Drunkard's Walk Begun

It was Monday and I was up and at my routine about ten minutes early. I didn’t sleep that well. Mindy opted to turn off the AC and sleep with the windows opened. It was too warm and stuffy for the first half of the night. But by daybreak it had cooled considerably. It was somewhere in the low to mid 50s under clear skies.

I started some coffee then completed sit-ups and push-ups. My body, especially my shoulders, ached from all the yard work over the weekend. I took some Advil before bed but that didn’t seem to help much. Also bothering me were my feet, both itchy between my two smallest toes. Anytime I wear tennis shoes and then my feet get wet as they did Sunday while washing the cars, the skin between my two smallest toes will split and itch like crazy. I put some anti-fungal cream between my toes before my run.

I spent time online, meditating and stretching ahead of my run. I didn’t bother waking Mindy, this her first official day of summer vacation – lucky her! I left for my run almost 10 minutes early, or just after checking a text on Mindy’s phone. It was Jimaken texting that he and the kids just arrived at their Outer Banks digs.. It was another gorgeous sunrise and a crisp start. I wore a long sleeved wicking shirt and shorts. I ran the full 4.1 miles getting home near 7am.

It dawned on me once in the kitchen that I needed to pack my lunch and make my breakfast. I got busy in a jiffy making a couple fried eggs along with making a salad, cutting cheese, and packing some fresh fruit. Eiknarf was whining from our bedroom. I think she was disappointed that I didn’t have eggs waiting for her downstairs. By the time I was finished with breakfast it was near 730am. Mindy was already up and in the bathroom when I headed up for a shower.

Was dressed and ready to go by 745am. I didn’t plan to leave any earlier than usual. Instead, Mindy and I enjoyed some time on the deck basking in the morning sunshine. Said she planned to spend her day getting paint and other stuff for the kids bathroom re-do project. I told her that there was a remote chance that I’d work from home that afternoon. I opted to drive the Accord. And I’m happy to report that after washing it Sunday it didn’t’ rain overnight. It was sparkling clean.

The hallways at work were unusually quiet. My boss stopped by and quipped that it was just he and I. I spent the majority of my day working on monthly report data. I didn’t bother taking a formal lunch break. Instead, I spent some time mid-day writing for my blog.

I didn’t talk with Mindy until I was heading home a little after 5pm. She was starting dinner on the grill. Said she was at Whole Foods earlier. We didn’t talk for too long. Arrived home near 530pm. Mindy was grilling fish (Chilean sea bass), squash, mushrooms, and zucchini. With no kids, the house was ultra quiet. Quite pleasant. We opted to dine from the deck. The weather, meanwhile, was ideal, about 75 and sunny. Makayla stopped over bringing some of Bella’s school papers she brought home. Mindy shared that she and Makayla made up earlier after Sunday’s Kindle meltdown. Mindy said she talked to Chrissy about it too.

After dinner and clean-up I headed upstairs to address a couple paint prep issues in the kids bathroom. Namely, Mindy mentioned that there were a couple spots needing spackled where the skin of the drywall appeared to be torn. I took care of that as well as pulling the wood trim from behind the toilet and against the bathtub. It really needs replaced. The polyurethane is completely worn off. I also fixed a nail pop in the ceiling. Told Mindy that it would take two days to finish the wall repair (spackle, dry, sand, repeat).

And since I had the step ladder out, I headed in our bedroom to address a long-standing nail pop on our ceiling too. While up on the ladder I noticed that the wood ledge separating the masterbath from the bedroom was covered in thick dust. I couldn’t look at it then walk away. I asked Mindy to fetch me the Pledge, Windex, and rags. The Windex was for the halfmoon window above our bed.

I dusted the ledge and trim around the window. Both were so dusty that I used a wet rag to do the initial cleaning ahead of using Pledge. Both looked so much better after I was done. As I turned I noticed accumulating dust on our ceiling fan blades too. Why not? I took care of that too. While doing so, lots of the dust bunnies fell onto our bed. I spent the extra time dusting the intricate metal vines wrapping the ceiling fan stem, too. Finally done dusting, I went for the vacuum and picked up all the fallen dust bunnies. I then gave the ceiling a once over with the vacuum too. All said, I spent about an hour taking care of all that, which was work I didn’t’ plan on doing when I got home.

I toyed briefly with the idea of installing the new light fixture over the island, but let Mindy talk me out of it. We both know that replacing light fixtures is never as easy as it seems. Instead of more work we shared a fresh White Rajah and then played with our smart phones snapping several still photos of our island counter décor. We snacked on some designer pretzels too. And after the first White Rajah was gone I opened another, sharing it with Mindy as well.

It was a little after 930pm when Mindy declared that she was heading up to bed to do some reading. Rather than watching TV, I opted to join her and start on one of my three new books. I enjoyed Leonard Mlodinow’s contributing writing so much in Deepak’s latest book that I bought two of his own books: A Drunkards’ Walk, and Subliminal. Like a couple old folks, we laid in bed reading side by side for about 30 minutes, or until our eyes were heavy. Lights out by 1015pm.