Another Month Gone By

I meant to write this over a month ago, and boy how time flies these days.

My beef supplier didn’t have any grass-fed cows available until next year, but she did have a traditionally fed coming in. So I picked up a quarter of quite a few great-looking cuts, and even convinced the butcher to include 4 bags of fat so I can make tallow. I also like the way the new butcher packs the meat in paper rather than plastic, making it much easier to unpack when the time comes.

The ash tree in our front yard apparently needs to come down. Our neighbor sent us a letter notifying that they’ll be removing their own, and that some heavy equipment may need to access our property. That prompted me to finally get off my butt about our sorry looking tree and call an arborist for evaluation. I didn’t know it was an ash at the time, or that the emerald ash borer has hit the area in the last couple years, but it’s extremely dead. Most of the upper branches were completely bare this year, but there was a kind of ring of new growth right at the bottom of the biggest branches, and apparently that’s a last resort of the tree to save itself.

While I had the arborist here, I had him also schedule trimming our oak since it’s starting to drop a lot of branches and it’s a bit overgrown. All in all, it’ll cost us about $2500. The price isn’t bad, but I’d rather have not lost the tree; you can’t really replace those, and the lost shade is unfortunate.

My big toe has healed after having the nail removed, but there’s no sign of a new nail coming in at all. That’s slightly concerning, but at least the pain is gone. I’m not sure why it hurt so much before he removed the nail, and why a new one isn’t growing back even a month later, but I hardly know the difference at this point. And hey, it’s one fewer toenail to trim!

I’ve been feeling fat and lazy lately, so decided to purchase a Concept2 rowing machine. At first, I wanted to get a water-rower for the more “authentic” experience, but after looking at reviews and recommended machines from various forums, the Concept2 was the significant stand-out winner. It got here less than a week later and I’ve been working my way up, starting at 3 minutes every couple hours, to 20 minutes at a sitting thus far.

I can definitely confirm that I was woefully out of shape. The first few short workouts wiped me out completely and made me pretty sore for a day or two afterward. Now though, my 20-minute stints mostly just make me breath hard for a few minutes when I’m done. I like this system much more than our recumbent bike, and it’s a better full-body exercise.

I’ve been continuing to enjoy Final Fantasy XIV, and have finally gotten through Heavensward and into the Stormblood expansion. I’ve decided not to pursue the ultimate weapon for my current class this time around, because the amount of grinding necessary is somewhat offputting. I don’t need to max my DPS to have fun here. Maybe I’ll consider it later.

Until Tomorrow,