i went to sleep around 4:30am last night. i took my mother's advice and decided i didn't have to wake up so early, since i'm only sanding the north side of the house, which is in the shade. after several snoozes, i finally got up around 9:00am, and arrived in belmont by 9:30am. today i sanded the two upper sides by the living room window, then went back with both belt and orbital sander to clean up any rough areas. a neighbor a few houses down (the one with the solar panels) is also doing some house painting; they hired a professional team, which scraped yesterday, and had the façade all finished and painted today.
i started working around 10am, then stopped by 1pm. 3-4 hours is how much sanding i can do on a typical day. if i actually worked a full day - 8 hours - i could get twice as much done, but sanding is tedious. it's not so bad now that i'm working in the shade, but after a few hours my arms are tired from holding the sanders. besides strength, it also requires concentration, from balancing on ladders, to sanding correctly on the surface so i don't accidentally remove too much shingle wood. mistakes get made when i'm tired!
after i took a shower, my mother made some scallion pancakes for lunch. she was wearing a surgical mask inside the house because she said she's allergic to the paint dust, even though none came into the house.
when my father came home, we went to home depot to look for metal L-braces. these would replace the ones on the current awning, which have not only rusted, but have been bent out of shape due to many winters of heavy snow and ice sitting on the awning. we couldn't find the right size of L-brackets (the ones we found were for joining structural studs), so we ended up getting a length of aluminum so we could bent and drill our own compatible L-brackets. home depot actually sells awnings, but the guy we spoke with said the in-store ones weren't very good, and that there were better selections on the home depot website i could order instead.
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i looked up awnings online when i got home. home depot sells one that looks very similar to the one we currently have, an aluminum 5 ft. model going for $292. both my parents think it'd be better just to replace the awning instead of trying to repair it.
for dinner we had duck broth rice noodle soup. i returned home early enough so i had time to use the bathroom and take a shower before the patriots pre-season game started at 7:30pm. against the packers, tom brady suited up and played for a few sets before backup QB jimmy garoppolo took over. there were some new england highlights, but preseason games are just practice, and more about testing and adjusting plays in preparation for the official season.