin after washing them and I think my wife’s sit in a pile. It’s not good to create a pile of warm fabric in your house, I know because over the years there’s been a number of pests found in them. And we’ve faced a couple natural disasters with the places we’ve lived. A flood in Houston had the right up to our doorstep and trapped in the Summer heat with no electricity. We put up with all the bad stuff and kept our eye on the prize, I’m grateful we made it through and to be where we are now. None of it feels real and I’m still processing our life. Most of my time is spent outside because sleeping in the dirt makes more sense to me than living in a nice house. People always talk about wanting their kids to have a better life, I’m happy they get to, but wonder about what is lost by not having to go through those struggles.