Such Is My Life

You know how it is when you have a day off in the middle of the week, but you wake up at 3:00 AM anyway?

I lay there for a while, tossing and turning, trying to go back to sleep, but eventually, I gave up and got up.  Remember all that meat I bought?  That was me, out there grilling at 6:00 AM.  I did wait until the sun came up.  Really, I did. 

I now have a freezer full of grilled chicken and brats.  Oh, and blackened ribs.

Not sure what happened there.  I'd been grilling for a couple of hours, and the temp had been holding steady at 250' - 300'.  My grill has a little thermometer thingy on it, so I know.  I went out to check my ribs, as I had been doing every 10 - 15 minutes, only this time, the temp had cranked up to 500 + and my ribs were charcoal.

I started to toss the, but upon further inspection, once I got past the char, there was plenty of good meat still on them.  I put them into the freezer, too, and can get at least one good meal out of them.

Hey, you'd pay $20 extra for the char in a fancy restaurant. 

I pretty much spent the rest of the day watching my traditional Independence Day movies.  While watching said movies, I finished another hat for my friend's charity.

I managed to get in a few moments of bricking, too.

I found some spray on stripper, and it's working a lot better than that old gel stripper I'd had before.

I'm making pretty good progress, and am beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. 

All good things must come to an end, and thus it was with my day off.  Back to work this morning.  I'm not sure if it was the heat, or if it was the second Monday of the week, but I was just dragging all day.  And it was hot up in the plant. 

Yeah, it's July.  It's hot everywhere. 

One good thing about July is that it means peak season at work will be winding down soon.  Fewer hours, weekends off.  Maybe the blog will pick back up soon. 

Over the weekend, I'd spent some time cleaning out some of the stuff that has grown up in my fence.  Somewhere in all that, I'd gotten into some poison ivy.  Or poison sumac.  I've got both growing in my yard.  At first I thought it was a bug bite.  Along about yesterday, I figured out that just didn't look like a bug bite after all.  Had to have been poison ivy.  Or sumac.  Whatever...

This morning, I remember I had some prescription ointment my doctor had given me the last time I had a severe breakout.  So, there I was at 3:00 in the blessed AM, tearing up my house searching for the elusive ointment.  I finally found it...

and walked right out of the house without it. 

Such is my life.