Sandy’s ankle was swollen so I did the Sunday bike ride solo today. Got 13 miles in, it was nice. Beautiful weather for it. They put the maintenance guts on the top of the tower, really neat to see.

Another thing is that I was riding over in an abandoned retail district and found a sign on the door of the old At Home spot (which is huge) and it looks like they’re wanting to put a bar in there. It’s really not a bad idea. There’s a ton of room and a ton of parking, it could be a mid-cities version of the Bronco Bowl, they’ve got hotels and such so they could be a venue for bands… But the truth of it is that area will never be a crowd gathering area again, retail as we knew it is kind of dead. The Northeast Mall is on life support. If the Macy’s closes there (or any of the anchors for that matter) the mall is gone. Forever 21 closed up shop leaving absolutely nothing in that corridor. It’s kind of sad to see.

Once I got home we decided to go to Egg Haven for breakfast. I (for some reason) had a bit of anxiety just because I thought that it would be crowded. It wasn’t. It was very good too. Sandy had the French toast with Nutella and bananas. I had coffee (good cup of Joe) and the American breakfast. The sausage was patty (not link) so I got the bacon. I’m not the biggest fan of bacon when eating out because I make it better:)

I wounded myself today doing the yard work. But I got everything burned that I wanted to get burned and I managed to clean up the west side of the back yard so Sandy has a place for full sun for her plants. Doesn’t look bad at all.

So after a nap, we decided to go to the Arbor Daze over in Euless. I really wanted to see the drone show and it was Arbor Daze so they were giving away free trees. Oaks too, I thought they were just giving Red Oaks but they also had Live Oaks. Now Live Oaks are kind of a pain in the ass of a tree, they don’t shed their leaves in the fall like normal trees, they do it in February through April. But, the tree I have in the front is a Live Oak, my neighbors tree is a Live Oak and if I did get a Red (or other) Oak, I would have the fall leaves AND the spring leaves. It’s a no win so we got the same tree.

The drone show was interesting, I did like it. It doesn’t really compare to the explosions you get to witness with fireworks but it was neat. It’s not as instantaneous as you’d think as it takes time for the drones to align. Here’s what it looks like.

We’ve finally blown in insulation in the attic. It was $2200 but hopefully it will help with the bills and keeping the house cool in the summer. The crew got here about 9ish and I think they were out by noon. I stuck my head up there and it looks nice.

It rained all morning but it made for a nice day. I didn’t get a chance to take my usual walk but I biked over to the rec center and walked around the Hurst river while it was flowing. I do like moving water, there’s something natural about it.

It was a nice day today. I was a little tired from staying up late but not too much of an issue. Took a walk for my morning break up to Walmart and got more oats for my cold oats. Also got some Captain Crunch Peanut Butter. Then I stopped by the gas stop and got an Icee, I dig them, 30oz for $1.06 and I love the blue raspberry flavor. Beats the hell out of a $8 coffee.

I’ll have to update the cold oats recipe to half cup of oat and milk as opposed to 6 tablespoons. Also switched from Quaker oats to Great Value. I can’t imagine there can be much of a difference but we’ll see. I’m digging the idea of eating healthy breakfast.

Cortney stopped by to drop of the warming trays and pick up some more ham for mom. Alene wound up with moms share.

Tomorrow is hump day and then downhill to the weekend. It’s going to be better than last weekend, no hospital involved.

I’m happy, content. Things are good and I know there will be gray days and hard times ahead, but right now life is good and that’s good enough:)

While I’m not religious, I’m spiritual. While he may have been a little churchy for me personally, he was spiritual and actually was an advocate for the poor and disenfranchised and that’s always a good thing. Funny how a man of God has to tell other man to take care of the less fortunate. It must be hard to push the God is all powerful message when he isn’t doing anything about that. Free will doesn’t seem to be doing what it was intended.

It’s funny how this process is now followed. I’m trying to think of what it must have been in years past, before technology. Every 10 to 30 years the pope has to change, they don’t live forever. Though I guess that the church would have had a heck of a messaging system, it still would have been odd to have a conclave and have cardinals come from all over to join.

And of course it’s a bit funny that JDV saw the pope on his last day, visited by the anti-Christ underling, he’s seen enough evil and headed to heaven.

Everything went off without a hitch today for Easter dinner, or late lunch as the case may be. It was Sandy and I, Mom and Ron and Sister, Cheri & Alan & Alene and we had the Honey Baked Ham with sides. The sides were too small so we should have doubled up but the ham was great and everybody left full.

Cortney used Ron’s grandmothers china, wow it looked nice and it must have been 100 years old. I love the idea of china but it’s silly to have a nice set of china that only gets brought out once or twice a year. I still have my dads and Sandy has hers.

It didn’t feel like a very restful weekend and I feel a little exhausted. I did get all my steps and circles done. Hopefully a good nights sleep will get me moving forward tomorrow.

For today I’m thankful for friends and family and for a beautiful day to share with them.

Sandy got discharged and a clean bill of cardiac health from the hospital this afternoon. That’s good news.

I went to Honey Baked Ham and retrieved the meal we ordered for Easter. It was smooth until it came time to pay and I pulled out the gift certificates from 12 years ago. In the end, they had to click a couple of things and scan it, it just took them about 10 minutes to figure out that’s what they had to do. Oh well, it’s done and we’ll figure out the rest of it tomorrow.

I feel like I’ve been stressed the last couple of days. Hopefully things will get back to normal in short order.

It was back to the ER today, this time it was for Sandy and chest pains. I wasn’t too worried as it was on the wrong side of the chest but given that the bill will be footed by the VA, I’m all for getting her in and checked out. She’s staying the night for tests and observation because even though it’s not cardiac related but it’s still a very uncomfortable pain. At least she doesn’t have a drain coming out of her abdomen which was how I spent my time there last October.

I have to go pick up the Easter lunch tomorrow at Honey Baked Ham. I’ll try to get it tomorrow when they open, hopefully it won’t be too packed.

It’s finally over, the electric is complete. They wired in the transfer switch today and we had one more outlet put in the hall which they managed to cut in the wrong place. Oh well, I’ve got a bunch of drywall to do, it’s just a small patch.

I’ve already got a call into big Kelly to get some insulation blown in. $10k for the electric, $2200 for insulation and we should be good to hold up until Donald Dipshit stops it with the extra taxes.