One of my more typical "vacation" days

Tuesday was kinda a weird day (let’s face it; they all seem a bit weird now). Late Monday, my boss came to me and said he’d gotten a printout of people in the department who have vacation days left. They hate that as they have to pay you for them in January. So, he tells me that, according to the printout, I have 40 hours of vacation left!

Now, I’d checked when Jake and Carla moved and according to payroll, I had just enough to take the three days I used. Had I known, I could have rented that car and taken that road trip like I’d planned!

But, be that as it may, I decided that since today was supposed to be sunny and warm (53 degrees F.; Not warm by North Carolina or South Carolina or Virginia standards, but warm for here, now) I would take the afternoon off “on vacation”. I really don’t have anywhere to go at the moment for a whole week. But, I do have a lot of stuff to do around the house.


So, with my boss’s blessings and Michelle’s, I left about 11:30 AM. I had gotten to the building at 7:30 AM and, not having a key or the alarm code (both of which I have asked for) had to walk around until about 7:45 AM until they opened up. So, I felt justified.

I headed out to Home Depot to check on those foam leaf guards. They didn’t have them, but the guy knew what I was talking about. He suggested Lowe’s or Redford Building Products. He said Redford Building Supplies was on Plymouth Road between Beech Daly and Telegraph. I drove by there (three times!), but couldn’t find it.

When I got home, I called Lowe’s. They don’t have it and never heard of it.

So, I looked on line and it appears they sell them at Costco. I would have to join though it’s a total ripoff for me. I learned that years ago after I joined Sam’s Club. There is nothing a single person would eat or need that justifies it buying by the case.

I changed clothes and cleaned out the gutters. I worked from about noon until after 4:00 PM and just got the front ones done! The downspouts were the worst.

I saw my neighbor (the contractor) and asked him to give me a quote to put up the missing gutters in back.

I used plastic roof cement to try and seal the spots I knew leaked. I also used it to glue in a piece of hardware cloth over the one downspout opening. This was after I found two walnuts stuck in it with all kinds of debris backed-up behind them! That took a lot of dis-assembly, the use of a straightened metal clothes hanger and water pressure to clear.

I then cleaned my hands with some mower gasoline (to get off the plastic roof cement) and washed them repeatedly in Dial soap and hot, HOT water. But, I still stunk of gasoline. Then I laid down to take a nap at 4:30 PM. As you can see by this morning’s post, I was up most of the night.

I slept until almost 8:00 PM. Then I made a simple (but excellent) marinara sauce, using just olive oil, garlic, a 28-ounce can of whole peeled tomatoes and some salt, pepper and dried basil leaves.

I added that to some of the warmed-up spaghetti (leftover from the spaghetti and meatballs) and ate a TON of it for supper, reading my book.

I never did turn on the TV, but read until I got sleepy again (about midnight) and then went to bed (again).