Skip to main content

Feeling Great, Overcoming Hangups, Getting Things Done

I stopped taking all thyroid medicine, and now just use a little bit of hydrocortisone now and then. I think I've always run low on it, and a little bit helps with aches and pains I'm now incurring since I feel 45 again--back when I had the energy I should have had in my 20s. 

I've been working on my garage, which needed so much work I asked a handyman what it would cost to replace it. (Too much--like what they wanted to re-side it). I decided to fix it myself. Work was slow-going at first since I didn't have any energy in the morning and afternoons were too hot to work. But last week I turned a corner. A boarded-up window was rotted and I thought that as long as I had to do repairs, I might as well put in a window. Browsing online, I fell in love with a small, inexpensive vinyl double-hung and had to have it. 

You never know what will inspire you.

Most window installation videos show nice, neat jobs that don't require retrofitting, or unusual situations. I have a very old garage with a non-standard size window opening in a neighborhood that sees a lot of garage break-ins. I don't have the tools or skills to do special millwork. After much research, I decided to convert my window from an "innie" (set into the building) to an "outie" (flush with the exterior). 

Rotten innie. The black part at the bottom left is a hole. 

Innies tend to rot where there's a lot of moisture. Not only is Indiana moist, but the wall faces the prevailing wind. "Outie" it was--which meant everything that wasn't framing (and even the rotted framing) had to go. New framing and trim meant a lot of sawing--so much that I overcame my long-time fear of circular saws and bought one. 

I watched more videos, read the manual, did some practice cuts and still made some mistakes (nothing that resulted in injury)--but I should have bought one of these years ago. I even discovered a little tool that came with it that helps you quickly line up a guide board to make straight cuts. 

After I knocked and pried out the rotted parts of the window, there were nails I couldn't pull--but I needed them out of the way. The wire cutters didn't work, the jigsaw didn't work: this was a job for a sawzall. Could I handle one? I had to try. Everything was torn out and there was no going back. 

The reciprocating saw I bought that morning didn't cut through the nails like butter, but it did cut them and it was oddly empowering. I liked the saw so well that on my next trip to the hardware store, I bought a pruning blade for it to cut off maple limbs that are always growing over the sidewalk.

I replaced one rotted piece of framing and repaired another with wood petrifier and epoxy (the white stuff at the bottom right). I built a frame, put it in the opening, and flashed it (the flashing is the silver tape that keeps out moisture). In went the window.


New frame and old repaired frame.

That was a day's work. 

Today, I made the trim, installed it and caulked everything. It still needs spray-in foam, more rot fixed, and then more caulking. And painted. Obviously, I'm no carpenter, but the window is better than what I started with. 

Even a month ago, I didn't have the physical or mental fortitude to do this. I have to give a lot of credit to Dr. William Davis--I really think his program helped me a lot. This isn't meant to be a plug for him, but I'm very happy I belong to his Inner Circle program. This project wasn't a slog, like other repairs have been--I was pumped up to do it. That's a big difference from the past few years!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What $115 Buys--Junk Food vs. Real Food

A lady recently went off about how little food $115 buys, complaining that the pile of (mostly) junk food she bought wouldn't make a week's worth of lunches and snacks for her children. Sad to say, but this looks like what I see in a lot of grocery carts.  Fat pic.twitter.com/qbM23ydaOq — shellshock (@shellshockkk) March 7, 2025 Coincidentally, I paid almost exactly the same amount today on groceries that would make lots of healthy lunches. It's filling food that won't leave you hungry every few hours for snacks. If we want to make America healthy again, this is the way.  

Celebrities Shilling for Big Soda

There's a push in Washington and ten states to ban soda (and other junk food) from SNAP, a program for low-income people to buy groceries. This seems like a no-brainer: the N in SNAP stands for nutrition, and soda doesn't have nutrients. It's liquid sugar, the last thing we need in a country full of diabetics. People can drink water for virtually nothing and save their SNAP money for actual food. Yet a number of posts from otherwise sensible accounts have opposed this.  Reporter Nick Sorter says that a company called Influenceable has been paying influencers to post these opinions. (Click on the link for the full thread.) 🚨🧵 EXPOSED: “INFLUENCEABLE” — The company cutting Big Checks to “influencers” on behalf of Big Soda Over the past 48 hours, several large supposedly MAGA-aligned “influencers” posted almost identical talking points fed to them, convincing you MAHA was out of line for not… pic.twitter.com/PpPwH9lHGe — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 22, 2025 Sorter adds...

$17/pound chips! Real food is cheaper

 My latest video on YouTube: Real food is generally cheaper than junk food--the pictures prove it. I took these at Kroger and from their website in March 2025. Prices are either straight from the tags or calculated based on product weight.  Music: On We Go (ClipChamp)  First photo by AS Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vegetables-stall-868110/

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too.  Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

1972: Carole King, M*A*S*H and...Food for 2014?

I feel well enough to try Atkins induction again. The palpitations are gone, even without taking potassium. My energy level is back to normal--no more trucking on the treadmill early in the morning  to burn off nervous energy or emergency meat, cheese and mineral water stops after yoga. It's back to lounging around to Chopin and Debussy in the morning and stopping at the wine bar for pleasure. I'm using the original Atkins book: Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution from 1972. While looking in the book for a way to make gelatin (which is allowed on induction, but Jello(TM) and products like it have questionable ingredients), I felt the earth move under my feet : those recipes from 42 years ago look delicious and they're mostly real food. It makes sense, though: the cooks who wrote the recipes probably didn't have had a palette used to low-fat food full of added sugar or a bag of tricks to make low-fat food edible. Anyone who writes a recipe called "Cottage Cheese and...