Daily Journal

Monday, August 3, 2026

After not journaling for the last two or three days, I’m finding it a little challenging to sit down and get back into the habit. Even so, here I go.

Over the weekend, Claire and I cleaned out the crawlspace. Once we finished, it gave me enough confidence to schedule one final inspection so we can hopefully put this sewer odor issue behind us.

I also had another person use their nose as a fresh set of “odor detectors” to see if they could smell anything. They didn’t notice any sewer smell at all, which was encouraging. Good for me, good for us, and good for our bank account. Hopefully that means we can avoid any unnecessary repairs and finally close the book on this problem.

The inspector actually crawled underneath the house with a flashlight to check everything out. That made me feel much better about our sewer situation. At this point, I’m beginning to think the odor isn’t coming from our house at all. It may be drifting over from one of the neighboring homes. I still don’t know which one, and the smell seems to come and go with the wind.

I also set a personal record over the weekend. I didn’t have any flower until about 4:00 p.m., which is a world record for me. The day before, I didn’t take my first bong hit until 4:00 p.m. either. I wasn’t trying to prove anything, but it was interesting to see that I could wait that long.

The sky spent the morning grumbling like it might finally produce some rain. I was hopeful.

This morning I took Missy to the vet for her annual checkup. She got five shots and a full nose-to-tail inspection. At one point, they took her to the back, and when they tried to muzzle her, she snapped at the technician. They brought her back out to the waiting room, where she quickly settled down once she was with me again. After that, they were able to finish everything without too much trouble. Overall, she handled the visit like a champ.

Claire walked down from the county building and met us a couple of blocks away at the vet. Her timing couldn’t have been better. Between Claire and the veterinary staff, Missy settled down, and the whole mood became much lighter. Before long, we were all laughing in the waiting room.

I also got back to exercising today. I spent 30 minutes on the Gazelle and followed that with 15 minutes on the Bowflex. It felt great to get moving again. My left hamstring is feeling about 98%, which is the best it’s been in quite a while. I’m going to keep easing back into my workouts and let the recovery continue one day at a time.

Well, those 15 raindrops on the window are gone now. Bummer. The sun broke back through the clouds instead. Maybe next time, Mother Nature will actually follow through.