Spaces, One Frontier

It is Thursday once again, meaning that we’re heading towards the weekend. I don’t quite know why, but it been a hellacious week for me at work. It actually started last Friday and continued into Monday due to an incident that I had to track and report on. Tuesday and Wednesday were quieter. Perhaps they were too quiet, actually, which made the days sputter along. Today has been mixed so far. My neck/back/shoulder pain is flaring up and that means I have to avoid extended periods of computer use lest the pain increase. I’m tracking only one minor issue at work. I should be working on another SharePoint workflow, but I’m not up to that today. I’ve got the framework set, so it means lots of clicking and typing to build it out. I might attack it later or tomorrow. I’m in need of more sleep. Last night was a good sleep, finally, but not long enough at all! It’s been cool at night, so I’ve had the windows open in the bedroom, which makes the cats happy. On Tuesday night, though, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a storm coming through. The rain was pounding down and the wind was really howling. Once I realized what had awakened me, I jumped out of bed to lower the window. That was a good thing, since the rain became more intense – it would have splashed inside had I left the window open. That sleep intermission has taken its toll, however. I’m still tired now! I think I’ll go get another cup of coffee.

No, I’m not talking about being at work, though there are days that it could be considered torture, especially the days that include endless meetings. And it isn’t a torture garden – that’s two topics combined into one subject.

I’m referring to my ongoing exercise regimen. I actually enjoy it most of the time. I feel good about meeting the challenge to remain healthy and the fact that I’m in better overall physical shape that I have been in a very long time. On Sunday I did the hanging sit-ups again for the 3rd straight week. I also took pictures! I set the camera timer which gave me 10 seconds to get from the camera to the Soloflex. It took 3 tries to get the hanging sit-up shot, and I’m actually not fully in position to start the sit-ups, but I wasn’t about to try to get up on that bar any faster!

Here are the results of the workout and photo shoot.

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Earlier in the day I took the camera outside and snapped a load of photos around our garden. We have many flowers in bloom and the tomato plants are getting bigger and some are already bearing tomatoes.

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I came home from shopping with my father and mowing his lawn to find a voice mail message from Pennie. She’s on the way home a day early, likely to beat the traffic, and she’s coming home without Amaya. I’m not sure of the reason for that, but I’ll find out later, I’m sure. The dogs will be thrilled to see her. I’m anticipating her arrival shortly after they have dinner at 6 PM.

I mowed our lawn after taking down the temporary fence. The dogs will get to explore the “new” expanded yard in a few minutes. Of course, that means that the lovely new lawn will begin to develop dead spots, but what can you do? The tomatoes are growing like crazy with all the rain that we had, so today I tied them up so that they are supported as they continue to grow. There are a few tomatoes already growing on the plants, which is pretty cool.

Since Pennie is coming home today, I didn’t get to vacuuming he house, but I did dust the basement for her while the laundry is going. The window a/c that I installed down here last weekend is keeping it pretty comfortable down here, even with the dryer going. I’ll probably vacuum and dust the rest of the house tomorrow and will spend the evening today relaxing after I get my work for the office taken care of after dinner.

Pennie headed south on Wednesday to return the rental and pick up her repaired car from the body shop. She returns on Sunday with our granddaughter, Amaya. In the middle of next week Melissa will come north for a visit before returning home with Amaya. That means that I’m home with the dogs again. This time the whining has been pretty minimal, but I’m spending the evenings downstairs at the table, using the laptop, while the dogs stretch out on the furniture and the dog beds. The sleeping arrangements have actually worked out very well these past two nights. I’ve put the air conditioner on low since it has been rather humid, though not hot. That’s made for comfy nights even with Finnegan pressing up against me at the beginning of the night and Ruby joining him on the bed during the night. Lily and Razz stay on their beds on the floor. Razz hasn’t cared for getting up at 4 am, but the others don’t seem to mind getting up early at all. Of course, none of them are happy when I head out the door to go to work. They won’t have that problem for a while, though, since it now the weekend.

We recently decided to start leaving Razz out of her kennel when we are not home. She and Lily get to move about. Technically, we could probably leave Finnegan out, too, but we had a few issues in the past with him not waiting for our return to go to the bathroom. The other reason he stays in the kennel is that Ruby absolutely can’t be trusted out of her kennel. I don’t trust her for even a short time without supervision. She is much better, but she is still the destroyer. We lost a throw pillow to her when I was working on the hallway last month and she’s chewed the piping and ripped the chair cover the we got for the basement furniture. At this point that cover is probably beyond repair, but I’m a bit shy of spending close to $100 to replace it right now. Anyway, that’s why they don’t get to stay out when we’re not home.

Not much has been going on since the last time I posted. There’s been no change with my parents and work has kept me busy along with lots of forum activity since the 23rd of June when Microsoft Security Essentials beta went live. Traffic has slowed down for now, but that’s also because the beta was closed the next day and remains closed to new participants for now.

For the weekend ahead I don’t have anything major planned. It begins with grocery shopping and then probably some lawn mowing. I need to do laundry and I’d like to clean the house before Pennie and Amaya come home. Since Amaya is crawling now, it’s probably a good idea to wash and wax all of the floors.

Well, the hungry mutleys need to be fed now, so….

Yesterday my lovely wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. It is actually hard to believe that it has been 10 years. The years have brought many changes to our lives, but the one thing that has remained constant is that we have each other. She surprised me with a box of Godiva truffles. I did my best to resist the temptation, but gave in an opened the box after looking at it for several hours! They are delicious. To my credit, I didn’t consume the entire box yesterday. I may even be able to stretch it out for a few days or more! To prove that we are more alike than we can imagine, in the morning she asked what I thought about getting Indian takeout for dinner. On Saturday evening I had thought that it would be nice to have Indian food for dinner on our anniversary, but I hadn’t mentioned it to her. So, yes, we had Indian food for dinner. She placed the order, I drove to Fairfield to pick it up, and we sat at the table in the basement with the mutleys begging all around us and the NASCAR race on the television.

I normally head up to the attic to work out at about 6 PM. Yesterday I went up at 4, knowing that I’d be needing to go out to get our dinner. I started with the usual 15 mile sprint to nowhere on the exercise bike and then did the 3rd routine on the Soloflex for the first time ever. The first exercise involves hanging by your knees from the bar and doing sit-ups. I had avoided the 3rd set for years since I wasn’t sure that I would ever want to try that out. Well, I was successful in completing the entire routine. A few of the other parts of the routine were also hard. I’ve never been able to do pull-ups, but I attempted it anyway. I managed to squeeze off a few in decent form. It will take months of effort to do more than a few before dropping down from the bar, but I will keep trying. I did more yesterday than I was ever able to complete in the past. The frontal squat wasn’t as bad as the pull-ups or upside down sit-ups, but it was also pretty tough – using muscles that I hadn’t worked in the past. I’m glad I took the plunge to introduce the variety into the routine. I’ll be repeating that set again next Sunday while doing the other sets on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Overall it was a good weekend, despite the rain on Saturday. Sunday was actually a beautiful day, after some rain in the morning. It stayed clear until just about 9 PM. I didn’t do any major projects this weekend, but did run the Roomba on the main floor and bedroom floor. The battery doesn’t hold a charge to do more than one room at a time, so it took a few cycles to get through all of the rooms. However, they have now all been vacuumed.