DIY and Projects

A plumber wasn’t an expense I wanted. It can be hard to find a good one that doesn’t charge a ridiculous amount. I had a good experience with Roch at Tipi Plumbing though. A lot of plumbers in Ottawa won’t do actual residential needs. Some only do new build homes.

34 weeks later, I finally have a functioning kitchen sink! Yeah, it’s taken a lot of the year, but the rot was hard work to fix. My brother’s heart surgery had me not super functional from the stress. And I had to travel after it to help out. I also changed portfolios at work. And there were things between choir, karate, and softball. Plus, have you tried to get things done while in perimenopause in the summer? Hot flashes suck!

The plumbing was truly starting to affect my mental health. Severely. My marriage featured renovation for much of the time it existed. This particular project has had me triggered, which is good for healing old wounds, but not so good for motivation to renovate.

It wasn’t all on me though. One of the pieces was just extra stubborn and needed Teflon tape in an unusual spot to prevent leaking. Lesson learned that I will call a plumber much sooner in the future rather than embarking on a voyage into insanity. I don’t like giving up though, so it was hard to make the call. Even dirty, it’s beautiful!

Onto painting of my upper cupboards next. After that, I can get enough flooring installed to put my fridge back into the kitchen. Won’t that be a novel idea? Of course, then the stove will need to leave for a bit…

I’m not looking forward to the stinky paint part, but maybe it won’t need too many coats to make it good. I keep thinking up embellishments for finishing touches lately. As if I need the scope creep!

I didn’t get to clean up right away on Wednesday as I needed items from the store to do that. I was also tired from the stress and doing the work for two portfolios. A colleague is away in Europe and I’m covering him for 3 weeks. He’s pretty good about covering me when I’m away though and I usually don’t come back with my inbox full of things that were never done.

Food and Drink

Due to the ongoing tariff situation with the United States, I am still trying to find a replacement for my favourite wine, Apothic Dark. It was such an easy drinking red. There was no funky fermentation remnant taste. I have one bottle left, but I’m saving it. I don’t know for when. Perhaps when my kitchen is entirely done will be the time to crack it open.

So far, I’ve tried:

Bodacious Red: Might be OK if it was filtered more or something. Tastes very much like yeast. Something for someone less into wine.Henry of Pelham – Pinot Noir: Not bad. Drinkable, though not as smooth and tasty as Apothic Dark.Las Mulas – Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva 2024: On the acidic side for my taste, but still drinkable.

I celebrated having a sink with gluten-free, lactose free, pepperoni and black olive pizza on O’Dough’s flatbread along with a rum and coke made with Palm Breeze amber rum. I prefer the amber. It’s better than standard Bacardi and sometimes Kraken is too sweet for what I’m looking for. It pairs better with Diet Coke in my opinion for that reason.

On Thursday, I made Potato, Bacon, and Leak soup in my instant pot. I used extra thick bacon, soy milk, some celery and carrots, along with some salt, pepper, a boullian cube, and Italian spice blend. If I was a white wine drinker, I probably would have added some. I had some rosé at home, but I didn’t think that would be good in most food recipes.

Movies and Television

Monday was the 30th anniversary of Hackers (1995). I reheated and thickened the stew I made the day before and then watched the movie as part of an annual tradition. Not the stew, but I suppose it could become part of it. If I wanted to be movie authentic with food, it should probably be cereal and French fries.

I finished the second season of Severance. I hope the new season comes soon though it’s a bit odd that they’ve replaced the show runners. It makes me wonder if some drama happened.

As I also finished Blood Ties, I needed a new show to binge. Enter, The Morning Show, with Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, to name a few. Alex Levy (Jennifer Aniston) and Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell) are the co-hosts of a morning show until Mitch gets fired for sexual misconduct a la #metoo. Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is a reporter who goes viral for a passionate spiel about coal at a protest she is supposed to be covering. Chaos ensues, partly instigated by Alex, and Bradley ends up joining Alex as the new co-host for The Morning Show. The show is often dramatic and progressive without being overbearing.

Music and Songwriting

On the weekend, I put together a plan for my bass guitar practise sessions. Each day has specific skills and the number of drills and such are selected by using dice and my Scattergories card deck. In essence, I’ve gamified my practise. Modal Mondays, Tempo Tuesdays, Hammer-on Hump Days, Theory Thursdays, Fill Fridays, Slapping Saturdays, and Sliding Sundays. Mondays are about the different modes to play in like Ionian, Dorian, Mixolodian, etc. Tuesdays, I’m working on tempos because it’s a weak area for me. Wednesdays include working on the various scales and some riffs. Thursdays are theory plus grooves. Now, I don’t know much about grooves, so I’ll be starting with learning what they are and such. Friday has fills, but again, I don’t know much about those. I just know they are a bass thing. Saturdays are slap bass combined with arpeggios. Sundays are riffs as slides.

Writing (Admin & Marketing)

I need to figure out a better navigation option for this blog as I’m putting all of these tags on my posts, but it’s not easily searchable by them. It even took a bit for me to find when I began the kitchen project because of this. I’ll figure it out at some point.