First experiences are the gatekeepers to expanding our comfort zones on well, everything. Some experiences of firsts linger, like losing a loved one for the first time and feeling despair or getting that first kiss and feeling euphoric. We can research and prepare and get ready and dig in our heels, but the hardest step is to take the first one. After that its off to the races and just like that, another first is over. How was the result you ask? It does not matter in the end but the experience of it is what counts, and that experience is what people remember. These first experiences will stay strongly connected in our mind for a long time, but they indeed were still all firsts. In the end it is these experiences that we learn from and write our own life manual. We mirror the experiences when the no longer “first” arrives again and we remember the experience to ourselves as “that wasn’t so bad last time” or “I will never do that again” or “hey I’ve done this before I can do it again”. Each time we repeatedly experience something, our manual receives another line on the page further expanding our experience.
When you think about it, I guess you could picture life as a blank manual with our firsts being the pencil to write down our experiences. Some chapters will end up having multiple pages in excruciating detail of do’s, don’ts and how to’s. While others may have a few lines then being abandoned forever and where some will never be touched at all. Nobody in this world ever will have a completed manual of life, it is not possible, and life is not long enough. But filling up as much as you can with firsts at least lets others know you tried, succeeding or fail which does not matter, but you at least tried and kept the experience for others to explore when they ask questions. So maybe the next time you say “I don’t know the first thing about…” Maybe that is a first that could be worthwhile to experience, and that experience could turn into a couple hundred pages in your manual, or it could be four lines and never explored again. Either way its up to you. Till next time
Opportunities come in the strangest of forms and often slip through our vision before we can recognize them. How many times has one of us investigated the past and thought to ourselves “well shit” knowing that if we had taken the leap, we would be in better position than we are now. Life however is full of twists, turns, and pitfalls while success and happiness will never be found in a straight line. We must essentially force ourselves and train ourselves to recognize opportunity and coincidentally take the bad with the good while we constantly pursue it throughout life.
That pursuit will constantly shift though as we age and become older. I have noticed that the simpler things tend to bring about more happiness in appreciation than many other things I use to perceive as value. Much of the time these events and things are simply just good food, good health, and good company. A moment to relax with friends and/or family can melt away a weeks’ worth of worries. However, I never take my eye off the prize when searching for opportunities, but I tend to do so by letting the ship steer itself and allow it to wander into uncharted waters because as they always say, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. It makes stumbling onto something or exploring something you have never explored before surprise you in the best of ways.
Our family was hit hard with the passing of one of the strongest members of our family. My wifes Pap “Moose” passed at the ripe old age of 87 fighting the whole way to the pearly gates. He was a vibrant man who welcomed everyone in with a kind smile regardless of where you came from. So, now I believe would be a good time to talk about him and give this man a shout out.
Pap was an interesting breed in his own right who believed he could do anything regardless of who told him not to due to his age. That man worked up until the day he left us in one form or another. Whether it be mowing grass, storing the snow blower, decorating for the holidays, or planting flowers the guy didn’t like to sit still and he rarely asked for help but when he did you helped him. My wife and I used to help pap with all sorts of stuff, even with something as small as backing the Tracker in the shed for the winter with each time his statement being “I’d do it but I’m just to damn old to do it.” Those days were always nice outings though, my wife got time to spend with her Gram while Pap and I yelled back and forth to each other (because he couldn’t hear) while simultaneously getting our hands dirty. A strange phenomena is that it never seemed to rain when he needed help outside.
My most recent project Pap and I did was the replace the sump pump in the basement of his house. This old pump had been grinding a way for awhile and Pap had thought a short had ended the pumps life. So as needed he headed off and found a new pump and asked me to help him put it in. We did our due diligence of pulling the pump up after disconnecting everything and then prepping to put the new one in. What gave me a deep insight into this mans thinking was what was connected to the outflow of the pump after we pulled it out of the pit. This pump had probably four different threaded pipe fittings attached to one another to fit between the dump pipe going out of the house and the outflow coming out of the pump. This cobbled together “pipe” consisted of two pvc fittings, a cast iron fitting which was rusted, and a valve fitting, just because it fit. It worked, it was ugly, but it worked. But this made me think that that’s how this guy probably grew up, if he couldn’t make it pretty he could at least make it functional. However if he could make something pretty it was going to be perfect in his eyes or to the best of his abilities. This is how Pap did a lot of things to keep his standard of living going for his whole life and keep his wife, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends happy. In the end we used that same “pipe” on the new pump because it didn’t leak and, well, it worked and we later found out it might be the electrical socket the pump was plugged into that was the problem.
He was never far from being a loving person either. He would always find a way to think of all of his friends and family in one form or another. My focus from Pap was a shoe and shirt depository. If Pap picked something up from the store to wear, and didn’t like it, he’d always ask me if I wanted it before it’d be shipped off to the goodwill. Rarely did I ever turn anything down and I usually put everything he gave me to work. I think I’m down to two shirts and maybe three pairs of shoes. His other family members were supplied with equal focus such as deer baloney for the hunters, tractor rides for his great grand children, tools for his handy relatives, and memories for his friends. Always finding at least five minutes for everyone was one of Paps true shining features that will be sorely missed.
Even despite all of Paps ailments his memory never faltered. He could recollect his memories like a well established bookkeeper and recount stories that would usually end the entire room erupting in laugher with Gram just rolling her eyes and Pap having a huge grin on his face with his feet propped up in his chair.
I’m gonna miss the guy I’m not going to lie, I didn’t know him nearly as long as the rest of the family and am just a blip in comparison but he was fun to talk to and entertaining to be around to the point that I wont ever forget him. So here’s to Moose, rest easy we’ll all see you again someday.
I am sure most of you have heard about the rampant labor shortage barreling across the country like a gorilla. Last month roughly 200,000 jobs were filled with roughly 8.1 Million vacancies between local businesses all the way up to large multinational companies pining for employees and workers to get the economy rolling again. Even my company is feeling the squeeze of having a lack of people to contain the pile of work we have. “No one wants to work” is the phrase I hear in almost every business, store, and restaurant with the cause being unemployment is paying workers more than what they would be paid at their previous employment. I believe this statement to be entirely true to a degree however I do not believe it is all of it. I want to know why. Why don’t people want to go back to work? Is it the sole reason for “not being paid enough” or is there more substance to it than that? Why is my question and I can only speculate but I’d like to think I’m close to the mark considering my own personal experience.
While I was laid off, I suddenly had an extra 50 hours a week to do whatever I wanted. Aside from job hunting and home projects to take care of I was largely on my own. With my wife working and my projects making progress I could do the mundane things I always wanted to do. Things such as sitting outside and listening to the birds or stand at my front window with coffee and watch the sun come up. I could drive the jeep the long way to the grocery store with the top down and decide to see where that one road that I would always pass finally went to. I could stop if I wanted to, I could turn around, I could go slower or faster, I could decide, not the clock, me and no one else. Work did not dictate my time schedule and for once I had most of it to do what I wanted.
I have always said when it comes to money and sanity, sanity will always win out eventually. I have watched six figure salary employees walk out on their job and lifestyle with absolutely zero plan because they are so tired of their job and they have reached the end of their limit. For many people, work taxes their sanity. There are a few people in the world that live to work, but I believe there are an equal or greater number of people that work to live. These people would rather be doing something else or getting something else accomplished rather than working for a paycheck at a job they do not find satisfying. For example, not only did I relax but I was also productive while laid off and accomplished painting my shed, landscaped my yard, built a desk, serviced all the cars, caught up on doctors’ appointments, repaired the house, helped friends, fixed my mower, built a fire pit, and sold a lot of cluttered shit. What was great about this was I could sit down after I was done and not have to look at the clock to make sure I had enough time to do another project or figure out what I had to push off on the next spare minute I had. When the sun went down my day was over, and I went to bed when I was tired. I had complete control and that is the point I am trying to make.
When all of this happened a lot of people had to retain complete control of their lives and it turned into a shit show because everyone was so unfamiliar with it. Now here we are a year later with everything opening back up and Covid-19 circling the drain and we cannot find enough people to keep businesses running. You’d expect people to be getting antsy being cooped up and ready to get back to work and harvest a paycheck, but this pandemic showed people that not only what its like to live with some financial security but also to live with freedom and control of their own decisions rather than adhering to the rules of the economic world. I think the latter reason is going to be a harder obstacle than most people think. Yes, many companies will adjust pay, benefits, perks, etc to offset the “unfair” pay for service workers however that net will only cast so wide. I truly think many of these people are lost to the corporate working world and we will see an entrepreneurial boom in the coming months / years just so all these people can retain the freedom of their own choices that they’ve acquired being laid off and quarantined and not have to put up with the rules of the managers, bosses, or corporate. I am not going to lie that a 14-hour day of my own making sounds more enticing than working 8 to 10 hours at a company. Be your own boss so to speak and where we live and die by our own choices rather than a faceless bean counter. Maybe it is because it is something I would have created, and my survival depends solely on how much effort I put into it. Just some food for thought, it makes me wonder what will come from these upcoming months and how our country will react. We gave people money and complete freedom from the daily grind. One of those is going to be harder to separate people from than the other.
Normally I can write anything on this blog and “shoot the shit” so to speak to keep my material flowing. I am sure to say though at this point I am kind of at a loss of what to write about. It happens from time to time and seems to happen for various reasons if not multiples at once. Maybe my brain just shut down for a short period and is refusing to conjure up anything with any real substance except for some stupid thoughts. Like why dandelions always sprout up shortly after I mow grass.
I mowed these bastards down so why do they grow back so high the following day(s). Damn things are making my yard look like its missing an abandoned car out front. Another is those sticker weeds that look like crab grass until you pull at them and only to find the leaves are covered in those hair thin prickles. I hate those things too; they make you think twice about walking around barefoot outside. Although at the same time I think I run a higher risk of stepping in deer/dog/skunk/fox/bird poop in my yard. Speaking of foxes, we have a new squatter in our little section of earth.
We saw this fox (we think it’s a male) about a week ago chasing the birds in our yard and he decided it was prime hunting ground for a flying snack. I saw him again over the weekend at about a 10-foot distance. He was chasing a bird around our pine trees and stopped right in front of me while I was standing on the porch and after a brief two second staring contest, we both jetted back in opposite directions. I’m not afraid of foxes but I am an advocate of wildlife and tend to try not to mess with it especially if its hunting. Live and let be, so to speak. That is the first time I have seen a fox on our land in over a year though and in the daylight.
Aside from that there’s not much to mention, the jeeps growing cobwebs since the weather keeps staying cold, our lilies are HUGE this year so far as well as my burning bushes and barberry bushes, and I built an herb box for outside for quick access in the summer. That herb box was probably the most expensive thing I have crafted in the last few months due to the price of lumber, which is ridiculous. Anyway, that’s all I have, I’ll try to come up with something better next time.
Camping has multiple definitions depending on the person. On one side of the spectrum you have a person whos version of camping is to grab an RV and go travel with all amenities available at your disposal, to a certain limitation, while still experiencing the great outdoors. On the other side of the spectrum you see people going camping with a backpack and a knife no rations or food and maybe a sleeping bag with the full intent on creating a shelter once they get there. My views sit with both sides but more so with convenience and ease of travel. If I cant fit my essentials in the back of my tiny compartment in my jeep I don’t need it and I’ll make due in the bush. You can still go camping with weight reduction and still have a good time, as long as you’re not in it for the long haul.
Simple supplies are as follows for a few days, now remember I can squeeze this in the back of two door jeep with the seat so its doable as long as I can reach the camping site within reasonable walking distance
Essentials
Sleeping bag (duh)
Light weight collapsible top controlled tent – these are made anymore to be the size of a sports folding chair when packed up, also make sure you have the rain fly regardless of what the weather says. Nothing is wrong with a tent and poles but my buddy found one of these a couple years back and they make teardown a breeze.
Cot or sleeping sponge – probably the most unnecessary thing I take with me but unless I’m sleeping on a patch of moss my body will find that lone rock to poke into my back all night. Also in case it rains it keeps me off the ground and dry. I don’t care what anyone says, if it rains the floor of the tent is getting wet, fight me.
Food – This ones tricky with many schools of thought but I cheat. Canned soup with a POP TOP, an oven mitt or canning jar tongs and a spoon. Crack the top of the soup can and place it near the fire and wait. Once done pull the soup out of the fire with the oven mitt or tongs. Make sure you pick something hearty so you stay full for awhile. It can also be eaten cold in case there is rain, it sucks but its edible. Pro Tip, if the soup isn’t enough after you eat it a friend of mine used to take a baggie of rice to can and water ratio and make rice in the empty soup can. It had some pretty good flavor. Easy, lightweight, and resourceful.
Water – two gallons for consumption only unless there is an emergency or three if I can fit it into the Jeep. Most designated camping spots have springs nearby if you can find them. Don’t bet money on the spring so just take the water with you.
Med pack – Pick one up at your local shopping center and treat it like owning a plunger. “Its better to have it an not need it than need it and not have it.”
Toothbrush and toothpaste – This is the only essential hygiene thing I need for any camping trip. Cleaning your teeth every day will make your stay in the bush a thousand times better.
Lighter or waterproof matches – This is probably the most essential requirement for camping. Use it to start your fire and keep you from freezing your ass off. They cost a buck go get a couple or grab a box of waterproof matches.
Change of clothes – If you sweat you get wet, if it rains you get wet, and getting wet not only affects your comfortability but also your body temperature. Assume you’re going to get wet and pack accordingly to the weather ahead of time. Double up on socks and underwear and assume you’re going to shit yourself or step into a puddle at least twice. While changed make sure to dry your wet clothes by the fire.
Non Essentials but helpful
Shower supplies – After a few days in the bush everyone feels grungy and smelly but taking a full bottle of soap and shampoo with you out to the camp spot can be a pain in the ass. Instead pick up those travel bottles for a buck at your local shopping center. They sell both soap and shampoo in liquid form and they’re lightweight and the caps are resistant to abuse and designed for travel so they shouldn’t leak. Grab a microfiber towel or a hand towel to dry yourself off with, they dry you off better than you’d think. If you don’t have a water source nearby i.e. creek, waterfall, spring, they do make dry soaps and shampoos that’ll hold you over for a day or two but they’re usually in an air compressed can or powder form and are bulky.
Toilet paper – Yes toilet paper is an essential need for human function in most cases but I cannot stand traveling with it. Its bulky, annoying, limited, and almost always always always gets wet somehow, even when you place it in a plastic bag. However it is better than wiping your ass with poison ivy or dry leaves and comes in handy when you have it for more than wiping especially if you need to plug a wound quickly and cant get to the med pack. Pro tip, I use creek rocks or river rocks. They’re smoothed out do the job and when you’re done you don’t have to carry them to the fire where people are eating and breathing to dispose of it, just toss them back into the creek. Don’t believe me? Try it once, you’ll thank me.
Hatchet – This will make cutting apart deadwood easier but its not required. Its perk is it helps keep your campsite organized and also helps remove obstacles out of your way as well as chopping firewood into the appropriate sizes for starter, kindling, and logs. Keep it sharp if you take it.
Magnifying glass or a 9V Battery with steel wool – Rudimentary fire starters in case your lighters or matches are unavailable. The magnifying glass is self explanatory, use the sun to focus the energy onto your firepit and get it going. With the steel wool stick it under some kindling you’d like to light and tap it with the battery prongs. This’ll create a short and heat up the steel wool and in turn heat up the kindling for a fire.
These are just a few in a long list of things to make my life easier when out camping with a few friends. Most of the time this is common knowledge among the group so if someone forgets something there is a good chance someone else has one in stock, more hands make less work eh? Also, our choice of camping spot is usually deep in the thick but not too far away from civilization, usually an hour walk will find us some help if we really need it. I’ll continue on with this in the next write up so sit tight.
Food is one of the staples that hold our house together. Whether its grilled ribs, homemade Caesar salad, spring rolls with peanut sauce, or mac and cheese, we love it all and we eat it all. I love cooking, its one of my favorite hobbies that never seems to get me frustrated or annoyed and thanks to bulk buying on so many groceries if you mess up you can usually start over and try again. But seriously though have you ever tried to shop for one, it is impossible. We have a hard enough time buying just enough for two of us without having to throw stuff away. So today I’m going to go over a few of my favorite meals starting with one we just had last night and why I use some of the ingredients I use as well as a few tips and tricks I use. Also, PS you will not have to scroll for 30 minutes through a life story to get to my advice, I hate that BS.
First is chicken with Yellow Curry and Jasmine rice. This one is easy with the most important ingredient being patience. Seriously, the lack of patience is what fucks up every single dish a cook makes. Find a bag of jasmine rice and start boiling a cup of water. Once the water boils place a cup of the rice in boiling water and crank it down to simmer throw a lid on it and let it sit for 15 minutes. While that’s going dice up some chicken breast and throw it in a pan with a splash of oil (I use olive oil) and some ground cumin seasoning, stir to coat. Once the chicken starts burning off its wastewater toss in a jar of yellow curry, stir to coat the chicken and turn the heat down to simmer. Now we wait, once the rice is done remove it from the heat and wait on the chicken. Once the chickens done serve it as desired, I make a bed of rice and throw the chicken curry on top or you can mix it all together, or separate it, or whatever you wanna do I’m not a cop. For some extra razzle dazzle, you can throw in some broccoli with the chicken and curry. Get a bag of that frozen, microwave in a bag (I know don’t say it) and heat it up to get the broccoli softened, drain, and add it in with the chicken. It makes plenty for two to three people and is quick.
This dish’s star ingredient is the jasmine rice. This rice sucks up the flavor to almost any dish you put it in and makes it better in my opinion. The only drawback is that it takes 15 minutes for almost all kinds to prepare but its worth the wait. Not like that box of minute rice, I don’t hate minute rice but its more filler than contributor to a dish.
The next one is easy chipotle chicken salad. We use a lot of shortcuts on this one which is what makes it fast. The hardest thing you’ll have to do is shred chicken and boil eggs. First gather everything up you’ll need. A grocery store rotisserie chicken, celery, mayo, adobo sauce (or chipotle sauce), and eggs. Boil water and get the eggs going for about 15 minutes, in the meantime start shredding up your chicken and toss it into the bowl you’re going to store the salad in. Once the eggs are boiled and the chicken is shredded, start mincing or dicing the celery and place those in the bowl with the shredded chicken. Next peel the eggs, cut em up, and add them in the bowl stirring everything up. Now for the last two ingredients, little by little start adding spoonful’s of mayonnaise until the chicken salad is to your desired consistency. Don’t over do this because once the mayo is in its not easy to get out. Now do the same thing with the adobo sauce by adding a little bit at a time but I suggest using a teaspoon, this stuff can get hot if you find the true stuff. After you’ve added the desired amount of both mayo and adobo sauce, mix it all together and ta da you’re done. This usually takes us about 20 minutes to come up with and lasts us a couple days.
Our star ingredient in this dish is the adobo sauce that makes the chipotle taste. Adobo sauce by itself is difficult to find but a cheap shortcut is to find a can of chipotle peppers. These canned peppers usually are soaked in adobo sauce so you’ll want the juice of the can. Wegmans is the only place I’ve found stand alone adobo sauce.
Finally, is Chili. There are literally 1000’s of recipes online for chili and everyone has their own recipe that Old Grammy Haberdasher used to make in the depression with grass from outside and the linings of your cardboard shoes. Shut your butt we’re here with quick and easy, not that stuff. Ground beef, bell pepper, onion, corn (I like throwing corn in mine), red beans, a can of crushed tomatoes, chili powder and the old salt and pepper. Get a big pot and brown a pound or two of hamburger in it, once that’s good and toasty go ahead and drain it…or not. I drain some but not all of it because you’ll need it for the next step. Next chop up the bell pepper and onion and toss them into the pot to get them softened. Once things start to soften up crank the heat down to low and add chili powder, salt, and pepper. Stir all that in like crazy and let it simmer. Once complete add in the corn and crushed tomatoes and beans (drain the beans) and let sit for a while or until warm. Add salt and pepper until you’ve reached desired taste and boom easy chili. If you’re feeling really fancy make sure you had a fistful of pepper jack cheese.
Chili to me has always been considered garbage can soup and tastes better in a crock pot. You can throw everything in it and it’ll still taste awesome to some degree. However for quick, dirty, and delicious this recipe is a good addition so all ingredients play a part.
That’s all I have for now and remember if you have to turn the stove top heat up to 10 to get your desired heat you are not a cook and you are breaking my stove, you know who you are! Real cooks never push anything past 6, have some patience.
I have driven a lot of junk growing up and when I mean junk, I mean nothing that I drive ever really looks…nice but it’s usually functional. My old man taught me a lot on how to find a good deal on a car, how long it would last me, and what weekends I would need to sacrifice to fix it. Being a mechanic from the 80’s-2000’s era he was able to show me which cars would do what and how to work with them and which cars to avoid at all costs. Rust was his biggest turnoff to a car because if there were visible holes anywhere it would tank an inspection, everything else was irrelevant short of deep engine work. Even if the car would shift funny, he saw it as an afternoon of changing out the transmission with a junkyard find and you’d be back on the road. It was this same path of thinking when I brought my first hunk of junk home, he looked it over quick and said “These things ride like shit, rust like shit, and shake like shit. Why did you buy this?” This is where my father and I differ in our ways of thinking. He saw fixing a car as part of a job, I saw it as a hobby. Also, no this wasn’t my Jeep this was my first real car purchase my 2001 Chevy Cavalier and this is how I learned to balance tires.
I picked up this heap years ago from a dealership outside of my hometown for about three grand. It had low miles, the rust wasn’t too awful yet, and it would pass inspection, so I figured why the hell not. In 2009 gas was now pushing four dollars and my current transportation just wasn’t cutting it and cost me sixty bucks to fill up. So, with keys in hand and five hundred bucks down I drove it off the lot headed back to my parents’ house. Aside from sitting on the floor and the horrible shake at higher speeds the car was functional, and all the safety features worked. God the shakes though really killed me, and I had to figure out how to fix it. Being a broke ass college student I couldn’t afford to toss it in a shop, so I was destined to figure this out myself. After pillaging a used Haines manual and asking tons of questions to my father and other friends I determined the wheels needed balanced. “But why didn’t you just google it?” In 2009 the internet was still becoming a powerhouse. Google was still just a search engine, YouTube didn’t have Ads, and Wikipedia wasn’t verified. The web wasn’t a solid go to source yet and most people still had flip phones. So, the legwork was done via face to face and reading. After asking a ton of questions, digging up a mid-80’s to 90’s maintenance manual, and locating a bubble balancer in my old mans garage I was finally able to get started.
My suspicions started with the front driver side tire and after popping that off and agreeing that it was in decent shape (no bulges, bare spots, or cracking) I started searching around for the wheel weight that balances the tire. It looked like the weight had taken a long hiatus from its job and left the clip behind with a nice scratch on the rim where it was mounted which suspiciously looked a lot like a curb shot. I decided to check the balance of the tire anyway because who knows, always trust but verify. This wheel balancer works kind of like a glorified bubble leveler. You place the tire on top of a platform that is supported by 4 springs, in the middle of the balancer on top is a bubble level with a bubble that sits directly center. If you place a balanced tire on the level the bubble will be dead center and not if the tire is out of wack. You add weights to the tire until the bubble is level depending on which direction the bubble is leaning. This tire was easy to spot, after I placed it on the wheel balancer the bubble shot to the left off center. I found my culprit.
Enough research it was time for hardware mode. There was no way I was going to reclip a wheel weight onto the tire without the help of a shop and that tool they have and that was easily sixty bucks down the toilet. Thankfully for me they had adhesive weights for those fancy alloy rims that fart rods like to use so they don’t scratch anything, that’ll do. I picked up a set at the nearby parts shop and got to work. Being skeptical of the adhesive at fast speeds I decided to grab a tube of crazy glue as well for added support and began adding the weights to the rim. Dropping them on little by little, without sticking them on of course, the bubble began center. When I finally got it to where I wanted it, I marked it down with a marker and began sticking them to the tire. After a couple minutes and a few shakes of the weights the tire was ready to be put back on. Now time for the test drive and see if my Saturday was all for nothing.
Fifty-five and sixty-five are usually the sweet spot for the shakes when something is out of balance. They never last forever and tend to amplify themselves in and out during operation. After putting the car through its paces for about twenty miles I can safely say my shaking was heavily reduced. Don’t forget the cars still a piece of crap and still vibrated but at least it drove smoother than when it started, and that wheel weight stuck on during my entire ownership of the car. So, in the end I managed to save myself some money and learn a thing or two about balancing tires. I miss that car sometimes, but the rust did eventually take her even though that engine ran strong. Some things just can’t be saved. Oh well, till next time.
Easter has come and gone once again, and the cold bite of winter has finally left. Warmth has begun to creep into the days up here on our little patch of dirt and it could not be more welcome. Our holiday went well with the most family activity I had seen in a while with a giant mixture of good food and drink as well as enough warmth for outdoor activities that brought about plenty of laughter. This is what I consider the last hurrah of the holidays until fall of next year when we break out the pumpkin spice and watch the leaves turn the colors of a warm fire. So, out like a Santa Clause and in like an Easter Bunny we are now in the stretches of spring, grass, and the garden.
We already had a casualty this year when one of our succulents decided to take a nosedive off the outside railing trying to give it some natural sunlight. It will live but most of its upper limbs were broken off on landing but thankfully these things can be bullet proof. Aside from laying out plants all I have managed to do was aerate the yard and drop some fertilizer down to help all the hibernating grass wake up strong. I still need to seed with most of it going into the backyard where all the dying grass decided to happen last year. There has been extensive research on successful dryer climate grass seed in case our rain is sub par again. After that I will be out shopping for Petunias, Alyssums, Hibiscus, and praying to the gardening gods that the BoBo Bush I saved last August made it through the winter months, its shafts look green and not dry, so I am hopeful. My good news I have out of all of this is I am not starting from scratch like last year and I already have a good idea on what needs to be replanted, when, and where. I also need a garden border on the far side of the house, so the mulch stops creeping into the lawn.
Our new thing this year is to start producing herbs and vegetables on the back porch. We’re starting small with garden boxes to see how we can do this year. Last year I couldnt grow a tomato plant for the life of me and when it did produce tomatoes, they were misshapen and weird looking. I still ate them of course. Our goal behind this idea is to have fresh herbs near the kitchen for picking whenever we’d need them, and we wanted to start small in case we messed the whole project up. Also we have deer, a lot of deer, and when deer see food they get ballsy. They’ll walk right up into your yard to eat…well…everything. There are deterrents to keeping deer out of your plants with a fence being the most commonly used deterrent, another is that spray that smells to high heaven. I think I’ll conjure up a makeshift gate to ensure that the deer don’t decide to wander up onto our deck and try to eat all of our hard work. I’ve heard of people using motion censored Christmas decorations to scare them off if they get too close. Maybe that’s something to look into, a dancing Santa Clause right in the middle of July. I could even put fake reindeer antlers on him for the finishing touch.
Not much more past that. I have a busy week in front of me so this is posted at a really strange time but I have been slacking recently. Enjoy the warm weather, if you have any, and go watch the sun as it sets later and later every day. I’ll be hanging up my fancy new hummingbird feeder that glows at nighttime.
A before and after shot. On the left is the decade old faucet which was leaking, dated, and worn out. On the right the new fixture we picked up for 20 bucks. Gave the sink a whole new facelift.
My wife has always been a thrifty shopper and rarely pays full price for anything especially when its something she’s been pining after for a while. Take our bathroom faucets for example, a week ago she caught wind that Lowes has a full warehouse full of damaged and incomplete goods they auction off to cover their losses and reduce damaged inventory. Wifey jumped right on top of this purchasing 3 sets of hardwired and pluggable lamps as well as two new faucet fixtures for our bathrooms. These auctions can be a gold mine if you know what you are doing and understand that much of this stuff is most likely broken, defective, or missing something. We took the risk and bought up about 200 dollars’ worth of stuff hoping we’d make it through the potential issues each one of these items may have. To sum it up, all of our purchases made it through pretty much whole and acceptable but the faucets were missing vital pieces or were down right broken.
My hilarious ignorance assumed that in the world full of amazon, ebay, and google that you’d be able to find any itty bitty part and piece you had set your mind too as long as you have the proper wording and vocabulary to put you on your way, or at least I had hoped it would. I was wrong.
The first fixture was in excellent shape but it was missing the heart of the whole operation, the 2-1 snap on fitting for the hot/cold controls. Okay not so bad someone clearly broke their fitting, bought this one, took the part they needed, and hustled Lowes to get their money back. I’m sure many people have these types of sinks so this shouldn’t be too bad. Our second fixture was damaged, it looked as if someone had dropped something extremely heavy on the box and it bent the flange on the drain plug to the point of breaking, which eventually broke after I messed with it. Okay so I have two faucet fixtures and two parts I require to ensure the faucets either function or match. Great, time to get to work.
I spent a couple days trying to come up with spare parts, somewhere, anywhere and I was able to locate plenty but not to my specifications or to my color. So after I concluded that I was wasting time I decided to Frankenstein the two sets to make a complete fixture for the guest bathroom sink. It worked and it looked pretty good for my first sink fixture remodel. Now I had another fixture that looked even better but was missing two vital pieces to complete its construction. Back to the interwebs I went in hopes that maybe this time I would get lucky. If not then I’d only be out 20 bucks which isn’t that heartbreaking.
Luck had finally struck just when I was about to give up. I came across a part number for the 2-1 snap fixture and managed to locate a replacement with the exact manufacturers name. Winner winner chicken dinner! After waiting a week thanks to a snowstorm I finally received the part, picked up a replacement drain with a matching flange and got to work. I’ve only changed out sink faucets once before and they are overall inheritently the same but I was using cobbled together parts which, hypothetically, should work. It wasnt as easy as it sounded.
Without going into too much detail I had to start over a few times, everything eventually fit and worked but with leaks, tightening, fixture bases being to close together, hair, filing wider holes, OH MY GOD THE SMELL, and a couple zip ties I managed to make everything work. It looks good and where most people at my age would say “thats stuffs easy” yes it is but I’m a shade tree mechanic so a lot of this house stuff is new to me and gosh darn it did I get it done. My wife approves and it spits adjustable hot and cold water AND we didnt spend an arm and a leg on brand new fixtures. I think we ended up saving close to 400 bucks on these faucet fixtures alone.
Remember, YouTube is your friend, instructions in the box are usually easy to understand, and if you have to buy a tool make sure you buy it and only buy it once. That’s all for now! Until next time and Cheers!
The High Five Discount 