The Productive Life
7/11/2012
Thus ends my three solo days with Wendi at work and Xander at Martha and Mary Kids' Camp. Starting tomorrow, the Mrs. and I will attempt to keep out of each other's hair. I have plenty left on my To-Do list, though it's much shorter than it was Monday morning.
Said morning, I chainsawed up the rest of the tree that fell now two winters ago. We still have a bit of firewood left over from last year but I get such a feeling of comfort from having way too much winter supplies. Bring on Snowpocolypes!
And after that came the actual falling of a still upright tree. Granted, it was mostly dead but an ax and a bow saw were required to bring down its 20-some feet of Madrona-ee goodness.
Truth be told, my original plan had been to chop down it's 40' big brother. We hate Madronas, it's not by any breakable structure and we've been told for years how great the firewood is. But when friend L swung by last week and heard my plans, he hinted maybe I should invite him over to help shout timber (!) while at the ready to dial 911 as I was likely to injure myself. That made me think, "Damn...if L thinks this is a nutty idea..."
So the smaller tree it was. One unfortunate result of my information based economy career is that working an ax for even a short amount of time left me with blisters on my hands. It's a tragedy as I have always found chopping wood very calming. Guess bringing down an irregular shaped but still upright tree and splitting uniformly sawed rounds of wood are different skill sets.
Be that as it may, the timing was somewhat bad timing as that was also the day I needed to take my "specimen" into the Group Health Lab. No doubt I'm paranoid but it did seem the lab tech spent just a half-second too long looking at my band aids as she (gingerly) took the specimen bottle.
But, warming my (delicate) hands by an open fire this winter will be nice. Of course, I'll need to find a place to hide most of it as Wendi has allotted only a pitiful amount of space in the garage for burnables storage. And us with our new fire-pit as well. Maybe under a tarp outside.
Another project completed was redoing the emergency supplies in both the car and house. The first involved mostly restocking medicines. It won't matter if we've got jumper cables, water, bug juice and rain coats (though we do), IF Wendi finds herself broken down in Pretty Mouth, GA without any "feminine products", it's Game Over.
As for the house supplies, restocking mostly involved food. The bottled water needn't be replaced, despite the sell-by date, so I just needn't some more canned goods for the zombie apocalypse. It was a trip to Costco, looking for the longest lasting grub to be found. Settled on 2 SIX pound cans of chili 'cause it's nourishment and heat all in one. And they'll be good for over two years.
You laugh but those two cans of joy will be like gold when the Big One hits.
I also bough a flat of canned satsumas since, well, when your other big plan is TWELVE pounds of Costco chili, you really can't have too much fiber on hand.
Another big ticket item now on the "fini" list is renewing my teaching certificate. I've still almost one year left on it but getting too close to a deadline makes me paranoid. (Hmmmm..there may be a psychological pattern here.)
So I got my clock hour transcript, filled out the form, wrote out the check and popped it into the mail today. Now I wait for RD, our beloved Superintendent of Public Instruction, to give me a call saying I misspelled my name or that all my clock hours were just the District playing a joke on me.
Pretty much every time I do this (twice a decade), I think I sure hope this is the last for this foolishness. A national boards certificate would be nice but doing all the work only to have the stipend taken away by Olympia would kill me. Guess I'm a can of chili half-empty kind of guy. This state's broken my heart too many times before.
Well, I should probably wrap this thing up. Wouldn't want to over stay my welcome. (Anyone? Anyone?)
Some of you I will see at the Bistro tomorrow and those I don't, it's probably better that way.
Long Live Costco Bean Products!!!
Brian