It's 8: 05. It's Time to Rock

I have been keeping particularly busy attending to and completing a long list of overdue chores. Connor has been working with a personal fitness trainer who recently broke down the numbers and calorie load he should be striving to achieve to best support his health goals. He then gave him the standard old school chicken and rice and beans menu that body builders have choked down for 100s of years. Connor quickly learned how to cook those meals so he was able to cook for himself while we were gone. But the plan was getting stale after a month and so I set out to created a detailed spreadsheet with three books worth of healthy recipes listed and the Macro breakdowns for each.

Thus allowing me to plan a menu that hits his targets but mixes it up with some tastier treats. From there I determine the number of of servings needed for each recipe for the week and make a shopping list. We are sampling different foods each week to see what he likes and spending a day prepping his meals for a week. It makes for a long day of cooking but it minimizes the total amount of dishes and total cooking time opening up my evenings for other activities.

Connor was uncertain that my plans were meeting his needs so he had me pop in to his training session and talk with his coach who gave the effort a thumbs up and suggested I put together his clients meal plans. Then he suggested I come in for a consultation for my own training. Hmmm... perhaps we can come to a mutually agreeable quid pro quo. I will have to explore that possibility with him.

Which leads me to another thing I have been busy working on .. my resume! It is updated and I am about ready to start putting it out there by the end of the week. There is a company just down the road that is hiring behavioral specialists for Autistic individuals. I'm perfectly qualified and aiming my first application that way. First, however, I have a few home maintenance items on my task list that must be attended to before I am ready to walk out the door.

I am almost done with the painting. A few months ago, I had done the main entrance, stairwell, and upstairs landing in the same color as I did the laundry/mud room entrance. With that came a need to refresh of the white borders and doors. I had finished the downstairs trim but not the stairwell or upstairs for a couple of reasons. Connor had been working the night shift which kept me from getting busy just outside his door during his sleeping time and also I had to wait until my knees where in a good place for it.. I had not realized how much white there was to be done, The second coat will be finished by the end of the week. After I finished up the main entrance way, I decided that the guest half bath also required a change of color. I took it from a baby shit green/brown to a brighter blue. It may not be the right shade and its glossy (it was left over from another bathroom job) but it sure is prettier and blends visually into the hallway much easier.

In other around the house news, Connor got his first real lesson on running a chainsaw as we took down a wild walnut tree. We have enough shade and are rethinking the design of the backyard to better accommodate our garden. We have set aside the winter to plan it out.

Greg annual employee appreciation party was last weekend. We spent Saturday by the lake while attendees played softball and corn hole and I the scenery and spent some time catching up with faces I vaguely remember from last year. It was a gorgeous day for it.

I came across this little posting online and found it... well... surprising.

Not because of the content. But because my daughter is not alone in this. A few years ago she made a rather clear that my use of dots... caused her great anxiety. I thought it was just endemic of her personally. But it seems it is really a thing. Doesn't High School still teach grammar? Or am I just an old grouch?

So what else is there to finish? Well the plumbing and sewer guys will be here in the morning to fix a stinking mess of a problem. I've been running buckets, from the septic main, up and out of the basement daily for a couple of months. I'm ready for that to be taken care of once and for all.

Located next to the leak is a problem of another beast. 3 years ago I had a water heater installed for the specific purpose of radiant heating in the side wing of the house where my office is. This summer I had another HVAC company in to work on my AC and while the tech was here he noticed that the cap on that heater was not secured and was askew. He took a few minutes to right the cap and then he checked the system. It was emitting CO in the 1000s of ppm (in other words it was in the deadly range and we are extremely lucky. I had only installed one CO meter upstairs and it didn't catch it. I have since installed 3 more through out) and the exhaust vent is practically at grade when it needs to be quite a bit higher. I made another appointment with them to clean the unit and fix the venting. So the tech returned and cleaned the filthy system. Only after cleaning and testing the system did he realize that the heater installed was built to use natural gas. We are running propane. This is a matter I need to approach and escalate with the original company and so I will be attending to that ASAP.

I have also been filling in the cracks in the pool deck and getting the pool ready to be put to bed on Friday. Which is really only one little part of the whole winterize the yard process which is underway. Once done with that we will get the indoor garden started. And there are a few other more minor items to get done.. by Monday. Can I get it all done by Monday? That is what I am aiming for anyway.