slippers

I've been getting ready for spring for the last couple months and its taken up a crazy amount of my free time. We expanded our garden to be really huge last september in preparation for growing fruit and veggies. Then we decided to expand it another 6 more feet in one direction which we finally got finished last weekend. It was alot of work because our garden has an almost 6 foot tall deer fence all around it. We hammered in u-posts into the ground and attached the deer net and buried the bottom of the net so nothing will burrow under it. I should do measurements at some point to figure out its total volume. Its huge. lol.
We have 3 apple trees, 3 cherry trees, and 1 nectarine tree in there. We still have to move 3 of those trees into their permanent locations (they are only 1 or 2 year old trees so its still possible to dig them up) and we have to plant a new apricot tree in there. I prepped the two rows for veggies last month but theres alot of weed whacking to do still and plants to move. We have 4 grape vines, 4 blueberry bushes and multiple raspberry plants to move. I started a bunch of veggies from seed and those tomatoes are still in an unused bath tub in my house with a light over them getting bigger every day. I'm looking forward to getting everything planted and done so all this gardening can give me a break.

I got back from Ohio last night. My mom had a Remembrance Party in honor of my dad this last weekend. It was a really nice time. I'm glad I got to see so many people that knew my dad and talk to them about how he was a positive and/or great influence in their lives. The party was a bbq party too. My younger brother smoked 30 pounds of pulled pork and 20 pounds of bbq beef. I helped with the process. It was a great time.

Well my dryer broke after about 15 years and multiple repairs I've done over those years. I had to buy a new dryer. So far so good. I was finally able to get my laundry done again and my bathroom no longer smells like dirty socks and febreeze.

Mosquitos here have been a bastard the last 3 weeks! Ravenous assholes that don't even care that I have deep woods off sprayed all over my body and citronella candles are burning everywhere. I even sprayed some cutter bug killing spray onto part of my yard and those bastards keep coming for every time I walk outside. x_x Its times like this that I don't mind winter because it kills every last one of them.

Well I just landed myself a PS5 thanks to an email invite, thank fucking god. On a fricken adrenaline high right now and so freaking pumped because it means I finally get to play Cyberpunk. Gah!!!!!!!
If you'll excuse me I'm going to go calm down now and let this adrenaline high subside.

One week ago my little dog Elsa had to get a surgery to remove a few bad teeth. The vet initially though it would be 2 teeth, maybe 4 max. After they did the xray they noticed she had severe bone loss in multiple parts of her jaw and the majority of her teeth had to be removed. She has 1/3 of her teeth left.  The vet thinks it is a genetic issue that caused the periodontal disease to ravage her jaw the way it did. Shes been healing but its been a struggle. Very depressing week but shes over the worst of it now. Shes starting to feel like her old self but we're still trying to find a soft food she enjoys. More bad news is after we heard it was genetic, we checked our other dog Bella because they are cousins and she has 2 loose teeth in the front. Once we get some stimulus money we'll schedule xrays for her to see if her issue is as bad. Elsa had horrible breath going on as the main symptom but Bella's breath is fine. I hope she only needs the 2 little teeth removed. My poor babies.

A friend was able to score me a PS5 while I was at work today. I'm pretty pumped!

The Hobbit trilogy in 4k are completely different cuts of the movie. I had no idea. I was skimming through youtube tv the other day, put on Battle of the Five Armies in the background while I got some stuff done. Then when I sat down I figured I'd finish the movie. I put on the 4k version instead and wtf. Not only is the movie visually stunning.. I had no idea my tv could look this good. I could see every strand of hair on everyone's head and everything was so crisp I could almost tell when scenes used a green screen to film. But what really blew me away was all the extra scenes and the gore. Its like this is the R rated cut. WTF.
Bodies getting crushed, heads and limbs getting cut off and blood.. blood everywhere. WTF. And theres one extra scene where Thorin jumps on a goat and is like "I'm going to the top of Raven hill to kill that Azog bastard" and Dain says "How do you plan on getting past that army?" 6 more of Thorin's dwarves show up in the war chariot. Thorin: "We'll manage." and then theres like a 7 minutes scene of them tearing ass and mass murdering orcs on their way to Raven Hill. WTF. In the original movie, Thorin says he'll go to Raven Hill to kill Azog, the scene changes and we see Thorin and the others on some mountain goats ascending the hill. The amount of blood and gore in this new scene is brutal. I was shocked. But it was f*cking awesome.
Now I need to watch the rest of the movies in their 4k versions to see what else is new. I read the LoTR 4k versions are also getting new scenes.

I got a promotion with my job yesterday. I'll now be making more than I ever have doing this. $60k a year to do something I barely got paid $35k for at my previous company. The best news is that I'll have Saturdays off, and get off by 6-7pm on most days. I don't have to go to bed like some retiree anymore. So hopefully by the end of this year. Battlefield 6 will be out... it will be good... and maybe we can get the band back together @Sledgstone and @Strider Hiryu. Even though Strider is PC master race. I'm sure it'll have cross play. My gaming life has really suffered these past 3 years.

I went to Ohio to visit my family for Thanksgiving. Yes, there is covid, but we were careful. We did restaurant style rules for eating, masks on when getting plates of food, my brother's familys at their own tables all 6 foot+ away from the other tables while eating. We kept our masks on near my dad because of his immune system being compromised by the cancer treatments. Aside from that we kept the windows open to keep fresh air circulating in. We took our masks off when we'd be 6 feet away from him and each other. Its good that my mom's house is so big, the kitchen/greatroom is literally big enough to have parties of 50 people. Our handful of people was able to keep distances pretty easily. Its been 4 days since Thanksgiving and nobody is coming down with any covid symptoms so I'm guessing we did good.
It was a fun time. Alot of good memories. I hardly ever visit Ohio during winter months because of winter snow storms in NY. We lucked out and its been in the 50s and only raining off and on. I caught a ride back and forth with my cousin who now lives in NY also. He had a covid test done the day before we left which was negative and I quarantined in my house for 2 weeks leading up to the trip. I'll be quarantining again for another 2 weeks just in case, but that doesn't bother me much.

I'm stepping up my manscaping. lol. I bought a "MANGROOMER Ultimate Pro Back Shaver" off amazon. I've only used it once and I already highly recommend it. My back is like a wookie.  And this thing shredded through all that hair and didn't pull a single one. No pain and no red marks or irritation on my back. Link for reference:
https://www.amazon.com/MANGROOMER-Ultimate-Shaver-Absorber-Extreme/dp/B00FULYKG4
Its got a rechargeable battery. I was really impressed with it. I'd post before and after pics of my back, but I don't want to traumatize people with my back hair bathroom mirror pics.