Retro Active Lifestyle https://retroactivelifestyle.com/ Do Less. Live More. Fri, 23 May 2025 05:00:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/retroactivelifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Retro-Active-Lifestyle-Icon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Retro Active Lifestyle https://retroactivelifestyle.com/ 32 32 181518531 The Final Phase Of The Fire Pit Facelift Has Begun https://retroactivelifestyle.com/the-final-phase-of-the-fire-pit-facelift-has-begun/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-final-phase-of-the-fire-pit-facelift-has-begun https://retroactivelifestyle.com/the-final-phase-of-the-fire-pit-facelift-has-begun/#respond Fri, 23 May 2025 05:00:48 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3295 Dig the alliteration ⬆️

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I figured this would be a project I would kick down the road and likely never even begin because I loathe epoxy, but here we are. We epoxied our kitchen counters 7 years ago, and that was the single most stressful home improvement project I’ve ever participated in. Then, we epoxied a table in the same manner we’re going to epoxy these boards, and it didn’t go so well either. Third time’s a charm?

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This Is A Very Rare Treat https://retroactivelifestyle.com/this-is-a-very-rare-treat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-is-a-very-rare-treat https://retroactivelifestyle.com/this-is-a-very-rare-treat/#respond Thu, 22 May 2025 06:06:00 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3291 You don't even understand what a welcomed surprise this was.

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I once heard a British woman say that American bladders must work differently from European ones in reference to the utter lack of public restrooms in the U.S. as compared to Europe. I’ve always thought it was a strange thing that you’re not allowed to use the bathroom anywhere, but it’s also illegal to pee anywhere.

I like to walk late at night because after 10 p.m., I don’t have to deal with people walking their stupid dogs. I have the streets to myself. The one downside to walking late at night, though, is that there are no bathrooms open. I pass by two grocery stores and two parks. One of the stores closes at 10 p.m., and the other has a lock on the bathroom door that requires asking an employee for the code. The park ranger locks up the bathrooms at the parks by 8 p.m. Except tonight, that is.

I don’t know why, but both bathrooms were open, so I took advantage of the rare opportunity. I don’t know why they can’t just be open all the time. Literally, everyone has to pee. Why do bathrooms have business hours?

When I was done, I crossed back over the street to continue my walk, and the very first person I saw was a guy peeing in the parking lot across from the unlocked public restroom across the street. I’ve never seen that before in that parking lot, so why tonight, of all nights?

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Return To Sender https://retroactivelifestyle.com/return-to-sender/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=return-to-sender https://retroactivelifestyle.com/return-to-sender/#respond Wed, 21 May 2025 20:56:59 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3285 This would be such a good prank if we could keep it going.

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Someone on Craigslist is giving away their parents’ old steamer trunk. The post explains that they emigrated to the U.S. from Greece with this trunk. I noticed it had the address they were moving to painted on the lid of the trunk.

It’s a house in Riverside, CA.

It would be such an epic prank to pick up the trunk and deliver it to that address. Surely, the current residents would try to dispose of it, but how great would it be if they got rid of it and it turned up at their house again, and again, and again?

In 2013, we had a garage sale, and our neighbors, whom we had recently become friendly with, came over to see what we were selling. Their daughter picked up a creepy-looking doll, but despite our encouraging them to take it, they refused.

They went home, and we noticed that they had left their garage door open, so we snuck across the street and placed the doll in their garage refrigerator. Then, we went back home and waited with giddy anticipation for them to discover the doll and retaliate. We had started what we hoped would be a year-long prank wherein we would each discreetly hide the doll in each other’s houses like a perpetual game of elf-on-the-shelf, but it went nowhere.

They found the doll in their refrigerator and didn’t react at all. It was such a letdown. This trunk thing would end similarly because humor in America died long ago.

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I Painted The Neighbor’s Trash Today https://retroactivelifestyle.com/i-painted-the-neighbors-trash-today/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-painted-the-neighbors-trash-today https://retroactivelifestyle.com/i-painted-the-neighbors-trash-today/#respond Wed, 21 May 2025 04:08:03 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3281 It's like painting the roses red, but different.

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While we were sitting in our garage trying to sell our shit a few weeks back, our neighbor’s put this wall hanging shelf thing out at the curb, and Bonnie wanted it, so she sent our kid over there to get it. This weekend, we bought a can of paint for it. Trying to paint the inside edges of this thing was deceptively difficult. Tomorrow’s post might be a picture of this thing hung on the bathroom wall. Exciting, eh?

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It’s Sunflower Season Again https://retroactivelifestyle.com/its-sunflower-season-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=its-sunflower-season-again https://retroactivelifestyle.com/its-sunflower-season-again/#respond Tue, 20 May 2025 02:28:30 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3276 Sunflowers are very pretty, but like all pretty things, they're such a pain in the ass.

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The sunflowers will be nice for the next few weeks, but then they’ll start to seed. The seeds will attract the squirrels who will antagonize the dogs, both the stupid tripod that lives in my kitchen, and the god-awful, piece of shit French bulldog that lives next-door.

The squirrels will bite the heads off of the stalks and take them to various parts of the wall where they will chew the seeds out of the flower and leave huge messes of sunflower guts all over the ground below, which I get to clean up. Then, in July, the ones that haven’t been decapitated will begin their inevitable demise. That’s when the real fun begins: pulling them up.

Sunflower roots don’t go very deep, but occasionally you get a big one that puts up a fight. The real problem, though, is what to do with them. They’re so damn big, they don’t all fit in the yardwaste bin at once, so I either have to cut them up which takes time, or pull them out in stages which is usually what I do because they die in stages. So, one day a week for pretty much all of July and August, I get to wrestle giant flowers in the heat of summer.

Hopefully, we don’t get another summer like 2023 when Hurricane Hilary made landfall in California at the end of August, dousing the desert in my backyard and starting the cycle of life all over again, six months early. I spent my whole autumn and winter pulling weeds that year.

Yay, it’s summertime again. God, I’m a miserable son of a bitch.

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Time Is Speeding Up https://retroactivelifestyle.com/time-is-speeding-up/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-is-speeding-up https://retroactivelifestyle.com/time-is-speeding-up/#respond Mon, 19 May 2025 05:40:40 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3271 This weekend was a total blur.

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I can’t believe how quickly this weekend flew by. I feel like I hardly did anything for the past three days, but I was busy all weekend. I crossed a handful of tasks off my list, so I’m heading into the new week feeling slightly lighter. So, that’s a win, I guess.

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Spring Cleaning’s In Full Effect Up In Here https://retroactivelifestyle.com/spring-cleanings-in-full-effect-up-in-here/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=spring-cleanings-in-full-effect-up-in-here https://retroactivelifestyle.com/spring-cleanings-in-full-effect-up-in-here/#respond Sun, 18 May 2025 03:38:05 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3266 Yesterday is was electronics, today it's paper. Oh so much paper. 😑

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All I’ve wanted since I bought my first multi-function printer in 2010 is to live in a paperless world. I spent months scanning every piece of paper I had in my four-drawer, legal file cabinet into my computer, and yet here we are, fifteen years later, and I’m still scanning paper into the computer.

A few years ago, I was encouraged when Lowe’s prompted me to select whether I wanted a printed receipt or to have my receipt emailed to me. I joyfully selected email. They have since changed the options to printed or printed & emailed. Why?! 😩 I don’t want your stupid little piece of paper. It’s no different to me than if they handed me the wrapper their lunch came in. Thanks, I’ll just take this home and throw it away for you.

All of my bills are paperless, but that doesn’t stop all the mail from coming to my house. The occasional privacy policy, disclosure, or notice still shows up. And of course, someone is still wasting their money sending me junk mail.

Maybe, just maybe, before I die, I’ll finally be free of all paper.

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A Visualisation Of A Life Chaotic https://retroactivelifestyle.com/a-visualisation-of-a-life-chaotic/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-visualisation-of-a-life-chaotic https://retroactivelifestyle.com/a-visualisation-of-a-life-chaotic/#respond Sat, 17 May 2025 06:24:36 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3258 That's how my insides feel.

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These younger generations raised in a wireless world of Wifi and Bluetooth will never understand the cathartic zen of rearranging stereo wires. It’s not something I want to do every day or even every month, but once a year or so, it feels so good to get behind my entertainment center and sort out the mess of wires and cables, discard the ones that became obsolete since last time, reroute wires that were haphazardly strung between devices when a new gadget was added, and of course dust and clean behind everything.

Unfortunately, this year’s Spring cleaning will have to be continued on Sunday because I had to order a couple of cables that won’t be here until then. I already ran a fish line through the wall, though, so when they come, hooking them up should be a snap.🫰

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Happy New Year? https://retroactivelifestyle.com/happy-new-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=happy-new-year https://retroactivelifestyle.com/happy-new-year/#respond Fri, 16 May 2025 04:29:22 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3255 Why doesn't graduation season get it's own color scheme?

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Time doesn’t mean much to me since my occupation ceased to involve doing tasks for other people.. The days of the week all run together, so I often forget where I am in relation to the calendar. It doesn’t help that it was cold for several weeks, then it got really hot, and now it’s just sort of human temperature.

That’s why when I saw this display of gold and silver balloons, I just thought, oh yeah, it’s New Year’s again. It took a second to register that it’s the middle of May. I had to take a closer look and saw that the balloons all say some variation of graduation on them.

Why doesn’t graduation season get its own color scheme? It’s off-putting to see the colors of winter in late Spring. Graduation season should be purple and royal blue, maybe some burgundy, and then a little bit of gold for contrast. Okay, chop chop🫰 🫰 people, get on it.

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I Was Deceived https://retroactivelifestyle.com/i-was-deceived/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-was-deceived https://retroactivelifestyle.com/i-was-deceived/#respond Thu, 15 May 2025 02:37:15 +0000 https://retroactivelifestyle.com/?p=3252 And by my own eyes.

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I knew I didn’t have enough Trex to come anywhere close to doing the whole walkway, but I thought I had more than this. I was really hoping to make it to the fire pit, just so there would be a safe path to it. This is better than it was and better than nothing, so I won’t complain.

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