Category: Blog

Today the framers are finishing up and cleaning up the house. The excitement of watching the walls go up, interior framing and roof structure being built will slow down. Now it’s about adding the roof membrane, plumbing, electrical and HVAC. Then wallboard and finishing work. My little drones are packed, so I’ll have to document the finish work manually. Below is a posted fly around of the house. It starts at the garage, then goes to the entrance, living spaces, back patio, bedrooms and finishes at the garage. It’s so different seeing the house built after seeing it on paper for 2 years. We’re still waiting on windows and doors. Pella is taking a long time to get this done and no one is happy about it.

We’re starting into monsoon season this month and it appears to be arriving early this year. I was hoping that it would delay until after we had roofing on the house, but no it’s been raining the last two days. The inside of the house is wet with some puddles which is concerning but nothing to be totally worried about. We’re scheduled for dry weather for the next week, so hoping the roofers start Monday. Once the membrane is on the roof, then the inside will stay pretty dry.

This weekend will be devoted to rearranging the workshop storage, so it makes some sense and is easier to find things. We need to clean the dust off the furniture and unpack some things that we need. We bought some plants to put in pots around the 5th wheel to help with fly prevention. Great idea, just need to FIND the pots. We’ll get the lemon grass and lavender planted and see if that helps with bug repellant. At least it’ll make the 5th wheel look less sterile.

On a different note, the culture and job market here are really different. The joke is that if you don’t have a Hispanic last name, forget about applying for a job. It’s actually true. New Mexico is an example of reverse DEI and racist hiring practices. It’s rampant. Wendy applied for a Director of Purchasing position at Albuquerque Public Schools. The job description fit her perfectly and she had tons of experience with recommendations from 3 superintendents. She applied online. Three days later APS pulled the job, rewrote the requirements so she was missing one skill set and reposted. She didn’t even get a call or an interview for the position. Well qualified, sterling recommendations and not a peep from APS. From an observer’s perspective that’s clearly discrimination using normal hiring procedures to change the game in the middle of the process. But this practice is typical here. Apply for a job and if your name is European or Caucasian forget about getting a phone screen or interview – even if you’re perfectly qualified. DEI is a joke in this country. It’s not about the best qualified candidate anymore, it’s about your last name or skin color. It’s no wonder the US is going downhill in innovation, manufacturing and education. It’s not about people who can make a difference, it’s about people who can fit in and have the same look and feel as the existing workforce. Change is constant, it’s a good thing and forces adaption or extermination – life and death of a company or society.

Humans are intrinsically programmed to be comfortable around other who like them – homogenous tribes. To survive, companies must embrace change and differences and have mechanisms to ensure evolution happens in a transparent and consistent manner that creates superior results. Transparency is the way to gain trust and concurrence to support the decision. Consistency creates recognition of the process for evolution and change and builds trust. Simple yet difficult because of all the human fragilities that are part of our existence. Greed, friendship, nepotism, favoritism and any other “isms”. All met to derail how humans evolve.

Enough of the preaching/ranting. I just wanted to vent on how ridiculous the culture is here and other places I’ve lived. It’s everywhere in world unfortunately. Something you have to learn to live with, but you don’t have to accept it.

On the brighter side, today is about Itron work. I will finish up the got-to-market stuff today. I’m really getting to the point where I think I should just retire as the work I’m doing isn’t engaging or fun. It has no merit and doesn’t affect the success of Itron. I have more fun working on tractor and around the property. I do need to start engaging in with the Gun Club and volunteering. I’m waiting for elections as I volunteered to help. I think once the house is built and we’re living in it; it’ll be easier to get out and about without having to worry about the dogs.

My youngest, Jaret, has decided to register and become a citizen of Utah. He’s loving his job as a firefighter and wants to establish himself in Utah so he can continue working in his small town. He’s building his support system and finally getting himself established. It’ll be hard for him to take his dog back, but I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to keep her happy while he’s on call and on fires. Fillmore seems to be a great place for Jaret. As a first responder, the town is pretty supportive as are his co-workers. Once he settles in, we’ll make a trip up there to see him. We’ll take the side-by-side and do so off-roading.

Well, I need to clean up and get going. It’s already later than I wanted today. I’ll post more pictures next week once the inside work has started.

Take care and have a great day.

It’s been a while since I posted. Lots of progress on the house. As you can see from the picture, the exterior is up and most of the framing is done. There are a few things that need to be addressed, but overall the framers should finish on Tuesday. There is a laminated beam that goes above the garage door that should arrive today and get installed. The house gets wrapped in the next few days and prepped for stucco. Our plumbers start tomorrow or Wednesday with the inside plumbing.

We have a lot of decisions to make on plumbing. For the water heater, the plan was to get a hybrid, but the cost is crazy expensive. I’m thinking it might make sense to have a gas heater installed in the garage as it’ll be a lot cheaper. I need to talk to our plumbers about it. And a gas heater will take up a lot less space. Today we get an HVAC estimate and I’m going to talk to my GC about the wall for the outdoor fireplace. I have to have our framers put up one more cabinet board in the kitchen.

As we’re getting dark brown windows, we’re thinking that the trim on the house should be dark brown, and the stucco should be a lighter cream color. Apparently, the lighter stucco colors perform better in the weather here and also are easier to maintain. We have a list of stuff we need to get figured out ASAP, so this week will be decision making week. Cabinets and plumbing fixtures are the big choices. We’re going with all Dacor kitchen fixtures to the tune of $40k ish, and that’s not out of normal range. These should last 20 years, and they are what Wendy wants – so the kitchen will be a show place. We’re doing a darker kitchen, graphite appliances with dark counter tops. There are so many windows that face West that the kitchen has a ton of natural light.

On a personal note, I’m trying one of those constant glucose monitoring devices that is tied into my Oura ring. It’s actually helping as I’m monitoring my glucose more carefully and trying to avoid glucose spikes. The data enables me to walk and burn glucose when I’m having a spike, and it tells me what the food I just ate does to my glucose levels. For example, we had a healthy dinner last night, chicken, beans and salad. I had a glucose spike, and it was from the mango dressing on the chicken and the salad dressing and Orzo pasta. Not something I would have expected. Data will always drive outcomes – so I’m learning what my body does with food and how to control the diabetes better and drive down the A1C.

Today is about planting some pots around the RV so we can repel the Flys. The trailer is letting in Flys somewhere and it’s impossible to find where they are coming into the living space. My guess is around the slide outs. The sport is killing them with the fly zapper, repelling them with stinky plants and trapping the outside with some fly traps. I probably have about 15 to 20 of them in the afternoon in the living space. They come from the rancher next door so we’re working on planting lemongrass along the fence line. Good for the cows and repels the Flys. And we’re going to plant some plants to attract the birds, which will eat the Flys. Always something when living in the country.

I’ll empty the garage so I can find the planting pots today and get the Lavendar and lemon grass planted around the trailer. That should help repel some of the Flys.

Well, time to do my exercises and feed my dogs. Then for personal grooming! Take care and more later.

It’s been a while since I posted last. Things are settling down and starting to fall into a routine. I’m getting more settled into trailer living. We still need to organize the workshop so that things are findable.

As it’s been 10 days since I last posted, it’s time to catch up on where our lives have been. We took Memorial Weekend and went up to Washington. We visited the grandkids, whom I miss a lot. Spent some time with our oldest and his wife catching up, hung out with our daughter and caught up on her life and new boyfriend. Then we went to Walla Walla for the weekend with some friends. We rented a house, which was amazing and did wine tasting for three days. It was so much fun and great to get to know our friends better. We did a wine tour and then did individual visits to some of our favorite wineries. Our friends had a great time, and the tours really helped them with knowing wines and which wines they liked. We visited our favorite winery, Castillo de Feliciana that’s owned by Sam and Deb Castillo. Love them!

The house is coming along nicely. I’m going to fly the drone this morning and get more pictures of the roof structure as it’s really interesting. The house has the roof on it. They’ve taken down the supports inside and are working on finishing out the roof. The parapets are up along with the holes for the Canales (roof drains) as this house has a flat roof. It appears they are working on starting the garage build out. Here are a couple of pictures from the ground of the house.

It’s pretty exciting to see the drawings come to life. The difference from the drawings to the 3D structure are really different. It’s a bit of an adjustment. For some reason the distances on paper are MUCH shorter in 3D. I left 60 ft between the garage and the workshop and that’s actually pretty tight for a driveway. And we have a 35 ft buffer from the neighboring pasture and our house and that seems pretty close. I think we’re going to need to plant some hedge trees and plants to isolate the view and keep wind and insects down. Once we get retaining walls up and tidy up the building pad, I think the property will look better and be better defined.

Phased retirement, I’m finding is more difficult than working 5 days a week. I really am having difficulties focusing on work. I’d much rather be working around the property and getting the place more organized. The issue is that it takes money to lay gravel, get gas and do the work to keep the property up to speed. If I last until the end of the year, I’m definitely done. I’m slowly adjusting spending to the new income level. I need to survive on social security, 401k and pension. I am working on budgeting so I can pay the bills and get food. It’s a big change but worth it. Different priorities.

Lastly are the house appliances. I’m struggling with the kitchen appliances. Wendy really wants a lifetime kitchen that is an “adult” kitchen the reflect upscale and classic qualities. The kitchen is really the focal point but a $45k kitchen is a bit expensive, especially since we could do a nice kitchen for $35k. I keep thinking about those folks who remodel and do $100k kitchens with Wolf or Sub-Zero. I think I’m going to do the $45k as this is my last house and I do want her to be happy after I’m not here anymore. I’ll figure it out this week. Then we have to do plumbing fixtures also, but that’s less painful. And we still have cabinets.

Well, that’s everything I can think of for now. I really want to take the rest of the week off, but I do have work to complete. My friend Bryan is retiring from Itron this week and starting work at Waison. So, he’s not really retiring, but he’s just changing jobs. I don’t think I could do that where I’m at now. I really need to just stop working and start enjoying my life with the time I have left.

I’ll post more this week. I’m probably going to do a blog post once or twice a week from now on. Things are slowing down on the house and moving inside. Hoping the windows show up in the next few weeks so we can pay that bill. Last of the big bills for construction. We still need to have a budget meeting to sort out how much more we need to complete the house.

Take care and have a wonderful day.

-gk

It’s been a bit since I added a post to this blog. Thought it was a good time to catch up on what’s been going on and house progress.

First the house. Lots of progress since the last post. Our framers have gotten all the interior load bearing walls up and started with the roof panels.

Roof panels for the 9′ section are on the load bearing walls. Hopefully the 10′ section roof will be on later today. We’re supposed to have 40mph winds today, so we’ll see if they can put on the panel sections today. Then they start framing out the rooms which should be crazy. We need to get going on cabinets, kitchen stuff and plumbing fixtures. Then the garage should get built and we can move some of our stuff from the shop to the garage. Figuring out the driveway will be fun…

Saturday, we did an off-road ride with a group of people (8 vehicles) through the Manzano mountains and logging roads. It was a ton of fun. The organizers were our plumbers from Classic Plumbing in Mountainaire. The ride was 57 miles, but lots of trees, rocky climbs and crazy trails. We stopped a lot to keep the group together. We were the only Can-Am in a group of Polaris Rzrs. We got a lot of questions about the Can-Am. Frankly we were much quicker than the Rzrs and could climb all the hills in 2-wheel drive which the Rzrs couldn’t. Our Can-Am is lower to the ground and I put on more aggressive tires for desert and rock riding, so we had great traction and power. Tons of fun though. Pizza, beer and nachos afterward. Yesterday was spent washing the dust off and making sure all the bolts were still tight. It was a workout for our buggie!

Today will be an avoid the wind day. I might go ride later in the desert. I need to fill up the gas cans as I refilled the Can-Am yesterday and it took 5 gallons plus a little. So, I’m outta gas. I’ll get it done. And this week is getting ready to travel to Seattle for the weekend. We’re boarding the dogs, then flying out on Thursday and home of Tuesday. Hoping to see the grandkids on Thursday!

Time to get ready for the day. It’s Monday, so laundry day. Need to wash out all the dirt from Saturday. And I need to smooth out the driveway today also. Got all rutted out from the cable laying and burying the cable for my brother-in-laws cable installation.

Take care.

Pretty exciting day yesterday. The framing crew got all the exterior walls up for the house. If you can see, there are panel sections that are 4 feet wide and 9+ feet tall. Those are glued together with orange foam glue, then nailed at the base and strapped at the corners. It’s a very sturdy construction technique. Now the crew will focus on building the load bearing walls inside the shell, then move to the roof.

The concrete slab that’s open is the garage. The garage is a module addition to the house, so the framing crew will build it after the roof is on. Where it meets the house, it’ll be attached with straps and roof trusses. Really interesting to see how this is coming together. So far, it’s been about 6-man days of work to get the walls up. Much faster that stick builds.

Now that the wind is slowing down, things should move faster. I’ll post a picture at the end of the day to show progress. Might even fly the drone if the wind is under 20 mph today.

Today is more Itron work. Getting more and more interested in just retiring for good. Once we have our budget meeting with our contractor, I’m going to reassess if I still want to work to the end of the year. I need to talk to my daughter, the CPA, about the tax situation and see if it makes sense to take out a loan for the remaining balance on the house. Not sure it makes any sense as our deductions will get smaller over the next few years. We just need to be able to cover property taxes and expenses. Our only big expense on a monthly basis is electricity. It runs a couple of hundred when we are in the RV and running A/C. That should be smaller once we’re in the house. I’ll need to “do the math” to see if installing solar makes sense and what the payback period is once it’s installed.

On Saturday we’re doing a off-road ride in Mountainaire through the Manzano Forest. I’m pretty stoked about the ride and meeting all the folks. It was arranged by our contractor and she’s bringing a bunch of folks, so we’ll have 10ish vehicles. This will be the first group ride for Wendy and I. I’ve ordered an electronic device mount for the Can-Am so we can mount a cellphone or GPS device in the dash instead of holding it all the time. I should get it in the next day or so, just in time to mount it for the ride. I’m considering getting a GPS based device for tracking rides and recreating trails. I don’t know how to use onX-Offroad to create that function, even though it’s supposed to do turn-by-turn. I still need to order a front light bar, but it’s expensive and I’m going to wait a bit before I order one. I need to pop out the center console and cut out a switch location for another switch as my dash is full. Thinking I may move the lighted whips switch down to the center console and mount a light bar switch on the dash. I think it would be good to have the light bar switch next to the headlight switch. I’ll have to see how motivated I am to move switches around on the dash.

Managed to get everything done for our Memorial day trip to Seattle next week. Booked wine tour, lodging to Thursday night, rental car. I do need to book some lodging for Monday night in Renton as Wendy is going to be with the girls on Monday night and we leave on Tuesday around 11 am. Makes sense to stick close to the airport. Hoping to have time to see the grandkids for a bit on Thursday evening. I’ll need to check in with my son.

Well, I need to get ready for the day today. Get garbage out to the curb. It’s cold this morning, 40 degrees. I’m going to watch the wind today as I don’t want our garbage blowing out into the highway and on people’s property. Anyway, it’s 6 am so I’ve got to get moving. More later.

-Gary

Not much progress on the house yesterday. The framing crew arrived midafternoon as they had to complete some work on another project. They managed to get the living room west wall completed. Today is supposed to be more spring winds (I’m starting to really dislike windy days here, too many of them), so I’m not sure if they will be working or not. We have two days of wind forecast, so it’ll be crappy, hot, dusty days.

Yesterday was a routine day. Did some chores in the morning then spent the afternoon at the hospital with my father-in-laws wife as she had cataract surgery. I did spend a couple of hours with my father-in-law in the waiting room, so that was good. We talked about some things that needed to be addressed for the future and agreed on some outcomes. I’ll need to make sure those happen.

Still have a bit more to do for our upcoming trip next week to Seattle. Need to finish the dog boarding forms, get the wine tour scheduled and The Lodge at St. Edward booked for one night. I’ll get that done today. I do have to do Itron work today. I’m starting to think that I’m done at Itron and working for people in general. While the money is nice, I really need to do my own thing because time is short now and I feel like it’s my time to enjoy life and focus on life and not work. And it’s about the contribution, which is really not significant. I’m not a significant contributor anymore, and definitely an outcast in the current group I’m part of. That’s driving my attitude and need to just leave. I’ll see how much longer I can deal with this. The real issue is when I leave – I’ll need to find all the Itron equipment that’s in the workshop to send it back, and that’s going to be a problem until the house is built.

We really need to get with our GC and sort out the budget. I know we’re going to need some extra funds to complete the house. I think I’m going to downsize our kitchen appliances to keep the budget reasonable. And we need to get the cabinets done and sorted out. From a budget standpoint, we may need to do basic cabinets. I’ll have to get with Wendy and get expectations reset, and that won’t be fun. I just want to get this house done, paid for and get things settled. I really want to get everything we talked about done, but money will be the gating factor.

Today is going to be a crappy weather day, so I’m going to try and stay inside until my dentist appointment. It’s going to be hot and dusty, so the inside of the trailer will get filthy again. BUT, at least it’s going to be sunny and warm!! So, I’m off to get ready for the day. Have lots of Itron work to get done.

Hoping to have a good day and do an attitude adjustment! More later with pictures of house progress once the winds slow down.

-gk

Pretty exciting as more walls are starting to get put up. The construction foreman figures to have all the walls up by end of Monday (today). Then they’ll start on the roof trusses and getting the roof on the house. We have the windows on order, so they should be coming sometime soon. Once the roof is on, then the crew will build the garage as it’s a separate module from the house and attached at the back wall. The green wall is the living and dining area with a 10 foot ceiling which is why the roof line is a bit taller than the rest of the house.

Once everything is up, then they’ll start building out the inside walls by “furring” out all the walls with 2×3’s to create space to run electrical and plumbing. After all the construction framing is done, then electrical and plumbing. Then the construction guys come back with wallboard, cabinets and all the finish work. Once the walls are up, I’ll fly the drone over and get some shots of the layout. Finally, 3 years of planning are coming to fruition.

Today is Monday, so laundry and I have to take my father-in-laws wife to her eye surgery appointment today. That will break up the day a bit. Then I’m planning on using the tractor to do more work on the driveway and fill the holes from digging out the Chinese Elm saplings. I’ll smooth those out.

Took out the Can-Am on Saturday and managed to lose a spare tire off the back. $300, so I’m trying to find it, but the route isn’t well marked and I’m not familiar with it. Makes me crazy as I had it strapped down tight, the back strap came off the tie-down. I would have hoped it just fell in the middle of the trail, but I can’t seem to find the right trail or retrace the original route. So annoying and expensive. We did a night ride Saturday which was cool. I love the lighted whips now that I have them wired into brake and turn signals. I need to get a front light bar to illuminate the trail more. The headlights work great, but it would be better to have more light. Then I can add an upper windshield to help with the dust and wind to make it more comfortable. I LOVE driving that vehicle in the desert. It’s soooooo much fun to just cruise around and explore the trails. Disheartening about how much trash gets dumped out in the desert. People are just lazy and cheap, so they just dump everything out in the desert. So sad, so sad.

The other issue is modern day cattle rustlers. They go out at night and find ranchers cows and slaughter them for the meat. You find the places where they killed the cow and cleaned it then loaded it on the back of the UTV and took it home. Sometimes I think reverting to old West style of justice will make them think twice about that behavior. Unfortunately, a lot of those activities are by south of the border individuals. Too bad because it ruins everything for everyone else.

Well, I need to start my day. I have to get back into the morning exercise routine. My body is starting to break down because I can’t exercise. And I hurt from lack of motion and movement. It’s living in a trailer that is a total pain in the ass. Getting the house build can’t happen fast enough. We still need to get the kitchen appliances done. There isn’t enough money in the budget for Wendy’s split column setup so we’re going to have to do a side-by-side built-in. $40k for kitchen setup isn’t supportable and it’s ridiculous. That’s as much as the EV we just bought. So much more to figure out. Cabinets are the next big thing.

Time to get going. More tomorrow after all the walls are up on the house.

Pretty exciting day today. Construction started on our house after 3 years of trying to get permits and infrastructure. It’s been a really long process but we’re finally getting to the last stages and the reality of building a house.

The crew managed to get all the sill plates down on the foundation and erect one part of a wall. The foreman said they would have a couple of more guys tomorrow and planned to get more walls erected. They want to work on Saturday also to get ahead of the windy weather. It’s exciting to see all the planning, changes and replanning finally coming together. I’m pretty happy that we’re finally going to have a house. We do need to get budget sorted out and figure out how much we’ll need beyond the proceeds from our house sale and how we finance that portion.

I got a couple of appliance quotes for the kitchen today and DAMN they are expensive. $40k. I don’t think the rep is doing any work on discounts or trying to save us monies. The best discount we got was $5k off $40k and that’s with no tariffs. I think we can do better doing our own sourcing of appliances.

I think we’re going to run into the same issue with the plumbing and fixtures – inflated prices. We’re probably going to have to do our own sourcing and installation. Not the best option, but nothing I haven’t done before. We’ll figure this out.

Well, tonight Jaret comes to stay the weekend with us before fire season takes him away until October. He’s picking up some stuff and visiting Juni. He’s also going to straighten out his motorcycle endorsements. The Los Lunas DMV is awful, but that’s where he needs to go to get things cleared up with his license.

Tomorrow is more construction, Juni to the Vet and work on the Can-Am a bit. Need to sync the lighted whips to the brakes and turn-signals.

Off to bed, it’s late. I’ll leave the trailer unlocked for Jaret. He should be here around 1:00am or so. I’m sure the dogs will go off and everyone will be awake.

Enjoy the evening and tomorrow is another awesome day.

Lots of activity in the last few days. I’ve been watering the foundation when it’s not raining, so it’s cured pretty well and has only one crack in it. The foundation guys are done and I’m moving $75k more into the building fund for our contractor. We’re meeting with the contractor tomorrow night on budget to see how much more we’ll need to complete the house. Still lot of choices and decisions to make.

Lumber for the inside of the house was delivered today. They also delivered the beams for the inside and the trusses for the garage. The entire house is here now. The forklift was also delivered so they could put up the panels and roof. Tomorrow starts the construction and putting up the frame and walls. I’ll be flying the drone and taking lots of pictures. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. We’ve had lots of rain (and mud) the last few days. Much needed and a cooler weather. I ordered some NM wildflower seeds, so I’ll see if I can get them to grow for the hummingbirds and bees.

I managed to get the new tires and rims put together for the Can-Am. Giant pain the ass. I mounted the tires and rims on the Can-AM today then ran it around the property to seat in the tires and tighten the lug nuts up. Don’t want to lose a wheel out in the desert. I have to say, these new tires really hook up much better than the OEM tires. The knobs were starting to tear and show a lot of wear after 100 miles. These new ones should be better. I’m using one of the old tires as a spare, so if I lose a tire, I have a replacement on the vehicle. Hopefully we can ride this weekend and check out the setup so it’s ready for Mansano forest ride on the 17th. Super stoked for that ride with 10 vehicles.

Hoping to get my Endocrinologist appointment set up today. Needed a referral for my doc in Seattle, and she sent that yesterday. I need to get my diabetes under control. I’ve slipped up and was eating a lot of carbs, sugar and honey. With my Ozempic therapy, it’s really cut down the cravings and bored eating of snacks and junk food. Blood pressure is way down, almost too low. I do need to check my glucose on the regular now. I’m considering doing one of those arm monitoring puck things that binds with my Oura ring so I can monitor it for a month. My cardiologist visit really shook me up. He made the following comment: “I’m surprised that your cardiologist in Seattle didn’t mention a bypass. Normally someone like you with three bad arteries is recommended for a bypass. Fortunately, you have one bypass that occurred naturally, and the stint fixed the really bad artery. We’ll monitor the last artery for any blockage growth.” That really hit home as to how bad my heart and arteries have become because of this diabetes and bad eating. Every life ends, but I’d like mine to keep going for a few more years so I can actually enjoy retirement, do some more traveling to new places and finish out with my beautiful wife and kids, knowing they are going to be okay. I need to do everything I can to extend my health and stay active, see my friends and keep going until I can’t. And we need to update our estate plan for NM.

Okay, enough philosophizing. It’s time to watch the hocky playoffs, have a glass of wine and relax. Lot’s happening tomorrow including our youngest coming down from Utah before his fire season begins. Take care and have a good evening.

-Gary

Haven’t blogged in a few days as life here is pretty routine at the moment. Biggest events have been the weather and storms coming across the state. Yesterday was crazy weather with our location getting .2″ of rain, which is huge for us. Love the rain but hate the mud. Dogs’ paws were a mess. I think I’m going to get a bedpan and whenever it rains, dunk the paws in the bed pan to get out the mud. I’d rather have wet feet in the trailer than muddy paws.

We’re letting the foundation cure for 7 days before we start framing. I’ve been watering the foundation once a day in the morning for the last couple of days. Slows down the curing and keeps cracks from happening. The foundation has one small crack in it and our contractor is amazed by how solid it has been. With the rain and colder weather, it’s been perfect for the foundation curing.

Framing should start Wednesday if the weather allows. Forecast isn’t good as it’s more thunder shows and unstable weather. We need the rain for sure, but it’d be nice to get the house framing started. Lumber is supposed to be delivered tomorrow along with a dumpster to start collecting all the trash. We’ll see if it all happens.

Yesterday, Wendy and I went to breakfast at a great place in ABQ, with Seattle pricing for food. Locally sourced food and interesting menu items. We spent the morning looking at tile, flooring and plumbing fixtures. Wendy found her bidet – $19,000. That’s almost as much as the entire kitchen appliance budget. We’ll probably do a toilet with a bidet lid. Our house calls for outlets near every toilet. We made progress in picking out granite counter tops, tile and flooring for the entry. We need to get wood flooring picked out soon. Thinking engineered hickory or engineered cork but finding it will be the trick.

Friday, I met with the appliance rep and we went over options for the kitchen appliances. She suggested 3 options: GE Cafe for the ovens and cooktops with GE Monogram for the refrigeration and wine cooler; Thermador for the refrigeration and Wine cooler; Jenn-Aire for the refrigeration and Wine cooler. We’ll do a Miele dishwasher. Then I’m going to give my brother-in-law the quotes to see if his guys can do better. The Rep said to expect a 20% discount off retail which should help a lot.

This coming week will be busy. I need to keep the Ozempic from making me tired, one of the side effects. It does kill your appetite and sugar craving and I’m dropping weight on it as I’m starting to get dizzy when I stand up. I test my blood pressure to make sure it is getting better and aligned with the guidelines for heart and diabetic patients. It’s on the low side. Next week, I need to get the dogs accepted into a boarding location so we can board them while we’re in Seattle during Memorial weekend. Juni gets her shots on Friday. I still need to make arrangements for the wine tour in Walla Walla. I have a dental appointment with a new dentist and I’m working on getting a referral for my new endocrinologist.

I did meet with my new cardiologist on Wednesday. He’s a good doc and from Seattle. He reviewed my charts and ordered an echo test for June so he can see how the stint is working for blood flow. He did say the normally the recommend a bypass for patients with 3 bad arteries, but since I have a stint in one artery and my blocked artery has created its own bypass he’s not interested in invasive bypass. The Echo test will show if I need another stint or not.

Yesterday afternoon I played auto mechanic. I mounted new UTV tires on new rims. What a total pain in neck using the mounting tool I bought. I managed to ding up the edges for the rims, but they aren’t great rims anyway as they are made in China from cast aluminum which isn’t great for trails. They do have a lifetime warranty, so I’ll register them in case something happens. I’m just not impressed, but what can you expect for $130 a wheel. Thankfully flat black spray paint covers a lot of bad scratches. After that workout, I’m pretty sore as I was using a lot of muscles that haven’t been used for a while. I need to get more active around here and do more aerobic work. I think cleaning out the north fence by hand will help – it’s a workout for sure.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll mount the new tires on the Can-Am and take it for a spin so it’s ready for next weekend. Need to make sure the GoPro mount works too. I should be getting another set of rims that I’m going to send back or sell, and I’ll get all the hardware to finish the day whips and mount the flags. I’ll make an appointment for the dogs to meet at the boarding location and see if I can get slots for them over Memorial weekend. And of course, Monday is laundry day so that takes all morning till about 1:00pm. It’s too bad that it seems like I never have enough time to get everything done. It’s crazy. I’m starting to think I just need to retire completely, but I think I’d be bored stiff eventually – so I’ll keep on this part-time gig for this year. My contractor wants me to start shooting drone shots for her of her jobs, so I may do that. It won’t pay the bills, but I’ll keep me occupied and force me to get my Part 107 license.

Well, enough for today. Storms are rolling in with wind, rain and lightning. Need to run some wine over to my brother-in-laws place then go to my father-in-laws place to drop off some holistic supplements that seem to be helping him.

Take care. More in a couple of days.