Dec 4 - about the house

Often I look back and wonder where the day went. Yesterday was one of those days. I did go to Mass ... I did go to Home Depot ... I did do some staining ... I did do some electrical work. That's it !

I used up the inch of stain in the can on some of the trim, washed the brush and then put staining out of my mind ... done for this year. The big project, of course, was the cottage outside. The deck around here has been more puttering.

Intent on cleaning up the electrical connections at the dock, I headed to Home Depot to pick up a couple of "in use" outdoor receptacle covers. I installed a receptacle in a box that was simply used as a junction for an "on at night" light sensor, put the receptacle cover on it and voila, the Christmas lights are now plugged into that instead of having their own light sensor. I put the existing plug-in light sensor up on the balcony with another string of lights. I discovered that there's no receptacle up there so I ran an extension cord down to the box beside the grill. I will put a receptacle up there at some point, for convenience, but will need conduit etc. for that work.

The plug for the boat lift is one of those huge GFCI plugs and I discovered that they won't fit into the in-use cover, so I got stalled on that score. Another day I'll replace the receptacle itself with a GFCI, the cord from the boat lift with a normal plug and install the in-use cover. At least that's my thinking although the GFCI receptacle might not survive long in the salt water environment.

I did get out on the Harley yesterday -- to the gym and to Mass -- but my trip to HD was with the X5.

Sandy and Marda made a few trips around the area, looking at houses for sale and rent. Marda has in mind that eventually it would be good to come south for a couple/few months each winter and they were just browsing around, not seriously though. They also went out after dinner to see the lights on Canal and Flagler Streets. I see Canal when I go to the gym in the a.m. but haven't seen the Christmas lights on Flagler.

Since we went to the SYC for dinner Saturday, naturally we had shrimp for dinner on Sunday. Sandy always picks up fresh shrimp at the market on Saturday.

Yesterday when I checked the forecast the wind was going to be from the East, now they've changed that to ESE so I'll head south for my final 200k of the year. Somehow that's fitting. I'm just hoping that there will be enough of a "S" component that I'm not fighting the wind all the way back, but I suspect that it will be a steady cross.

The countdown begins. We head north in a week.

Onward !