Tag: quality of life

January 18, 2024 – Should Have Done This 15 Years Ago

January 18, 2024 /

I decided to take MLK day off. Everybody else in my house had it as a holiday and my account had it off too. I really I would be marking time in order to preserve some carry-over time off that I need to spend before April. I really needed the time off, I had been going three long weekends straight without much rest.

One of the projects that I have had on my agenda was to move the HVAC ducts into the floor joist bay. It was part of my space preparation for the wine cellar. But also, every since my I have built my office, it has become an unconscious limbo to get there. I can’t say how many times I have smacked into it because I wasn’t directly focused on where I was walking. Fortunately, it was a flexi-duct.

In total, I think the project took my son and me about five hours to complete. It was mostly spending time together and me teaching. I didn’t necessarily need the help. Without him, it may have taken me an hour or two more but it is something I need to do. The result is phenomenal, I can’t wait to do the next one.

To start out, I stapled the string that runs perpendicular to the joists. The string provides some additional support for the bats in the joist bay. I wanted to do this because I was going to cut the string on the bay that I was removing the insulation and after fifty years, some of the staples are a little dodgy.

Once the insulation was removed I was pleased to see that the joists were 2x10s. Since the entire floor has been done, I have never seen the framing before. This gave me the minimum amount of compression where the duct needed to run between the joist bay and cross beams.

There were a couple of things I didn’t expect. One was that the floor joist had some bridging. Only one of the two members was actually connected. Had I known it was there, I would have only removed insulation to that point and used that to place to begin the decent to the trunk duct. It is something to watch for when I do the next one. I don’t want to be removing a bunch of structural members because it makes my project look better. But since only one has been connected for the last fifty years, I figure the decision was already made and I used the pieces to block the bottom of the joist and provide some additional support.

The second thing I didn’t expect is that I was going to run the duct through the joist space into the future wine cellar space. I didn’t realize that the joists were terminated and that there was a rim joist. I couldn’t exactly cut a 10″ hole in a 2×10 so that meant that I had to re-route the duct through the wall. It is not where I wanted it but I will take solace that it no longer runs through the door way where it has been the entire time I have lived here.

My exploratory work has told me that my initial plan for the wine cellar will have to be modified. I have some structural members that I did not anticipate but that is OK because I can’t be happier with the results of this work. I will figure it out later, when I get there.

End Your Programming Routine: When you do things like this, you wonder why you have lived with them for so long. I spent $50 in materials, some of it I didn’t use but bought because it was icy and I didn’t want to make another trip tot the hardware store. Plus, I have more ducts to do, having some options make sense. Not only does it look better and the space more usable but the feeble lighting does a better job illuminating too.

January 17, 2023 – Dealing With Pantry Bloat

January 17, 2023 /

If it were left strictly up to me, I would keep a tight control on what goes in to the pantry. Right or wrong, I feel an obligation to ‘get rid of things’. It ends up being an alphabet soup if you will of things that you thought you would make or partials or whatever.

Here is the technique that I use. I pick an ingredient and then I build a meal around it. That’s it. You keep doing that until you eliminate oddball stuff or get the volume of items cleared out. Of course, you could always use the canned food drive as well.

I strongly recommend that you “buy what you eat”. Looking at my picture you can see that there are a couple cans of soup. I purchased those because my wife was sick and she wanted pho. It was already 5pm and I was 30 mins from home. I made the decision to buy chicken noodle soup instead of adding another hour of going to a restaurant and ordering take out. She told me that she hates chicken noodle soup. You would think after 30 years, that might be something I knew, but that was news to me. So, I bought something that we don’t eat.

You can also see that we have a can of Jack fruit. That particular item, my son bought from the Asian grocery store. We have a vegetarian, Mexican cookbook that uses jack fruit in place of meat. This particular ingredient I do plan on using, I have just been lazy about doing it.

The dry side of the pantry is more difficult to one and done. For this reason, I suggest that you either substitute whenever possible or buy the smallest quantity available. If you find that you are really gaga over the results, then invest in the real thing because going the other way around leaves you with a 7/8″ container of an ethnic spice or mix that you have to make copious quantities (or throw it out).

I have loads of hot sauces, rubs, seasoning mixes etc. I personally have an aversion to some of these things because I don’t trust the composition. My preference is to make my own blends from basic spices that is sized for what I am doing. I guess that it doesn’t hurt to have these things around, I just don’t like the clutter. We will be thankful in the zombie apocalypse.

Another trick I have used successfully is the bulk section. Bulk doesn’t necessarily mean large quantity, it means quantity of your choosing without packaging. So when you have 3 leftover lasagna noodles because the pack has 12, you can buy 6 noodles from the bulk section to get rid on the three you do have. It is also good for recipe sized purchases. And added advantage is that it is cheap.

I have a similar relationship with the refrigerator as the pantry. And the strategy is the same, pick an ingredient and build a meal around it. Things like jellies can be incorporated in sauces or compotes for example. Keep going and stop buying things that you only use once and pretty soon, things will be cleaned up.

End Your Programming Routine: This is a balance. I would never tell my family that they couldn’t purchase something. But, I don’t appreciate the burden of having leftover ingredients around. I guess if no one can stand it, you can always pitch it but I hate the waste too. I would much rather find a way to use it up than throw it away. Above all, if you focus on eliminating the problem, then chances are pretty good that you will succeed.