Fellowship… With Horseshoes

It was nice knowing that when I arrived at the lodge last night that there were no emergencies, no meetings that needed to take place, and nothing that needed to be completed that night. It was an opportunity to go to the lodge and enjoy the fellowship while casually discussing topics that happen to come up in conversation. What I didn’t expect was that those conversations would be happening over a game of horseshoes in the back yard.

I honestly can’t remember the last time that I tossed a horseshoe across the grass in the hopes of hearing it ring on the post. It has probably been at least fifteen years since I flipped the steel from my fingers so there was quite a bit of relearning taking place throughout the evening. Of course, the last time that I recall playing was simply as a fill in while one of my uncles took a break so there wasn’t much of a technique to be found in my past either.

The most important part of the whole evening was that fact that we could enjoy the fellowship with our brothers without an agenda to be mentioned and we were able to get to know one of our newly raised brothers a little more and in a relaxed setting. While we have had conversations in the past and I have spoken with him at great length, there is something to be said about seeing a person’s personality during a casual competition. Safe to say, more so than I was before, I am glad to have this new mason as my brother.

It is this type of environment that I would like to see constantly fostered and built upon as we move forward. This is a return to the way brothers used to interact with one another all over the world not just at lodges here and there. This is what we need if we are going to see our lodge and our fraternity as a whole thrive in the coming years and decades. Brothers of all ages and experiences simply going to lodge to enjoy the fellowship found in our fraternity.

Nights like this are part of why I decided to become a mason. It is not just about learning something new and striving to be better men, it is a brotherly bond that you share with your fellow mason, with whom you truly enjoy spending time with at the lodge and beyond the confines of the building. This is certainly something that I have to improve upon and embrace as I rarely see the brethren outside of a masonic setting. I guess I have another goal for the summer.

Mortgage Monday: The Work Never Ends!

Or Both!

 While it has always been a constant project on our list of things to do, now that we own our own home, cleaning is something that I try to put greater emphasis on. And with so much more room than we have previously had in rentals, there is a lot of cleaning to do. It is a never ending list of things that need to be scrubbed, swept, washed, or rinsed. And that is just the things on the inside of the house.

Now that we have some property (and no management company), there is a lot of yard work that has yet to be done. While I should have taken care of many of these things immediately after settlement, it was a project that was quickly put on the back burner once the temperature got colder and the snow began to fall. After all, nothing like a fresh blanket of white to hide all the leaves still covering most of the planting beds.

We have been pretty good about keeping the interior of the house in relative order (organization is still lacking) but, now that the weather has turned warmer once again, all of the things that we have been putting off in the yard have to be addressed and, at this point, we are ill prepared to tackle the task. The first step is going to be buying a tractor and a better rake or leaf blower. After that it is all about setting aside the time to get things done.

However, the more I think about many of these things, the more I find myself considering hiring a cleaning and/or yard service company to take care of all these tasks. While it would undoubtedly add an additional line item on our budget, it may be worth the money so that we can spend more time with our son. After all, our schedules are still quite a bit hectic and blocking off another brick of time would be less than ideal. Definitely something to consider.

While the extra time and effort has been inconvenient at times, it is still well worth it as we are taking care of a place that we own rather than someone else’s property. It is important to remember that there are great things about being a homeowner and they definitely outweigh, by a large margin, the inconveniences, but it is not a utopian dream. There is work that comes with home ownership and also a sense of pride in caring for your property. Sometimes, though, you just have to figure out the best way to balance everything and we are definitely still working on that aspect.

TMI Tuesday: Finding EVERYTHING on the floor!

Even before our son began crawling he would find the most minuscule piece of trash, hair, dust, crumb, lint, or string hiding in the carpet around him. Now that he is mobile and crawling at a clip that would impress even the most hard-nosed drill sergeant, he is finding more and more nearly imperceptible things within the field of carpet throughout the first floor of our house. It is actually quite impressive the amount of things that he has been able to find and also rather annoying since we have to keep a constant eye on anything that may seem out of the ordinary in the beige and brown floor.

Thankfully his toys keep him occupied more often than not and he tends to ignore many of the small pieces that we are able to quickly pick up behind him. Although there have been moments when I have contemplated putting some kind of shammy on this hands and letting him loose in the kitchen. He would probably have fun with it but I think it is a little too early and there might be something in the child labor laws about it. However, I think with his OCD tendencies he might do that all by himself when he gets a little older.

While we don’t keep a spotless house, and we probably never will, we do keep track of what could possibly be hiding in the fibers across the floor and in the kitchen around his highchair. We know where the possible discoveries are and we make sure to sweep, Swiffer, and vacuum enough to keep him from ingesting something we don’t want him to. On the other hand, the harmless things we don’t give much attention as he does have to learn every now and again that something, while perfectly safe, doesn’t taste very good.

And this is a lesson that he is quickly learning especially when he spends some time in the yard. Not only do leaves leave a bad taste in your mouth but they can also stick to the roof of your mouth even worse than peanut butter… something we avoid bringing into the house until we get some additional testing done. Now, fully mobile, he finds everything and he tries to eat everything which is proving to be humorous at times but, more than anything, a very tiring and challenging daily routine. And it is only going to become a bigger challenge when we start some of the improvement projects over the summer.

Mortgage Monday: An Extra Day To Assess

Well, our next mortgage payment was delayed by an extra day as we have a bonus 24 hours this month. While usually not something to write about the warm weather lately has made this extra time particularly enjoyable especially with nearly all of the remaining snow melting in the spring like air. As the white lines have receded I have been noticing the work that has yet to be done on the property as well as the yard chores that I failed to complete before the bitterness of the winter season took hold.

Walking around the driveway I can see that the retaining wall is a little more deteriorated than I originally realized but it is still holding back the earth. Thankfully, we have some time before the rotting railroad ties are going to have to be replaced. Good thing I know a stone mason living next door. Of course, the leaves wedged against the base of the wall are not helping the situation. As soon as the weather turns toward the regularity of spring I am going to have to do some significant clearing.

That clearing doesn’t just apply to the base of the wall as the flower beds and much of the lawn still has a health covering of foliage. While we already have a rake I am going to have to pick up the lawnmower attachment and switch out the snow blower. With all these things that need to be done in the near future I kind of wish that we could put this extra day in the bank and use it for when we need it especially if we could do so to extend a weekend.

However, some of the good things that I have definitely noticed during this extra time is that even with all the snow piled by the wind against the house, the basement has remained dry. Noisy with the boiler switching on and off all day and night by dry nevertheless. With that said, there are a few spots that also need to be addressed on the subterranean level as the sealant is showing signs of age in spots and a fresh coating should be applied before the monsoons of spring.

There are always projects that will need to be done… we accepted this fact when we decided to become home owners and at least there are many items that aren’t dire and that can wait a little while for when we have the time. Heck, they are probably going to be taken care of when we have all the optional work done on the house. Now that list is one that is growing much faster than that of the mandatory fixes.