Quality Time............

............outdoors. It is currently 93 degrees and it is only 2:00pm, meaning more than likely it will go up higher. I was just outside digging holes for the next trellis installation. I am, of course, sweating like a pig - more info than you needed I'm sure.

Regardless, welcome to my reality: Earthly Hell.
It isn't here in full force yet, of course, but a stark reminder of what's coming certainly was applied in liberal doses to me for the last few hours.

I also started my foam insulation project. In fact, it's half done. I have the foam cut to size, I decided to wash the fabric before gluing it with special glue onto the foam. So, I'm waiting on the fabric to dry completely and get wrinkle free. I have this fear of having my house even hint remotely at the idea of "Trailer Trash", so - I am covering the foam with some material I bought not too terribly long ago off of Craigslist specifically for the project.

Next? Go out to the car and haul out 1 of 2 bags of concrete I have in there for the trellis project. Well, I'll need both, I'm just doing one at a time, of course. Cement the posts into the ground and after work tomorrow I will be able to screw the trellis onto the posts.

Meanwhile, I've been scrubbing my master bathroom, doing a thorough cleaning in my bedroom and scrubbing the kitchen. After that - well, I'm going to scrub the utility room and clean it up.

Basically, this is a busy Sunday as I accomplished next-to-nothing yesterday besides watering plants. I do, however, have this FINE cigar that I acquired at work. These are known as some of the finest cigars to be found in any parts around here.

I'm halfway decided this next paycheck to pay off the 401k loan and get another. I have little funds if something comes up - I would like to take whatever I can get out of the account and - put it into savings, actually. I have no emergency fund per se, and if something breaks around here, ie: AC/refrigerator/washer-dryer - I have really no way to get it fixed or replaced besides very high priced/financing options. Although, the AC is still under warranty. As it should be.

Anyway, have you folks seen this phenomenon from "Britain's Got Talent"? I don't watch that show and don't even know if it's available to watch in the U.S. However, the Sharon Boyle story fascinates me to no end. Basically, that show is their equivalent of the American show American Idol - a show I don't watch and have no interest in.

My attention was caught to this woman because of all the activity on the internet about it. So, I went to YouTube - and here is the URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z0h1NNk1Ik
and watched that video. I was amazed, to say the least. The woman - is not the prettiest creature on earth, just to put it that way. She walked on stage and Simon started asking his usual rounds of questions. The crowd was mocking her, the male judges were shaking their heads and obviously thought this was going to be a waste of time - or possibly entertaining to the though of how bad the performance she was going to make was going to be and it was all a big joke.

It was a few seconds into the song and Miss Boyle began to sing that the judges were visible shocked. The crowd got up onto it's feet along with 2 of the judges and began clapping. What an amazing story. I love it. This woman will undoubtedly end up getting rich - and I hope she does. She's a plain, simple person, nothing fancy, obnoxious or "glamour" about her. Her performance was stunning.

Anyway. It was a good story in the midst of all the garbage and junk going on out there.

I do not, however, have time for any more of this, as I am headed back out to sweat into the 90's, grab an 80 pound bag of concrete, mix it up and set another post.

G'day to you.
ben

Sunday

So - I skipped a few days of journaling. I'm not opting out of journaling, I'm just going through a phase here.
First, I've been driving all day every day this last week and - it takes it's toll. We have hardly been busy for quite a long time now - I get home from work and just want to go lay down. Driving doesn't just entail driving, it means pulling orders, palletizing and shrink wrapping them, loading the truck and helping offload the truck. When we're busy, I have a very physical job, actually.

The truck is loaded for an early Monday a.m. job. It's a new job starting up at an Intel plant - they are building some sort of brine pond - whatever that is - and there is a lot of pipe and fittings involved with this job. There was another job that is in our territory that I also would have gotten - but they want the material out there first thing, so I couldn't talk my way into it. My boss is gone on vacation and - they just don't contact us with what's going on so I basically inserted myself to help insure our store isn't losing any sales in the process.

Today? It's going to start heating up quite a lot. Prediction of 95 degrees today, 98 degrees tomorrow and breaking 100 on Tuesday. :(
I'm not ready for this. Of course, anymore, I never am. I have grown weary of living in a desert with hell-hot conditions and look forward to the day when I can more out of this town and entire area. My son and my mother are the only things that are keeping around. Mom's not getting any younger and I wouldn't even think about moving away from her at this point. I would love to hope that she can stay mobile all the way up until "The Day" - certainly there are people who DO stay mobile until that day.

I have thoughts of getting out there and digging some holes - and I guess I'll force myself to do at least one trellis worth of holes today.

Mary just came out and invited me to breakfast.
How can I refuse that?
Ummm, I won't.
Have a Great Sunday!
ben