Day 12

Well, I am more than 25% through the 40 days, and I have now completed my first week of my new job.

Last Saturday was a very busy day, as we took our visitor Sarah to the beach, attended wedding receptions, and spent time with a friend. I took several pictures and loaded them on to Facebook. Today was busy in a completely different kind of way, and it occurred to me to take pictures of it too, and maybe just turn it into a blog.

I had a lot to do today. One thing about working is less time to get everything else done. I did not get up as early as would have been nice, because I went out last night, but no regrets there. Every now and then it’s good to be social, and I like the odd chance here and there for karaoke.

Many of my tasks were outdoor, kind of messy ones, so I decided to defer showering until it was done. One cannot defer walking the dogs, though, so that was my first task. I nearly got a picture of Jane jumping on me, but she moves too fast. And yeah, we have not broken her of that habit yet.

Blackberry picking is not as taxing as the other things, and I have more shade, so it could have made sense to do that later, but I knew I would not want to go do that after doing the other things, so I went off. I intended to only pick half a bucket, but there were so many ripe ones I went a little over.

Returning with my haul, I headed out to the tree. You see, we have this one corner of yard where the soil isn’t very good, and it’s out of site, so when we had the leftover chunks of concrete from tearing up the pool, we moved them over there. (There are surprisingly few options for disposing of concrete.) We don’t visit that corner of the yard very often, because there is no reason too, and it is kind of hidden away, so I guess this is why we did not notice that a tree was growing, and was now over ten feet tall. At that rate of growth, it would not be long before it was messing with the fence, so it had to come down.

My first step was to get off some branches with the clippers so I could see what I was working with, and somehow the more branches that I got off, the bigger it seemed to grow. I was finally ready to start sawing, and that was discouraging. We just have a hand saw, and it was not making good progress. The area was cramped, which did not help for having full range of motion. I know a small chainsaw or one of those motorized branch trimmers would have done it in an instant, but even if we had one of those, it was close quarters, right near the fence, and I’m clumsy. With a combination pruning shears, saw, and pushing and pulling, I finally got the thing down.

I expected to do some more work on my regular pruning project with the butterfly bushes, but much to my surprise the bin was already full. Yard debris comes Tuesday and next weekend is a three day weekend, so I will get to them.
Finally it was time to wash the car. We don’t wash it very often (home washing is very water inefficient and we try and respect that) but somehow it had gotten much filthier than usual. I don’t mind the washing much, but I hate the vacuuming. I know it is one of those areas where I am not logical—it is the washing part that gets me soaked, and the vacuuming goes really fast—but the hose is already out there, and you have to go get the vacuum, and then the extension cord, and then you have to open up the car and it bugs me. Still, every time I say I am going to wash the car, Mom says “And vacuum?” so obviously it’s important to her.

After that I showered and played on Facebook for a while. We were waiting for Julie and Maria to come home from Julie’s work event at Oaks Park. Then there would be someone here with the dogs, so Mom and I could go to the temple with a clear conscience and no worries about the integrity of the rug.

We ended up getting the 5:30 session. I ran into Safeway to get dinner on the way back, so it was already getting kind of late. Now this is where I have been foolish. The past two days I have had things going on at night, so I took walks before work and read the scriptures at lunch just so I would not have to worry about them. Even with my busy schedule, I felt like I would have plenty of time for them. I was probably the Facebook time. Anyway, that is why I am exercising at 11:30 PM. But I am doing it. And…done!


Grooving in the House (24/60)
Crunches
1st Nephi 8 – 1st Nephi 1