Hi Gram!
What a wonderful day! I woke early and did my puzzles and journal, then headed to the gym. Today was lower body day and I changed up how I approach the exercises a little. I’m liking my new scarf, too, although I think I look a little too cozy all bundled up when it’s not THAT cold, just upper 30s to lower 50s. It keeps me warm, though!

After breakfast, I walked to Leroy Merlin, the local equivalent to Home Depot. I couldn’t find a cable lock yesterday, so I decided to assemble a cable that I could padlock today. Just as I could see the sign for Leroy a block away, I passed a motorcycle shop. I figured they might have the lock, so I popped in. I was right. It wasn’t as long as I wanted but I bought it anyways in case Merlin didn’t have the supplies I needed. That and the guy was so nice, searching the shelves for the one lock they had, I wanted to reward him with the sale.

With that in my backpack and knowing I’d succeeded no matter what, I walked down to Leroy Merlin. The smell of lumber and cabinets hit me as I walked in, making me feel like I was home. I spent so many years in home improvement stores getting supplies for my houses, it had become all too familiar. The dominoes just fell the whole time I was there. I immediately found the rope and cable aisle, where they had exactly the kind of cable I wanted in the exact length already pre-cut. I grabbed that and the necessary clamps, then headed to the lock aisle to see if they had something premade. They didn’t, but while in that aisle, a nice lady who worked there said something to me in Romanian then walked away. She came back with an order ticket – apparently the length and product number handwritten on the sticker wasn’t enough. I grabbed some rope – you can never have enough colorful rope – then headed to get heat shrink and a wrench. Since the cable is pretty thin, the u bolt clamps are tiny, which means l had to buy the cutest little wrench to tighten them. It was smaller than my hand.

With everything I needed, I headed to the checkout and paid my 37RON – about $8. On the way out, I saw that they had a workbench so people could cut, assemble, or disassemble their purchase. The wrenches there were too big, so I was glad I bought mine. The route there crossed a noisy overpass, so I took a different route home. It took a little longer, but it was quieter and less trafficked.

When I got home, I was excited to make my cable so I dropped everything and got to it. I love working on projects like this where I can picture what I want, then make it a reality. I slipped the heat shrink on the cable, followed by the u bolt clamps, then tightened everything down. Slip the heat shrink over the loose ends, apply a little fire, and soon I had a cable with loops at each end and no wires poking out anywhere that could catch on something. Satisfied with that, I moved onto unpacking the lock and setting a new combination.

I messed that up. When I was setting the combo, something went wrong and it ended up with a random combo. It was no longer 0000 and it wasn’t what I’d set it to either. I’ve cracked combo locks after forgetting the code before, but none of my tricks were working. I decided that there were only 10,000 possibilities and I’ve got nothing but time so I started with 0001 and worked my way up. I figured I’d keep working on it when I had time over the next few days, like a fidget spinner.

While I was working on that, Bob and Amber got home. They’d gone to a fortified church this morning and really liked it. We decided to have a little cake and share our stories of the day when suddenly the lock popped open, surprising all of us. It turns out the accidental combo was 0900. I hadn’t even tried 1/10 of the options! I set it aside while we had our cake, then I very carefully set a new combo.

While I was fiddling with the lock and putting away my supplies, Amber and Bob got to work cooking dinner, which was eggplant parmesan. Simply delicious! I’m really going to miss these two when we part ways in a few weeks. After dinner, we cleaned up then played a card game. I can’t remember if we played “Bomb” or “Up and Down the River”, both fun games that we’ve played before. I really like playing card games and chatting with friends, no matter where I am in the world. Amber and Bob were ready to keep playing, but after a few games I excused myself and headed to bed.