The Break and the Streak

Yeah, but the break and the steak would have rhymed

I took one class session off from grad school to do other stuff and totally blew all of the athletic endeavors. Literally, registered for four races - a marathon, a 12 hour ultra, a swim race, and a 4 mile octoberfest run - and competed in exactly zero of them.Yes it is frustrating, the marathons were my chance to knock out the new states this year. I really should have gone to the swim race, I think I'm just done with those. I had several friends there who told me it was a great day to be in the water, but I had to be up working until about 1 am the day before and just didn't want to get up at 6 to make it to the race on time.

So it takes a reset. There has been other stuff going on. I opened an Etsy store and put out a Craigslist ad to sell the beds, and that's going really well. So far I've sold 2 sets of bunk beds and a loft from CL.

Also I started a running streak - as of today (11/18) it's at 40 days and exactly 100 miles. I'm doing at least 2 miles a day, every day. No idea how long it will last - my original goal was 10 days, then a month. Next goal may be the first of the year? It's getting hard to figure out how I'm going to get everything done.

Grad school is back with a Business Law class. Not only is it really boring, but it takes a lot of time. Really this class gives me a whole new respect for people who went to law school. Every day I learn a new way to get sued or break the law. The only way to stay safe is to never do anything, ever. As an empath, I totally sympathize with people who need lawyers. When I worked in PC repair the jobs would be pretty quiet until somebody else was having the worst day of their week (or month, or year). Everybody that needs a lawyer for any reason is scared, or protective, or otherwise having their worst day. Totally could not do it.

The family is staying busy too. Evil Genius got her ears pierced, overcoming a fear that she's had for a long time:

Ella WON a poetry contest at the high school. For all grades, as a freshman, a 50 word poem contest, and she took the grand prize of the whole thing. Unreal. I mean, the grand prize was a $10 gift card but it's still an amazing accomplishment.

The State Fair came and went. This year we had the unreal luck of having huge traffic problems. It was so bad this year that both Saturday's we were able to charge people to park in our yard! 10 years at this house and that has never happened before.

That's a full yard

Also I finally finished installing these shelves in EG's room, and she got bangs, then green hair, now it's pink!

Cool floating shelves I built for her

Green hair with some old friends. We didn't know the boy had green hair too when we met up

EG is now pink haired

I also got to speak at Ella's school. The high school brings in STEM speakers periodically, and I volunteered to come talk tech, education, how I got into the IT industry, and how we do so much cool shit at the company I work for now. It was a blast!

me with Ella at the high school

So I really don't know how I'm going to get everything done, and it's pretty stressful. I have been running early in the mornings, but now it's in the 30's here and/or raining every morning so that's out. I'm going to come home some over lunch this week for woodworking. Mother Nature's worst joke is that the one time of year it's actually pleasant to be outside now, it gets dark at 5:30. I have to build these beds & stuff outside, built a new deck for it and everything. I'm going to try going to work early, building beds over lunch, leaving early, run as soon as I get home then woodwork until dark, then dinner and 4 hours of grad school. And that's every day until thanksgiving. I'm grateful for being busy, but this is getting hectic.

I'll leave you with some of the cool projects I've been building.

Those shelves laid out on the 8' x 12' deck I built just to assemble & finish furniture

The state fair

I ran by the state fair - this is always one of my favorite runs of the year

Got a visit from my good friend Alison as she walked over to the fair

This is a charcuterie board currently for sale in the Etsy shop

Bottom of the board. It's cherry & walnut

A twin over full size bunk bed

I made this cool table for the front porch from a slab of stump I cut off from my front yard

Super nice cherry box I made for a client's wedding present. The finger joints are a nice touch

Slides! Used a boat epoxy on the surface of the slides for 2 of the bunk beds

oh yeah, we had our anniversary! 21 years of marriage

This picture deserves its own post. I commissioned a local artist to draw Kelley as an anime superhero

Also built a trundle to go under EG's bed since we're going to have company this year for the holidays

crap I can't believe I didn't lead with "it's our 21st wedding anniversary" - you can tell I'm slipping.