Breakfast of champions

For better or worse, it seems that I start most weekend mornings by finishing the dishes that magically appear overnight.  And it seems that no matter what I do the day before, there are always at least a few dishes waiting for me in the morning.

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Fortunately, in recent weeks, thanks to a great segment on the Going Deep with David Rees TV show, I've improved my dishes game a fair bit.  Not only are we using much less detergent and water than we were before, but we're also washing dishes much more quickly.  

Cameron - 9

Neil - 0

Working for the weekend

It's just after 10:00 AM and I already feel as though I've got hours of work under my belt.

The major project I've been addressing this weekend is to put the aesthetic touches on a handrail in our basement that I constructed last weekend.  The posts (rather ugly 2x6s) are being painted a greyish colour while the hemlock handrail is retaining its natural colour.

The handrail was given a quick second coat early this morning and should be ready for a third and, maybe, final coat this afternoon (though I have a sneaking suspicion that a fourth or fifth coat may be ideal).  As each of the first two coats have been significant improvements, I'm hopeful that these additional coats will really be worth the effort.

The first of my removable posts has now been given two coats of paint is ready to be re-installed once it has fully dried.  Once this post is back in place I will swap out the other post and give it two quick coats and then re-install it.  To save time I have pre-woodfilled the second post so that I can have two streams of drying occurring simultaneously.  Ideally, both posts will be complete and back in place by Sunday evening at the latest.

Of course, while allowing paint and finishes to dry I've been busy taking care of other chores.  Dishes, laundry, and baking have all be going on in the background.  Sadly, I suspect laundry, which we've allowed to pile up all week, will also stretch through the weekend.

A Few Quick Notes 99

-Today is another overcast day in St. John’s. Fortunately, they don’t seem to have forecast rain, but it wouldn’t be the first time that this form of precipitation turned up unannounced. This grey weather is really starting to get to me, stretches of sun for more than about 1.5 days would be quite nice. Also leaves would be nice, though I do like visibility afforded by bare branches.

-The bread that I made last Sunday is still around. Actually, since then I have eaten almost only bread and bread products. I keep meaning to eat a more balanced diet but it just doesn’t happen. Maybe once I run out of bread this switch will occur.

-For the first time in about 8 months I played ultimate. It was great. While I was definitely out of shape, something that caused my speed to be greatly diminished, I was pleased to see that I hadn’t forgotten how to throw the disc. While many of the rules started to come back to me as we played, I definitely should brush up on the rules before the season starts.

-Last night I played four games of Settlers. Peter won all four games, many times while having no serious competition. Hopefully I will be able to have a slightly better record the next time I play.

-Yesterday we seemed to produce an almost unbelievable number of dirty dishes. Just in dinner preparation we seem to have filled the dishwasher, which is particularly impressive as we cooked much of the meal on the barbeque. We then dirtied a pretty large number of plates and drinking vessels during the meal. This problem was worsened by the existence of a desert, causing another round of plates to be dirtied.

As this house is equipped with a dishwasher we tend to fill it up and then store additional dishes until the dishwasher can once again be loaded. In situations as previously described this can be problematic. This problem is then worsened by the tendency of the dishwasher to take upwards of 3 hours to wash relatively clean plates.

-Just moments ago I saw my first dandelion of the season. I imagine that they will really be taking off over the next few weeks.

-On Friday night we received a new lawn mower. While we don’t have a huge lawn this new mower should really be an improvement. Amazingly, it actually looks as though we could move the lawn right now if we really wanted to.