Cody’s blog

Saturday is my long run day. I’m finding that it’s not easy to do a long run in the morning and work in the afternoon—even though I have time, it’s very tiring, especially if I get up early to be able to finish the run by 11 am, and I generally find myself just wanting to take a nap when I finish my run, not get ready and go to work.

But there really isn’t any better day to do my long runs. I like having Friday and Monday for projects and chores, and Sunday is temple day (if I have energy to go) and lying around doing nothing day. So I carry on. One more reason I’m starting to feel like quitting my job. I like the work, I just have too many other things I want to be doing.

Anyway, I’m worn out this week from the latest unforeseen project—my generator quit running on me Monday night when I went to pump water, so I had to wrangle it out of the shed and haul it into Bakersfield Tuesday morning to Pacific Power. It took much longer than I thought it would, mostly due to discovering that I had the wrong size trailer hitch ball. The original one I’d bought was the right size ball, but the shank was too short, and I couldn’t fit the nut and the washer on it, so I screwed on the nut without the washer. I knew that was a bad idea! Eventually, it fell off (luckily not while I was hauling something). The second ball I bought was bigger, and the shank was long enough but the ball was too big! So I had to drive into town and buy a new trailer hitch, then drive back and switch balls, before I could hitch up the generator trailer and get going. I was an hour late getting to work, so I ended up working an extra half-hour Tuesday and Wednesday to make up for it.

I was worried I’d run out of water before the generator was fixed, and have no way to pump more, but that all worked out—the generator was fixed yesterday, so Mom and I drove to Bakersfield and had lunch at Black Angus before picking up the generator, then we came home and wrangled it back into the shed.

Getting it back in was tiring and stressful. I have a ramp I built to the shed entrance out of planks and 4x4s, but it’s narrow and I’m really bad at backing up with the trailer, so there was much pushing the generator around to get it into position, and jiggling the truck around to get it lined up right, and bleah. I need to 1) build a better, wider ramp to the shed, probably out of concrete, and 2) learn to back up with the trailer hitched.

But anyway. It was done, the generator is back and working beautifully, and it didn’t even cost much—the guys are hoping they can get the labor paid on the warranty and only charged me for parts. So maybe now I can relax for a week or so without some urgent repair or rodent infestation or something to wear me down?

Speaking of which, I caught the little squirrel or chipmunk or whatever he was on Wednesday, finally, so that problem is taken care of. And I cleaned the bedroom on Friday, so the entire house has been cleaned!

And Jewel Quest III is out, so I have a new game to play! All is well, for the moment. But I really need some resting and recharging time.