So Short on Screen Time L ately
It's probably been 2 or more months since I last posted. I have Been busy, but I'm spending less time online at home. I haven't been keeping up on reading LJ or FB, much less posting. And I've missed it. (A recurring theme) It seems like given a choice I'd rather catch up on some of my shows that I'm so far behind on.
So just what's been going on this week.
1. Little Bro is replacing the roof on our garage, almost single-handedly. The garage, built circa late '60's. Has the original 40-year shingles on, with no second layer. So, yes, the decking has rotted in out all along the lower edges, and a few higher up spots. With worst areas in the vicinity of the location of the old basketball hoop, and the south facing side. He has a plan, and so far things are going according to it. Yay! I did buy a magnetic nailing picking up tool on wheels to try tp prevent a roofing-nail related flat tire incident. Last time we had roofing work done there were 2 flat tires. Well worth the $15 investment. And it picks up metal in grass as well. Pulled 20 nails out of the patch of grass at the next to the driveway where he took the shingles off today. And 1 star ay nail from my parking spot inside the garage. Investment recouped!
2. On Friday I spent 4.5 hours as a volunteer helping to build an all-access playground in a nearby New Berlin. They were trying to build the playground in 1 week, and estimated it would take 2700 volunteers (each doing a 4 hour shirft). Blue Kids sanctioned it, and we were allowed to take work time to volunteer. I was concerned about my ability to be very effective. Would I be able to stand that long? CouldI bend over enough? I knew that kneeling is out of the question. Turns out it was not a problem. I ended up being teamed up with my boss, and we made a good team. He was the 'skilled' person, I was 'unskilled'. But I ended up using every tool that he used, even the power saw and router (which he doesn't like and didn't use.) I was exhausted when we finished our shift, but he looked even worse! He's about 7 years younger than me, but I'm a bit concerned about his health.
Yesterday the family took part in my Christmas present to everyone. We all did an escape room at EscapeMKE. It was similar to the room we did last year, but... Not nearly as fun. Far too many of the puzzles were similar: We had 5 combination locks (with 3 or 4 digits) like this:![]()
And just too many options for possible combinations.
We did not escape. They didn't have an established method for us to request a hint. When prompts were given on the monitor, they were left up for a very short time, about 30 seconds. The introduction was very poor, we weren't let into the Escape office until 10 minutes before our adventure, but we were told to be there 15 minutes early. So we were standing around out in the public hallway, no place to sit. When we got inside, they only had their waivers online, and only 2 iPads to fill them out, so that took up most of the remaining 10 minutes. When it came time to hand out the multi-page "dossier" we had less than a minute to read it. We were all less than impressed.
Today, M & I went on the first flower-buying pilgrimage to Millegar's garden center in Racine. Spent 3 hours picking out the flowers for the front yard only (we'll wait until the garage is done to tackle the wasteland that is the now treeless backyard). I did the whole thing, no problem, never had to sit down. After we got back home & unloaded the car, we took a short break than went out to Menard's to pick up potting soil and the magnetic nail picking up tool. B made us a great dinner, steaks on the grill. Yummy. and by the time I was ready to sit down, I had over 8,000 steps on my pedometer. The most steps in a day in over a year if not longer. Yay me!!!
Managed to order my reports for work, and make reservations for the Bar Harbor portion of our Boston visit in September. (Why was that so hard?)
And now I must off to bed!
So just what's been going on this week.
1. Little Bro is replacing the roof on our garage, almost single-handedly. The garage, built circa late '60's. Has the original 40-year shingles on, with no second layer. So, yes, the decking has rotted in out all along the lower edges, and a few higher up spots. With worst areas in the vicinity of the location of the old basketball hoop, and the south facing side. He has a plan, and so far things are going according to it. Yay! I did buy a magnetic nailing picking up tool on wheels to try tp prevent a roofing-nail related flat tire incident. Last time we had roofing work done there were 2 flat tires. Well worth the $15 investment. And it picks up metal in grass as well. Pulled 20 nails out of the patch of grass at the next to the driveway where he took the shingles off today. And 1 star ay nail from my parking spot inside the garage. Investment recouped!
2. On Friday I spent 4.5 hours as a volunteer helping to build an all-access playground in a nearby New Berlin. They were trying to build the playground in 1 week, and estimated it would take 2700 volunteers (each doing a 4 hour shirft). Blue Kids sanctioned it, and we were allowed to take work time to volunteer. I was concerned about my ability to be very effective. Would I be able to stand that long? CouldI bend over enough? I knew that kneeling is out of the question. Turns out it was not a problem. I ended up being teamed up with my boss, and we made a good team. He was the 'skilled' person, I was 'unskilled'. But I ended up using every tool that he used, even the power saw and router (which he doesn't like and didn't use.) I was exhausted when we finished our shift, but he looked even worse! He's about 7 years younger than me, but I'm a bit concerned about his health.
Yesterday the family took part in my Christmas present to everyone. We all did an escape room at EscapeMKE. It was similar to the room we did last year, but... Not nearly as fun. Far too many of the puzzles were similar: We had 5 combination locks (with 3 or 4 digits) like this:
And just too many options for possible combinations.
We did not escape. They didn't have an established method for us to request a hint. When prompts were given on the monitor, they were left up for a very short time, about 30 seconds. The introduction was very poor, we weren't let into the Escape office until 10 minutes before our adventure, but we were told to be there 15 minutes early. So we were standing around out in the public hallway, no place to sit. When we got inside, they only had their waivers online, and only 2 iPads to fill them out, so that took up most of the remaining 10 minutes. When it came time to hand out the multi-page "dossier" we had less than a minute to read it. We were all less than impressed.
Today, M & I went on the first flower-buying pilgrimage to Millegar's garden center in Racine. Spent 3 hours picking out the flowers for the front yard only (we'll wait until the garage is done to tackle the wasteland that is the now treeless backyard). I did the whole thing, no problem, never had to sit down. After we got back home & unloaded the car, we took a short break than went out to Menard's to pick up potting soil and the magnetic nail picking up tool. B made us a great dinner, steaks on the grill. Yummy. and by the time I was ready to sit down, I had over 8,000 steps on my pedometer. The most steps in a day in over a year if not longer. Yay me!!!
Managed to order my reports for work, and make reservations for the Bar Harbor portion of our Boston visit in September. (Why was that so hard?)
And now I must off to bed!