Thursday's This & That...

When I got home on Thursday, I changed clothes and got to work.

First task is trying to get the stains out of my pants. I didn't get nearly the response I had hoped for in my plea, but I soldiered on. I am trying my personal choice for simple laundry stains first, "Zout." I sprayed all the ink spots (and, there were many) and then let it sit for about 10 minutes. When I unrolled them and started rubbing them (as the bottle suggested) some of the stains disappeared immediately!

Encouraged, I proceeded. I threw them into the washer with my white bath towel and my bath mat, cranked the water in the washer to "HOT" and filled the tub. We will see. I intend on hanging them dry, not using the dryer at this point. Which reminds me: I should check the dryer and see if there are any ink stains in it. I have heard horror stories about this vicious cycle.

Before proceeding, I checked the calendar. October is a pretty filled in month, weekend-wise. But one thing I can do (since it's still so warm outside and, right now, both the furnace and the air conditioner are off) is replace the furnace filters. So, I did.

Next, it's onto cutting the back grass. I noticed last night that my homemade mulch cover attachment is degrading. Since I soon will be dealing with heavy leaves, I decided to replace it with the normal "chute". So, I took Jake's side-grinder and cut the heads off the bolts that secured my homemade cover (except for the two on top that used to hold the side-discharge chute and will again, tonight. Lots of sparks, BTW. I knocked out the remainders of those bolt and got the socket set to disconnect the bolts I need to keep.

While I was at it, I checked the blades and found that the one I thought was hitting the mulching cover was bent up just enough to hit a bolt that comes down from the deck! What the heck? I just replaced these!

Then came a ridiculous effort on my part to bend it back. I pulled off the blade, stuck it in the vise and tried everything. Did you ever try and bend a piece of hardened steel? Giving up on bending it, I beat on it with the hand sledge. Nothing helped. I looked at the clock and it was almost 7:00 PM!

So, I gave up, put it back on and proceeded to cut the back lawn. I still ending up cutting the last of it using the headlights.

Back inside, I warmed up a hot dog and two ears of corn for my dinner. I fell asleep watching TV, but woke up at 1:00 AM and couldn't fall back asleep until after 4:00 AM!