There's no time

That's what she said.  No time!

How the fuck did fall picture day turn up again so quickly?  I had all these plans to nicely cut the boy's hair again and not have it be all bowly for today.  Ah, the best laid plans.

So out came the surf hair and some crossed fingers.  We'll see how things turned out when the proofs get here.  In the meantime, it's nice to enjoy the still warm weather and slow transitions to fall.  And I guess that's where the time ends up going.

Current beer-scale: 8.2

Thanks, I'll just move the coffee to my office

Sunday night football I can handle.  But only if the kid doesn't wake up at three AM and refuse to go back down until it's time to actually get up.  I will be having all the coffee, thank you.

And why is it that when you're the most tired, everyone wants to stop by and converse?  I even had a conversation with a fixie this morning, and all I could think of was getting away from him and the terrible music he was playing.  Leave me alone already.  But the Bears are 3-0, ND won too, and it will be next weekend eventually.  It's all good.

Current beer-scale: 6.1

Some day I will teach my son

the art of walking like you know what you're doing and trading up.

Not that it's difficult these days, but at wrigley right now you can buy tickets on the street and start here:

And then end up here before the first inning's even over.

Not that the first seats were bad, but the second were much better.  We might not have seen Air & Water show traffic or had 12-15 beers, but it was a fun time.

Current beer-scale: 5.6

Done chewing on project no. 1

It took longer than expected,  but as of 5 PM yesterday I can call the backsplash done. Outlets are floated,  grout is on and scrubbed,  the end is bullnosed, and everything is back on the counter in messy fashion. Enough for me to make burgers at least. 

But holy crap that was surprisingly difficult.  Every project guide for a backsplash is 4 or 5 steps,  very simple.  But that's for simple installs.  None of them mention raising outlets,  how to cap an end wall, or getting different tile shapes.  All things I had to work with,  all things that made the actual tiling the easiest part of the project. 

Hilariously,  we were going to see a movie yesterday after taking the day off to recuperate from a wedding.  But the kid put a stop to that having to stay home,  so I had all day to either stare at an unfinished project or just get it done already. I had already installed the end rules and raised the outlets during the bears game so all I was looking at was grout. Sounded simple,  I should've known better. 

The outlets practically drove me crazy Sunday, being hella hung over didn't help either.  But the grout ended up taking FOREVER.  Working on two big walls with a tiny float,  by the time a wall was done the stuff was so dry it work way more work to get things clean than I anticipated.  Sheesh.

But it's done now. Might not be perfect,  but not a bad amateur job, and with the counters so packed it looks fine.  Enough to check it off the list and move on to the next one,  good times. 

Current beer-scale: a still slightly hungover 5.3

when you bite off more than you can chew

the only thing you can do is keep chewing.

After a few trips to Immediate Care the wife and I decided it was time to get serious and find some primary care physicians.  This lead to a whole list of "adult" to-do items, including projects around the house and lots involving paperwork or insurance or retirement funds.  It's funny how having a kid puts a whole new level of pressure on feeling like you've got to have it together.

I'm completely onboard with this line of thinking (is almost the exact same wording I just used in a work email to respond to a condescending professor who I was not at all in agreement with), but the good news was I could pick a project to focus on that didn't require any paperwork or advance research, just the time and patience for several Home Depot trips.

Decided to spend Labor Day installing a backsplash to get the first item checked off our list.  The HD trips nearly ended, me, I won't lie.  Spent a lot of time looking at this:

Partly because we were doing two walls and the little accent tiles we decided on ended up being spread out over 4 stores in a 10 mile radius.  Good fucking times it was not.  But the project as a whole ended up going pretty well and after a day and a half it's 99% done.

Out of everything you need to work with tile, this tile cutter is your best friend.  It's only about $10 more than the smaller hand-squeezer model we started with that broke immediately.  Lesson: always get the bigger tool.

But cutting was a small part of the project, most of it was shopping then getting things on the wall.  And it feels like shopping took more time than getting things up.  It went from this

to this pretty quickly.

What's still not done?  There's no grout up and the open ended wall needs a cap, and halfway through fitting things around outlets I realized I need to space the outlet boxes to get them flush with the new tile, about a quarter inch higher than they were.  Of course, I can't find the spacers anywhere, so I have to wait until they get delivered.  Oh well.  As long as they're done by our BBQ in two weeks it's fine.  Always good to have a deadline.

Current beer-scale: a weary 6.5