The Big Pause - Day 41 - April 21 - I Hung Something Up

I don't think anything happened today. Maybe something happened but I'm writing this a few days later and I can't remember anything. Everyday seems like the last. I do seem to remember trying to get a few random projects done. The mantle needed the stocking hooks reinstalled and I had a bird feeder thing to install in the green house. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever put any bird feed in this thing. We have a pair of chickadees in one of the bird houses in the garden and they are quite small so maybe if I put some food in it they will try it out. They are light enough that they wouldn't cause any issues. The weather continues to be dry but there is rain scheduled for Wednesday. This is good because I hate having to try to water the plants when they are just coming up.

The Big Pause - Day 40 - April 20 - A Tidy Garage

Another week another lottery ticket. My lottery ticket routine has changed a lot in the past couple years. We used to have a small store in my office building that sold lottery tickets but he was edged out by the cafeteria and had to retire. I would go down every Monday and buy my lottery tickets for the week. After he left I started going to the local Mac's store. Now I've automated things. An auto payment from my bank and an auto purchase on PlayNow.com. Easier but not quite as exciting.

The only other excitement today was that with the fire place mantle out of my shop I could finally tidy up a bit and get ready for some new projects. I still have a few half started projects and Kerry added a new chair repair from her school. For my next projects I'm going to focus on ones that I have materials for and that are taking up a lot of room in my shop. The more room I can make the easier it will be to do a really good clean. Lots of free time now.

The Big Pause - Day 39 - April 19 - Krispy Kreme

My big project for the day was getting our mantle re-installed. We had to remove it when we had the fireplace installed and I needed to raise it up by three inches because the new fire place was a bit bigger. I also had to make a new hearth. The old one was tile and we will eventually go with no hearth at all when we replace our floor but in the meantime a simple wooden hearth painted the same colour will do. I'm glad to finally have this thing out of my garage. It was sitting on my work bench and preventing me from doing anything else. Now I can work on the new shelves on either side.

While I was working on the mangle, the ret of the family took a trip to Krispy Kreme. I'm not sure exactly what prompted this. I think someone Kerry knows went recently. There is only one in Western Canada and they do have some different donuts so it gave us something to do to break up the monotony. For dinner Callie made her Gnocchi soup and I attempted pork ribs again. I didn't get them started soon enough so they weren't done as well as I would prefer. We only cooked half so I have another half to try again.

The Big Pause - Day 38 - April 18 - Covid the Squirrel

It was the weekend again and we had a trip planned. Kerry's friend Pete has taken up bird watching and has insider information on the best places to go to see local wildlife. Kerry and Callie had already been to Colony Farm but Carter and I hadn't so we got up early Saturday morning for some wildlife searching. I would like to stress the word searching here. Kerry does not have a lot of luck when it comes to finding wild life and this day turned out to be the same. We did see some easy ones like ducks and small birds but there were no beavers, otters or eagles.
Carter and I will have to try again on our own.

Carter had deemed today 'Family Fun Day'. He had a few things planned for us including the morning hike, family basketball and a lunch time picnic. He put all the food together including peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but the highlight of the event was our new friend Covid. We've named the backyard squirrel and Callie decided she would try to feed him. We definitely weren't the first to try because he was not scared at all. His favourites so far are tortilla chips and peanuts. I will have to build that backyard squirrel picnic table I've been thinking about.

We finished off he evening with dinner by Callie. She researched all of our favourite Boston Pizza foods including Cactus Cut potatoes, pizza bread and pepperoni pizza. She even attempted the sauce that comes with the Cactus Cut potatoes. Everything was surprisingly close to the real thing. Carter didn't want to try the pizza but Callie said that if he did she would plan 5 minutes of basketball with him which was a fair trade for him since he had been attempting to get a family basketball game going. He tried, she made sad attempts at getting the ball in the hoop. Everyone was happy.

The.Big Pause - Day 37 - April 17 - A Trip to Costco

Today was an exciting day. We were starting to run low on enough items that it made sense to attempt a trip to Costco. It had been 5 weeks since we last went and I had seen plenty of news pieces on the line-ups so I knew what I was getting into. I started work early and went at 3:00p. I figured that time would be at least a bit slower than times like the weekend or first thing in the morning. The line-up outside was quite intimidating. It was like a ride at Disneyland where it wrapped around the corner and back and forth. They had turned several parking spots into the line by using palettes and rope and I think the outside line-up took about 40 minutes.

I'm now thinking that the right time to go to Costco is on a rainy day. If it's raining and people have to sit outside I think they will stay away. The nice thing about the trip was that the reason for the line-up was that they had less people in the store. The parking lot wasn't full so I was expecting this. It was easy to find what you wanted and the checkout had zero wait. I even managed to find things like flour though the toilet paper remained elusive.

For dinner we ordered from Edith and Arthur for Kerry, Callie and I and Carter had McDonalds. We are trying to support local where we can.

The Big Pause - Day 36 - April 16 - Ready to Cut Baby Grass

I've started a new approach to work. I was getting up and going downstairs for breakfast and a bit of news before 'going to work'. That was fine when I was leaving the house. Now I just wake up, roll out of bed and into my chair and start work right away. It allows me to get a few hours of work in before family meeting and work meetings. I feel much more productive this way. After work Carter and I had a discussion about the height of the basketball hoop. I went over to the school and confirmed 10 feet. We set it a bit lower to make up for the driveway slope. I also started taking down the temporary fencing. Tomorrow is baby grass cutting day!

The Big Pause - Day 35 - April 15 - Facebook Marketplace

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. Carter continued to play basketball, I continued with my daily bike ride, Callie continued with her dance and Kerry went into school. It was garbage day which was exciting. I've had a dump truck load of garden waste for a month that disappears one bin at a time so the big excitement of the day is when the truck comes and empties the bin so I can reload it. I haven't managed to time it so that he empties it while it's on one side of the street and then I refill it for the other side of the street. Two more weeks and it should all be done. The other excitement was that I sold the tree rings. These were two rings that I had surrounding the lilacs that were now too small for them. They were still in good condition so I put them on Facebook. I had about 20 hits within hours. Facebook marketplace really is a great place to get rid of stuff. The seller and I did a low contact transaction with the exception of the money which I took into the kitchen and washed. Not sure what to do with it though. We can't really use cash anywhere anymore.