Good morning! Happy First Day of Spring 🌷

Don’t worry we probably have another four weeks until things start to green up, but mild days are still certainly possible. And heck, I heard the spring peepers give out their first peeps yesterday, 🐸 although they weren’t particularly loud like is common come later in the season.

🌹🌻🌼Spring starts at 11:33 AM this morning!🌹🌻🌼

Mostly cloudy and 46 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind.Temperatures will drop below freezing at Tuesday around 5 am. ☃️

I am planning to take a shower 🚿 and then walk out to Five Rivers 🐸 to kick off spring. Hopefully the main trails and access roads won’t be too flooded or wet for hiking out there 🚶‍♀️ although I expect the side trails to be super wet and muddy. 👣

Then around mid-day I’ll probably head out to the folks house for Sunday dinner 🍽 At least now with the time change I don’t have to worry about driving home in the dark. I also will want to get some milk in the evening 🐮 and maybe go for the evening walk so I can make sure to get my steps in.

I didn’t get my steps in yesterday, 🏃 as every time I wanted to walk, things clouded up and threatened to rain. Plus I’m kind of lazy on Saturday after a long work week. I did have that nice walk I did out to the town park — although I wish I could have spotted the barred owl. 🦉 Kind of wet and muddy walking out there too. Okay, I did get in 8,000 steps but that’s less then 10,000 steps I shoot for each day, although my weekly average for last week still was 14,000 which isn’t bad.

Been putting baking soda in my boots 👢 as lately I’ve been having problems with boot odor, and it works good for that but is really tough on my feet, drying them out while also turning my socks into a sloppy mess as my feet sweat from excessive dryness. It works well — as good as foot powder — but I think I need to make sure to try to dump as much of it out as possible before going out walking. Plus, I have a ton of it downstairs — I bought several boxes years ago for deodorizing while I was traveling for work, and never had much of a use for used baking soda. 📦 I stopped by the foot powder, as I found it was making a real mess out of my boots, becoming caked everywhere and becoming less effective since they switched to corn-starched based material similar to baking powder. I also tried the spray but I found while effective at athlete’s foot, no good for controlling odors. 👃 One day at work my boots were smelling to high hell. Yuck.

Woke up during the night last night 🛌 and had trouble getting to sleep. I was a bit frustrated about the window shade and the new recycling fees and separation requirements, and just how everything is these days. 🏠 I ended up looking at Zillow houses, and realized things aren’t as bad as I want to believe things to be. Houses and land are expensive, but not that expensive in the grand scheme of things.  If I wanted to go out buy a smaller, older house and go out and pay cash, after cashing in some stocks and bonds, I could definitely do it. 😮 $200,000 still buys a decent, maybe somewhat run-down house a ways out of town, compared to what things cost in socialist Delmar. Socialism isn’t for the poor or even the middle class these days. Even a “dream” property with 40 acres of land and rundown farm house out in the country in New York State is a lot more affordable then one would think — I could afford it if I wanted to, probably with cash, but that would burn up a lot of savings. 🚜 Plus the extra cost of utilities and commuting, which are certainly much more then small apartment and bus to downtown.

Maybe though I should consider saving and investing more, and stop adding to the Roth IRA, so I have access to more money before 59 1/2. I don’t know, it’s something to think about, but I don’t think I need to buy more plastic crap that they keep trying to push on me, as that stuff stinks or costs $2 a bag if It’s recyclable or $3 if it’s not. ♻️ I don’t need a fancier apartment, but I do need to keep investing and saving for a better tomorrow, even if people look down on me for big shot living in a dump with everything held together with duck tape and blue. At least I’m not filling a trash can every week but instead go to the dump only once or twice a year. 🗑 The thing about investing more, is I have to pay taxes quarterly on unrealized, re-invested dividends, and that’s so obnoxious. Maybe I shouldn’t add more oil and gas stocks to my portfolio. 🛢 Piss off the greenies. 🌎 At this point energy stocks are overpriced, even if they are the only thing making money these days while the market is in the crapper 🚽 and bonds pay 5% below the inflation rate 🧦 thanks to federal reserve with their foot to the floor on accelerator and the choke wide open. Hey, but I think they’re increasing my CD rate to seven tenths of a percent. 🇺🇦 Thank you, the United States for being such a loyal defender of the Ukraine in their battle against Russia, and spending our tax dollars meddling in foreign affairs while sending the price of oil and inflation through the roof. 📈

I can bitch about the $7 family pack of hot dogs that I’ll get several meals out of, that new $2 a bag fee for getting rid of plastic bottles (separate from metals that town can profit on), or the fact that I spent $111 one month for the heating bill in my apartment 🤑 but things aren’t really bad with inflation. I am getting closer to my goals, and while I don’t like the politics of things locally, or the direction of our country, if I stay the course, keep my mouth shut, 🤐 work hard, and continue to save and invest, things will be better in the future. More duck tape 🦆 and super glue can keep things together in my apartment as I continue to stretch things out. I I can walk more places and leave the big jacked up truck at home, helping to get more life out of it and saving on fuel. ⛽  I do like that free electric bus to Thacher Park. 🏞 After all, my big jacked up truck doesn’t burn gasoline when the engine is off, excluding whatever leaks out of it. 😮

Four day work week this week, 🏢 and I’ll probably be taking the local back and forth to work, as I often work late and the thing is with session attire 👨‍💼 I don’t like walking down to the express. 🚌 But with more sunlight in the morning, I figure I will go for my morning walk at least before work,  🚶‍♀️ and it should be relatively mild. I can be upset and angry about how everything is held together with duck tape and glue in my life, or how inflation is stealing away everything, but every day I work when I deliver good results, things will get better. There is a future, and while it’s not here yet, those days are coming. 🏕 And things are getting more mild, so that means more nights in the wilderness, even if things are going to be expensive in these inflationary times. Planning longer, fewer trips this summer. I don’t expect to take any weekend trips without at least 3 nights of camping, probably taking off either Friday or Monday, or in some cases two work days. Going to be a busy summer, but maybe I can do some remote work 👨‍💻, it gets complicated though as those days are harder to get approved these days. Maybe high fuel prices will lead to people changing their minds, especially as things slow down mid-summer. 😎 I just look forward to floating down the East Canada Creek in that rubber tube.