Tag: self-indulgence

Midweek Update: Home Selling

The Portly Politico21 Comments

A quick update from yours portly today, as I’ve been hustling to get my house ready to list.  Last week, my pastor (who just started a carpet cleaning business) did a deep clean of the house, which, of course, meant I had to deep clean before he arrived so he could get to the really bad stuff.  My mind boggles at how much junk I have accumulated in just seven years.

This morning my realtor came by with a photographer to get pictures of the house, so that required more organization, especially involving the artful concealment of things no one wants to see in pictures of a home—trashcans, the stuff you keep on the back of the toilet, etc.  I was really pleased when my realtor told me that I’d done a great job getting things together.

Now I’m just waiting for the disclosure paperwork, and soon my little home will be on the market officially.  Selling that will be a huge boon for Dr. Wife and me.  We currently own three homes between us, which sounds like some kind of decadent dream, but it’s really a huge time- and money-sink.  My house, fortunately, is paid off, thanks in part to the best bank of all, The First Bank of Mom and Dad.  The value has more than doubled (of course, the value of the dollar has probably halved) since I bought it, so I should walk away with a good profit, which will help to pay for the hefty mortgage on the new house.

Shew!  But I digress.  Please be praying that my house sells quickly—and Dr. Wife’s!  She’s had hers on the market since right before the wedding back in November, and while she’s had some showings, she hasn’t had any offers yet.  We need that albatross dropped onto some hapless chump happy new homeowner ASAP!

More to come.  Happy Wednesday!

—TPP

TBT^16: The Hermit’s Life

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

My mind is always a bit sharper during these cold, bitter wintry months, especially in the morning after a good cup of black coffee.  Indeed, I’m writing this post while sipping coffee in the wee hours of a very cold morning.  Dr. Wife and Nugget, the three-legged wonder dog, are still fast asleep; Murphy and I have been up for about thirty minutes.  The old girl (Murphy, not Dr. Wife) is munching on a beef rawhide in the other room as the morning light slowly pierces through the grey of January.

These early hours are about as close as I get to the hermit’s life these days.  It’s quiet to focus on writing, spending time with God, reading the Bible, and knocking out whatever little tasks need doing.

In putting together these TBT posts, it’s always fun—and occasionally cringe-inducing—to look back at posts from yesteryear.  One of the joys of maintaining a daily blog for seven years—whoa!—is the ability to explore my own, evolving time capsule.

It’s one of the things I love about WordPress.com.  It’s very easy to find my old posts and link to them instantly.  Oftentimes, I’ve forgotten about some of the topics I’ve covered over the years (in searching for “coffee” this morning, I found a post about coffee glasses).  Links are insanely easy, especially if you use the “Classic” block—still my preferred method of writing using WordPress.com:

They're like glasses, but made from coffee!

I currently use the $8/month “Premium” plan, which features the functionality I crave (for plug-ins, however, you’ll need the $25/month “Business” plan).  It boasts 13 GB a storage, which might not sound massive in our age of terabyte SSDs, but is more than ample when you’re mostly uploading pictures of your dog:

Also, WordPress.com is constantly throwing coupons at me.  It’s rare that I actually pay full-freight for my plan (which is billed annually).  For example, WordPress.com‘s sister site, Pressable, is offering 15% plans with code 2025PRESS15AFF.  I can’t speak to the functionality of Pressable firsthand, simply because I haven’t used it, but it offers hosting services for ecommerce sites, developers, and the like.

For everyday use, however, WordPress.com is fantastic.  I love the “Classic” blocks because I’m used to working with the formatting ribbon included, but the sheer number of available blocks is impressive:

So many blocks!

I literally just realized there’s a “Slideshow” block—my mind is already envisioning compelling slide decks of koi pond pics once the weather warms up!

I’ve been really pleased with the functionality of WordPress.com, which also comes with Jetpack built in.  Jetpack has functionality I’ve only begun to explore; that said, I love its Akismet anti-spam system. According to Akismet, it’s blocked 13,830 spam comments in the past six months alone—and 141,377 over seven-plus years I’ve been writing this blog:

Well, enough of my yakking.  If you’re like me, these cold, dark months are the perfect time to brew up some coffee, pet your dog, and start your own blog at WordPress.com.  Blogging has opened up so many doors for me, and the switch to WordPress.com back in Summer 2018 has been life-changing.  I may be a hermit, but I love the little community we’ve built here around TPP.  I have several readers who are bloggers, and many more who should be blogging.

I’d love to see our little community grow further.  WordPress.com makes it easy to get blogging, but I’m here to help!

With that, here is 2 January 2025’s “TBT^4: The Hermit’s Life“:

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Midweek Koi Pond Update II: Life and Death in the Pond

The Portly Politico10 Comments

This past weekend Dr. Wife and I visited our new home and checked on the koi.  We had unseasonably warm weather, which raised the water temperature just north of 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  That was just enough for the koi to come up when I spread (too much) food across the surface of the pond.

We did not get any pictures—d’oh!—but it looks like we have four or five existing koi in the pond:

  • A bluish one that Dr. Wife named Cobbler
  • A classic white and orange koi (Sherbet)
  • A white-ish one
  • One that seems black-and-yellow, although this might be Cobbler as well at a different angle
  • A more strikingly orange-reddish one

We also saw two or possibly three of the original population of ten rosy red minnows coming up to feed.  The others might have been hanging out below—or may have ended up as a snack for the hungry koi.  Gulp!

We did not see Milkshake or Brownie, the two younger koi we introduced the prior weekend.  I consulted with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI, which seemed to think that the two babies were playing it safe and resting down below.  That said, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

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Midweek Koi Pond Update

The Portly Politico8 Comments

I’ll be weighing in soon on the capture of the Venezuelan dictator Maduro soon over at Free Speech Backlash.  The quick version:  it’s the Monroe Doctrine, baby!  More to come.  —TPP

Yours portly has found a new obsession:  the koi pond that came with our new home.  I’ve been so passionate about tending to this pond, Dr. Wife bought me a book that is apparently the authority on all things koi (that link is an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of the proceeds from any purchase made through that link at no additional cost to you).

The previous owners constructed a very nice pond; from what I can tell from my research, they built a textbook pond for koi.  The problem right now is that the water is incredibly murky, so we can only see the koi when they surface to feed.  It being winter, our koi don’t eat often—they largely hibernate when the water temperature gets below 50 or 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  Currently, our water temperature is around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

To that end, I’m looking to purchase some Japanese Trapdoor Snails (JTSs).  These snails are amazing:  they are cold-hardy, so they survive through winter; they give birth to live young, so they reproduce slowly, virtually eliminating the risk of overpopulation; and they are living vacuum cleaners for muck and algae.  However, Fishy Business in Columbia, South Carolina still doesn’t have any in stock.

I’ve been having late-night conversations with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI about stocking the pond, in addition to doing research on my own.  CoPilot brought up ramshorn snails, which I have read about as well.  Unlike JTSs, they lay eggs, so overpopulation is more of a concern; however, koi and the rosy red minnows I added to our pond will often eat the eggs and/or baby snails, so the population should stay in check.  I’ve ordered around twenty of them from a seller on eBay (apparently, you can purchase live snails from randos on the Internet) and will introduce those when they arrive next week.

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It Is My Birthday.

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Today is my 41st birthday.  Dr. Wife is taking me to our favorite local Italian place for dinner, and surprised me with a nice card and a cool LEGO set.  I spent the morning selling two big-ticket items on Facebook Marketplace—both of which have been dangling around my neck like an albatross for weeks—and we’ll be attending the swearing-in of new Lamar Town Councilmembers this afternoon (my term is done).

More updates to come!

Happy Saturday!

—TPP

Midweek Moving

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Dr. Wife and I continue our gradual moving process today with another big load.  This time, we’re heading from her current residence in North Carolina to our new house in South Carolina.

As part of this stage in our moving process, we stayed overnight at her parents’ new house in another part of North Carolina to dog-sit their precious pug:

Her parents gave us an[other] awesome recliner, so I decided to rent another U-Haul in their town to take advantage of our visit.

However, we ran into a bit of a logistical problem:  how do we get two cars and a moving truck down to South Carolina?  Alternatively, how do we get vehicles where they need to be without necessitating a six-hour-roundtrip drive to and from Dr. Wife’s place?

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Moving Saturday 1 of X

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’ll have some classic SubscribeStar Saturday content up soon-ish, but Dr. Wife and I just got back from the first of what will likely be several days of moving furniture and such from our respective houses to our new home.  We managed to get all of the furniture her parents gifted us this summer, as well as some furniture I already had.  Additionally, we managed to unload some items at Goodwill.

We’re taking a minute to catch our breaths before indulging in some much-needed protein at the steakhouse.

Stay tuned for more!

—TPP

P.S.—We had a nice Christmas card from regular contributor Ponty and his significant other waiting for us at our new home!  It’s now festooning the mantle in our new living room.

Midweek Midterm Exams Update

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It is midterm exam week here, which means my schedule is a bit more flexible.  My World History students take their midterm exams today (Wednesday, 17 December 2025), which means I’ll be monitoring and grading throughout the day.

With a bit more flexibility this week, I have been going through my belongings to prepare items to sell on Facebook Marketplace and/or eBay, and to find things to donate to neighbors, friends, family, and/or Goodwill.  It is wild how much detritus one accumulates in a small house over the course of seven years, especially when it’s someone with latent hoarder tendencies like yours portly.

This morning a colleague purchased these Star Wars action figures from me (as well as a few other Kenner figurines I had sitting around the house):

My father-in-law went on a Facebook Marketplace kick when he and my mother-in-law were downsizing earlier this summer (see also:  my U-Haul adventure), and my own mom does a brisk business through it as well, so I’ve been turning stuff I don’t want to move to the new house into moderate treasure.  Some items move quickly and/or generate lots of interest; others sit in unsold purgatory, awaiting either redemption into paradise or a bleak end in the donation pile.

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Flashback Friday^16: Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break

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When I first wrote about workers needed Thanksgiving Day off, I was experiencing pretty severe burnout myself.  I do still believe that the Black Friday creeping into Thanksgiving is reprehensible, but I also realize my own stress was playing a role in my analysis.

Of course, this Black Friday I’m bunduru’d with Dr. Wife on the high seas, so I’m absolutely getting a break.  Indeed, I might be eating pizza covered in gravy and leftover turkey from last night’s onboard Thanksgiving feast (I assume we had one; I’m writing this post way beforehand).  While I’m enjoying the Thanksgiving Lover’s Pizza, though, millions are schlepping into retail stores at 4 AM to help grannies save pennies on toaster ovens.

Well, who doesn’t love a good deal?  But a better deal would be shuttering retailers all day on Thanksgiving so employees can rest up and spend time with family before being berated by penny-pinching Karens.

With that, here is 25 November 2022’s “Flashback Friday^4: Brack Friday Bunduru: Workers Need a Break“:

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Memorable Monday^16: Thanksgiving Week!

The Portly Politico4 Comments

It’s hard to believe looking back at this post that Dr. Wife was Dr. Girlfriend around this time one year ago.  It’s wild to contemplate how much can change in a year.

Dr. Wife and I have this conversation frequently, especially when enduring some trial or difficulty:  it doesn’t last forever.  Indeed, things can change very quickly.  It’s also a reminder to enjoy the good moments—and with Dr. Wife, there are many of those!

We’re honeymooning, so I actually wrote this post while Dr. Wife was still Dr. Fiancée!  I’m thrilled that she is not the former.  I’m very thankful for her, my family, my friends, and God.

With that, here is 25 November 2024’s “Memorable Monday^4: Thanksgiving Week!“:

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