More mulch, do it yourself, return to running, another one wheeler

Saturday morning I was up and outside early.  After doing the chicken clean up I hit the yard chores like weeding and weed whacking.  I turned the pool equipment back on after leaving it off overnight as the pool guy recommended so the freshly cemented joints could dry.  I was not thrilled when later in the day I noticed another wet spot by the plumbing.  It was coming from the back flow valve that was part of the heater install.  There was a very steady drip.

I sent pictures of the leak to the pool guy along with a description.  He called me back and suggested I try to tighten the connector on the valve as it is threaded.  He said it was possible his other work may have caused it to loosen up.  Luckily I had a big pipe wrench.  I turned the valve very slightly, skeptical that I would be successful.  However it appeared the drip did cease as the concrete pad stayed dry from that point on.

After I was done in the yard Cindy and I did a Rural King/Home Depot run.  At Home Depot we just planned to get some mulch, both the conventional and the rubber variety to refresh more landscaped areas that were chicken casualties.  We wound up getting some shelving material as well for a seat of the pants project, building a shelf in the master bathroom.

The bathroom counter in our bedroom has a large chunk of dead space under the drawer.  It’s something that always bugged me to some degree for the last 16 years but I never acted on it.  Well since Cindy repainted the bathroom and we installed the new faucet this seemed as good of a time as any to do it.  Cindy had been looking at some stuff online but none of it was a great fit to the dimensions we had so building something seemed like a good option.

I have built other things out of this shelving material before, most notably the dog food platforms.  We had a drawing of the approximate dimensions we were going to use.  The construction process took place outside the large shed.  We used the Honda generator for power for the saw.  Like most projects I do, this one was organic where construction plans change on the fly.

When we thought we were done the first time I stood back and eyeballed the shelf.  One of the rectangles formed by the shelving was whacked, despite us using a level to try to keep everything squared up.  Luckily we were able to just remove the screws of the affected shelves and reattach them in a more visually congruent method.  The shelf looked good in the bathroom although I miscalculated slightly.  When we picked the width of the shelf which would leave just enough room for the trashcan we forgot to add in the width of the shelving pieces, meaning the trash can no longer would fit.  That problem will be addressed by a new trash can.

I was tired of doing work so late afternoon I threw two of my wheels in the back of the truck.  I brought my low end $200 wheel to do some going backwards practice, not wanting to damage my expensive Msuper from all the falling that is part of learning to ride the opposite direction.  As expected I struggled a lot, not able to go more than a couple feet before falling off the wheel.  Once I scraped open my ankle I called it quits. In addition to the EUC video I also shot a 10,000 mile review of the Tacoma.

Saturday night Cindy and I stayed home and watched The BFG.  I thought the movie was sweet, endearing and very well done, an A rental.

Saturday night was a rough one in the sleep department due to dog activity.  Since Katie has moved in with us most weekends she is out late at night.  Well Bowser does not do well if left alone so Cindy has been trying to stay up with him.   Katie was out extra late Saturday night and Cindy was exhausted so she tried leaving Bowser in Katie’s room which seemed ok at first however he eventually started barking.  Elsa, who has been having some bathroom accidents lately had another one in early in the AM which was another prolonged sleep disturbance.  If I was lucky I may have gotten four hours of sleep Saturday night.

When we were up from the dogs I turned off the 6AM alarm to go run as I did not want to wake up Cindy if at all possible.  I instead woke up on my own around 7 and headed out.  I planned a very conservative run of two miles to see how my knee/IT band would respond.

I was hoping for some nice cool weather to run in.  Instead it was warm, humid and incredibly foggy.  The thermometer in the truck read 74 degrees.  I could instantly tell the nearly two month layoff from running was impacting me.  The run was slow and steady with some pain in my right leg early on that evened out as I continued.  Today it doesn’t feel horrible which is a positive.

When I got home Cindy was still in bed so I wanted to allow her to sleep as much as possible.  I went straight outside and did the chicken clean up in just my running shorts, the sweaty shirt went right in the laundry.

We had talked Saturday about going for a ride Sunday but it took until late morning for that to happen until Katie woke up from her late night.  We decided to go to the Greenway again since Cindy said she likes practicing there.  I brought both her wheel and the Minipro just in case she changed her mind.

It was a big day, Cindy made her most progress to date, riding at least a couple hundred feet without support multiple times as well as pulling off a couple free standing mount and goes in addition to some clean dismounts.  Her wheel hit the ground a few times but for the most part Cindy was able to bail cleanly which is another important skill.  It was funny, for the first time ever it was Cindy being the one extending the riding timeline.  She was actually having fun and excited as she kept building on her accomplishments.  Katie was sitting on a bench as Cindy kept chugging along. I was proud of her.  On the drive home Cindy talked a lot about how much fun she had.  Even though she had been able to stay upright prior to yesterday, I think yesterday was her true “click” moment where she actually was able to feel the fun instead of the fear.

Yesterday afternoon I made a run to Autozone to get coolant for Katie’s truck.  The Ram is losing coolant somewhere and more than once Katie has had to stop because the truck overheated as a result.  I could not see an obvious coolant leak but I wanted to make sure she at least had coolant on hand so she doesn’t get stranded.

To be honest her truck is a mess.  It costs a ton to operate between gas and repairs and is pretty much the worst possible vehicle she could own based on her current circumstances.  Cindy has tried to urge Katie to think about getting more sensible transportation but so far that effort has been unsuccessful.  If I have learned one thing living with a 23 year old is they don’t welcome advice much at all, regardless of the experience that leads to it.

The rest of the day I mostly chilled out with a lot of WoW thrown in.  I am hoping today is filled with a lot of what I feel like doing, my work quota for the three day weekend has been fulfilled.