11-25-2010 - THANKSGIVING DAY – Happy thanksgiving to everyone who reads this even if it is a little late. I have so much to be thankful for this year – for one thing, I am still alive, when it was a little iffy at the beginning of the year. My house, my kids, my dogs – just everything. I know there are troubles in our lives – but I am just thankful we are able to be together.
Have been trying to get as much as I can done toward Christmas while I wait to go into the surgery. Surgery day is set for Nov 30. Yep! I have my first batch of sugar cookies made and most of them in the freezer. Did give some to neighbors and some to kids – and some went into me. Have my fudge done and in the freezer. Made peanut brittle – so far I have made it TWICE!
First I got the sugar syrup all cooked up and poured in the peanuts – but instead of 2 cups I poured in the whole bag. I could tell right away something was very wrong – I had a pan full of peanuts with some sticky stuff mixed in. Re-read the recipe! Scooped peanuts into colander! Ran hot water over peanuts until they were rinsed – then drained two cups until they were almost dry. Put rest of peanuts down disposal. Jammed up disposal. Dug some of the peanuts out and restarted disposal. It jammed again! Dug the rest of the peanuts out – disposal is fine and I know peanuts do not go down well with disposals! NOW I know!
Washed the pan and started all over – got sugar syrup cooking away and realized I had only put in one cup of sugar. Added the other cup and continued cooking. So far so good – it is cooling on the slab and hopefully it will be brittle and not peanut caramel. We will see.
Tomorrow I will try to get my annual poppy seed braid done and in the freezer for Christmas breakfast. Will not do the pralines until I get out of the hospital and Christmas is closer. If my oldest son even had a hint that pralines were in the house – he would tear it apart looking.
My neighbors are going to keep my dogs while I am in the hospital – that is so sweet of them and it will be so much better than having them in a kennel. I still do not know how long I will be in – I know the hospital four days, but I do not know if he is going to put me into rehab or not. I guess I will find out.
Let’s see – I think I have been telling you about the trials and tribulations of trying to plant little bushes with the “devil” dog running around. I have decided that she is not part terrier – she is part terror! She tore up the two new honeysuckle bushes – still one in the ground. I managed to rescue one of them and replant it into a large pot in the house. So far it seems to be doing ok. Then I took a tomato cage and surrounded the one remaining bush with cage covered in chicken wire. So far so good!!!!
I even have a sort of chicken wire cage in the house with my herb garden. She tore up the first set of little plants – so I wrapped chicken wire around my shelving unit and the top two shelves are pretty much inaccessible to her. I can get in but there is a secret and she is still a dog so she cannot figure it out. So I have herbs and some foliage plants growing in my sunny kitchen window. Hopefully they will keep growing!
I have hollyhocks up in my little side garden – BUT – we got a freeze last night so I do not know how they are faring. We are supposed to get another one tonight. It is chilly here! I have only been out to take out the trash – yes our trash men do run on holidays. It sort of threw me for a loop the first year I was here to find they picked up garbage on holidays, but I have gotten used to it now.
We start a new recycling program in a week. They brought out trash cans – one for trash and one for recycling. The cans reached my shoulders and were about as wide as half of me. (If I laid down across them – half of me would be covering trash can.) I called – four times – and finally someone called back. They have three sizes – so now I have medium sized cans that I can actually get to and from the curb – they are only chest high! Still just as wide I think. Trash will only be picked up once a week – but if you have extra you can pile bags beside the can, the trash men will throw the trash into the can (after they empty it the first time) and then the automatic truck will pick up the second load. Hmmmmm – somehow that does not seem overly efficient to me. However, if there are people who routinely have that much trash – they need to look at what they are throwing into the land fill. I probably will not even have a half a can except maybe for holidays. Even then – it is amazing what can be recycled.
This is a strange Thanksgiving – first time I can remember not cooking in years. I am going to my son’s girl friend’s family for dinner and they only wanted me to bring a vegetable. Not much cooking on frozen almond green beans or buttered corn. Sigh.
Well I will make up for it at Christmas when I am cooking here.
11-26-2010 – Well it was not peanut brittle but it also was not edible as peanut caramel. Ugh – even the dogs would not eat it. So I scraped it all into the trash and went and got more peanuts etc – started all over today and this time it worked. I made pecan pralines, but had to download a recipe from the internet – supposed to be original New Orleans style from Emeril – but it tastes nothing like any praline I ever got in NO – and nothing like any I ever made. I will have to search again for my own recipe.
I took down all the fall decorations today and sort of started on Christmas – really half hearted as it is not much fun alone. The kids and Joely’s mom all went to Big Bear for the weekend – Joely’s uncle has a cabin there. I do have my angels up and they look good. Need to get another one but I have not found one I like yet this year. Well I don’t NEED to get another one, but I want another one. The dogs are warming up my feet as I type – good for them. It is in the 30’s today. I am not sure it ever even got up to 40. Brrrr.
I did not go out shopping for Black Friday bargains. Did go online and find the iPod my grandson wants at a reasonable price. I think it is the one he wants anyway. My granddaughter wants an iPod touch, but she is going to have to wait on that one. Way too expensive for my budget this year.
I am trying my best to get everything done before Tues – well actually before end of day Monday as Tues I will be pretty much unable to do much. It would help if people would give one a list – do you have that problem too. “What do you want for Christmas?” Reply “IDK” – which I am assuming means I don’t know. I told my granddaughter they were fresh out of I don’t knows and she had better come up with some better ideas or she was going to get nothing.
Actually for my oldest granddaughter I am about half done. I made her a blanket – the ones of fleece that are tied all the way around. She wanted zebra stripes on one side and lime green on the other. I told her I could not find the lime green and she would have to make do with aqua. She knows she is getting that but she has not seen it yet. (It does have lime green and zebra stripes.) Then I am taking pictures of her from when I first met her at four months old (she was born in Guam) and putting together a photo album. I think she will really like that. It will go up through now – and as she finishes high school, I will add to it until the graduation photo. Then she will have it. I made each of my sons one of those and they liked them a lot.
Let me tell you – if you have a lot of prints you need printed from digital files. Walmart is the best place to have it done. They were only nine cents a print and I had them in about four days. I had about 150 pictures to be printed and I cannot buy paper and ink that cheaply. There were a few that I printed at home because they were oddball sizes and I had to scan them in and then print them, but anything I had on record as a .jpg file – was sent to Walmart. Took me about 20 minutes to upload all the photos, set up the order and have it winging away. Would not have taken me that long, but I had to edit a few of the pictures once they were uploaded.
Later today or maybe tomorrow I will put together the breakfast bread we always have for Christmas. It freezes and reheats well so I always make it ahead. I will admit this is a little bit more ahead than usual, but it will be fine. It is a poppy seed braid that I started making when the kids were small and they almost demand it every year for Christmas breakfast. I am hoping that my youngest son can get here this year since the 26th is a Sunday and he might not have to work. It has been awhile since we have all been together for Christmas. Of course my granddaughter will be in OK with her mother and I will miss her a bunch, but it is good for her to visit her mom. That has been a sort of soap opera over the past year with lots and lots of drama and I am delighted to see that the relationship is getting better. At least I pray it is.
OH-the first batch of sugar cookies – well they are gone! Once everyone knew they were made – they were gone. This is a recipe that I have used for years – it is a family favorite. They are very delicate and almost melt in your mouth. If you like them, there are not enough in the world. If you do not like them, send them back to me – I am out! My mother loved them and I used to mail them to her from overseas. They are so delicate they would arrive in crumbs and she would put them on ice cream. When my sons were out to sea at Christmas, they wanted them too and they ate the crumbs with the spoons I included. I will probably make at least three more batches before the holidays are over. I give out cookie plates and they are always on the plates – and of course with family and friends around I want goodies out. I will probably take some to church too when we have our cookie exchange – assuming that is that I am driving by then. I live so far from the church I hate to ask anyone to pick me up.
I am going to get off this computer and decide whether I want to make bread tonight or not. Nope, I do not want to. It is chilly in here and all I really want to do is wrap up in my fuzzy blanket and watch TV. I think I need a break – two kinds of candy today is enough. I will shop tomorrow and do the bread and maybe by then I will have found the real praline recipe.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Way Overdue Update
5 Aug – yes summertime and the living is NOT lazy! It seems I have been so busy that writing has not been on my mind. Well it has been on my mind, just not getting to it. I ordered the blinds – went online first to Home Depot and they could not cut the blinds to order for me – they said I had to order them in the closest size and take them to a local store to get them cut after they arrived. They also only had two colors, blah and blaher – and only sizes big and huge. Soooooooooooooo – I googled blinds and found a site with great reviews so I took an (expensive) chance and ordered the blinds. They had colors galore and I could fit each of my oddball windows. The great thing was I was able to actually talk to a customer rep throughout the whole process – and the cost was much less than either of the big box home improvement stores.
The blinds arrived a week after I ordered them – last Friday. Sat I was tied up all day with a volunteer project; Sunday I was exhausted from all the stuff in the week before so Monday I started looking at instructions. I tried and tried to figure them out but they were lacking in clarity – at least to me. I knew that my son, Joe, had put up the same type of blinds a few weeks ago for his mother-in-law to be so I finally bit the bullet and cried “Uncle”. I sent a text to ask him to help. I did not expect him to do all thirteen windows – just show me and then I would do the rest.
He came over yesterday and in less than two hours had all the windows done. There was a slight “oops” with the sink in my laundry room – he did not realize it was just plastic and he stepped into it to reach that window and it split. I knew I was going to have to replace it, but now I guess I will replace it sooner. I will try the previous owners “fix-all” some good old caulk for a bit until I can find a new one. It is another oddball size – and this time I do not want plastic – so it might take a bit to find one.
My boarder left last week and I had to get the room he was using fixed up as a guest room. It looks great – even has pictures hung. Strangely, one of the mirrors that was on the wall fell with a crash the other day – and DID NOT BREAK! That is the “strangely” part. I actually heard the crash – but thought it was outside. Actually I thought the dogs has been into something again. They drag in some of the strangest things so a crash from them would not be a surprise.
Let’s see – what else have I learned in this past month’s experience of the moving process. Well, I learned that putting my mixer up above the pantry was not a smart move. To get it down I had to go to the garage and get a ladder. That did not seem like a really practical idea since I do use the mixer a lot. (Whenever I am stressed or blue – I cook!) So I had to do some rearranging in the kitchen-family room again. I moved the wine rack back across from the family room side to the kitchen side. (Remember, I had moved it over there and switched places with the bookcase in June.) Since the wine rack had a nice cutting board top – my mixer and blender have a good place to sit; they are out of the way but close when I need them and no ladder is needed to get them.
Oh – maybe I did not tell you all about the bookcase from the kitchen. Angel (yes the little devil dog) loves books – not to read but to eat. My cookbooks were in danger of extinction! So Joirdana and I moved the cookbook bookcase from the kitchen to the hall between the living room and the bedroom part of the house. It is still really close to the kitchen – and the books that were not dog food are now much safer. I found at least one book – or I should say I rescued one book – in the back yard – leaves and cover scattered to the four winds – or rather the four sides of the yard. Angel seemed so surprised when I yelled at her and picked up all the pages she was having such a good time scattering around – or eating as the case might be. She looks up with that surprised look as though she is saying “but what did I do?”
Speaking of the dogs – each and every time I cook they are there hoping, hoping, hoping that I will drop something – anything – they can snatch up. It has only happened once – dropped a piece of chicken I had boned and was putting back into the chicken and noodles. WOW! It was a good thing I did not want to get it up and put in into the pot – they had it quicker than a rattlesnake can strike. Good thing my fingers were not down there – I would be missing some.
Each and every time I eat they are there looking up at me with such pleading eyes. I know they are thinking, “Mom, that looks so much better than our dog food. Just one little bit, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” They do not get it – I really do not want to get them into the habit of begging at the table. And I do not want to get them into the habit of people food – although their dog food costs as much as my people food! Hmmmm – maybe I could beg them for some. Do you think?
Sunday Aug 8 – ok so I changed the way I am writing the date. Easier for me to do it this was – so!
This has been a busy busy week – we had vacation Bible school at our church. I am the craft lady and it was a busy time with 66 kids – and with some of the “leaders” not much older than the “kids” so wanting to do crafts also. The crafts this year were very cute, not too difficult for even the youngest of the kids and not overly messy – noisy yes, messy no. The kids are so cute – some of them are so tiny they can barely get their little noses above the table top to do the crafts. But they all persevered and had a great time. The final craft was making blankets to take to the mission. They were so cuddly and warm all the kids fell in love with them, but they prayed over them to give them away even though they left looking at them with longing.
I have volunteered to be the primary instructor for the upper elementary grades in our Sunday children’s church. Hopefully that will go well. I do like teaching the kids, but we have some pretty rowdy younguns in our church. I am also working on going on the mission trip in October – when I will take the blankets made in VBS to the mission. And in Sep I am serving on the Via de Cristo weekend – so the next two months may be kind of busy. This coming week I am going to CA for a few days – cooler temps, greener and seeing family members. What more can you ask? Oh yes, great Mexican!!!
A week or so ago, Joirdana and I put up the shelving unit in my garage – the last one. As we were putting the shelves on – I dropped one across my instep. It is STILL black and blue and hurts like the devil. Guess it is going to take awhile to heal. I would advice that you NOT drop shelves – especially heavy wooden ones – onto feet. It hurts!
I got on the computer on the 1st to balance my checkbook. Imagine my surprise when the “bill pay” for my pest control bill for the past two months had not cleared. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that I had not set up the bill pay for that payee and the bill had not been paid for the past two months. I got an immediate payment into the system – to pay it up in full. I felt like an idiot. I always put the monthly bills into the checkbook immediately, but this was a new payee and I had forgotten to set them up. They are always on time and do a great job – and I felt sooooo embarrassed.
Not doing anything exciting with the house these days so not a lot to write. Will be planning the yard very soon – as soon as it is cool enough to handle a metal measuring tape outside so I can measure everything and figure out what is going where. I want to put hollyhocks and sunflowers along my one wall next year. I think that will look really great and they do not need great soil to grow and bloom. Other than that, the only thing I know I want to put in are those bright orange bushes. They bloom all summer long, far into the fall. I am also thinking of honeysuckle along part of my back wall to keep my dear little Angel from figuring out she can actually get over the wall into the neighbor’s yard. The problem with that theory on her part is that while the jump on my side is short enough for her since my yard is terraced with a “garden” area, the other side is not terraced and she will have a free fall of about 8 feet onto a concrete patio. That is far too much for a little dog and I fear a broken leg or worse. So – I think the honeysuckle will head her off.
August 18 – Was gone all week last week. Went over to CA to visit my aunt and my younger son. Had a great time, but there were some traumatic moments for sure.
My cousin is a tiny little lady and her daughter (14) is even smaller. They were in their backyard playing with their little dogs when the three huge pit bulls from next door broke down the wooden privacy fence and attacked them. Cheryl and Steph got into the house and one of the little dogs got away and got into the house, but the pit bulls tore the other little dog to pieces – crushing its chest and doing so much damage the vet said he could do nothing to save her. It would have cost over $5000.00 to even try and he said he did not think there was even a small chance it would work out, so they had to put her down. Needless to say they were traumatized – and my aunt and I were awake all night thanking God that the dogs did not get the girls and having nightmares about it happening.
Animal control has been no help with the situation. They have given the owners of the pits 20 days to double the fence, make a cage for the dogs, get the dogs shots and licensed (oh yes, no shots or license for any of them) and get them under control. This is the second time the dogs have gotten out and injured a dog. Luckily the owner of that dog was a good size man with a baseball bat handy and he was able to beat them off. Actually one of the neighbors came over the other night when he heard Cheryl and Staph screaming, grabbed a shovel and beat the dogs into their own yard and then put the fence back up and nailed support boards to it. Aren’t neighbors great?
Now I am home again – all boxes are unpacked but I am going through the drawers that were moved as is. Have my desk done – what a huge mess. Have not even begun to tackle the file cabinet, or the shelves above my desk yet. BUT – I am pretty proud of myself. Today I did the fall housecleaning in my kitchen. When I moved in we sort of threw some shelf paper into the cupboards. Unfortunately it was of a kind where nothing would slide. I am 5’1 ¼” tall and sometimes I need to be able to slide something onto the top shelves. I do not want to keep the ladder in the kitchen – kitchen is too small. And I certainly do not want to have to get the ladder every time I need to push something back. (I have a small stepper that I can use to get stuff out – with a LOT of stretching. Getting those stretching exercises.)
I removed all the old paper and put down good old contact shelf paper. A huge job because – as most of you know – putting down contact paper evenly can be a challenge. They are all done and everything is back in the cupboards where it belongs. Actually I rearrange cupboards while I was doing the paper and moved a lot of stuff around. You know, when you first move in things get put into cupboards and then after you have used a kitchen for awhile, you realize that you need stuff in different places. So I did a bit of rearranging which I think will make it easier to use my stuff. THEN – I went through all my spices and checked dates – I had several that were way out of date so I have a nice long list to take shopping next time I go. I cook with spices, but there are some that are used so sparingly that it is impossible to use them up before their shelf life date.
THEN I decided to put my stereo up – finally. I wanted to put it on the hall bookcase because I think the music will flow around the house better that way. First I took all the books out of the bookcase with fingers crossed that there would be an outlet behind it. There was! So I moved the stereo from where it was stashed and set it up, moved the bookcase back against the wall and put all the books back in. While I was sorting books earlier this month, I gave a lot of my books to the shelter. I had a lot of books that I would only read maybe once or twice and I saw no reason to take up shelves. Now I have space to get more books!!!! YAY!!! (I love books and find reading to be my best relaxation. The only problem with that theory is that if I am reading something good, I have been known to stay up all night reading. I read extremely fast and can finish a good sized book in a few hours if I set my mind to it.) One of my speakers seemed to be among the missing and I looked and looked to no avail. Then I remembered that I had put it on one of the living room entertainment cabinet shelves when I unpacked it. I am loving having the stereo up – hook my i-Pod in and have a full array of all sorts of music all day.
After all of that I had to set up my Mary Kay sample box. Tomorrow night I do makeovers at the shelter and the box needed some attention before I go. I also needed to clean the mirrors and mirror cases and get them ready to go. They are drying now and as soon as all traces of dampness are gone I will put the mirrors in and stash them in the box. Then I am ready for tomorrow night.
I have invited my Saturday coffee group to meet at my house this week. I hope it works out because it will be fun to show them my house and to bake something yummy for the coffee. Making coffee and tea is easy. We have such a nice time – we talk about things that we need to pray for and about what is happening in our lives. They are such a great group of friends.
Oh one more thing – in Chapter 2, I told you about the garage door. It was replaced, but I guess they did not think the motor needed replacing. They were wrong! That seems to be the issue with the opening and closing problems – which continue to this day. I guess I am going to have to bit the bullet and get it done, but I sure hate to have to do it. Sigh. I wonder if it is covered under my insurance – I think I will check it out before I do anything. Who knows – that darn insurance might cover something. So far everything has been NOPE! But the garage door opener was working when I moved in – and the inspector said it was fine. Will keep you posted.
Sunday, August 22, 2010 – Coffee went great yesterday morning. I baked some muffins and a coffeecake, and my friends came. I so enjoyed showing my friends my house – it is probably 95% done now – in fact I took pictures Friday of everything so far. Most of what I will be doing now is going room to room to make sure that all the cracks and crannies are as clean as I want them. I seem to have been cleaning the entire time I have been in this house, but it is getting there. Although they did have cleaners in before the house closing, I want to scrub the baseboard areas better and I still have to remove the caulk from my big tub and replace it before I can do any of those long soaks that are nice in the wintertime. NOT in the summer. I do not know if I mentioned it anywhere, but July has record high temps here – at least ten days in a row over 110 during the middle of the month and over 100 every day. We got no rain during our supposedly “rainy monsoon” month. It did not even cool off at night so getting out into the yard was limited to picking up dog trash every few days. No weeding or the like and definitely no planning.
I am going to do a chapter 7 that is mostly pictures of walking through the house as it looks now that it is mostly done. I would like to put together an album of the entire process but that will be a winter project as I have taken a bunch of pictures during the project – they will have to be sorted into order and perhaps lined up to tell the story – and then maybe printed or put on DVD or something. That will be a whole “other” project and one for winter when I am more or less done with the house and cannot get outside.
Next week is a whole new week. I cannot believe that August is almost over. I will start the week with a visit from the insurance company to see what can be done with my garage door motor that has stopped working; then the people from Lowes will come and tell me how many gazillion dollars it will cost to replace the two sinks that need to go. I am worried about the one in the bathroom because of the vanity top – I really do not want to replace that at this time. Eventually it will have to be replaced as it is pretty well worn and stained – someone has smoked in there a lot. It is also such a strange shape – it runs out over the top of the toilet tank. That makes it very difficult to get into the tank – and like many I like having the over the toilet shelving units to hold bits and pieces. I also get the last of the three pain shots in my back this coming week. They help so much. I had gone way over time to get them this time – I just was thinking that I was overdoing it and that was why my back was hurting so much. I get them about every six months – but the last series was last October. Hmmmm – but I am doing fine so guess I did no permanent harm.
Then I will start in my bathroom/bedroom with the baseboards, sorting some of my dresser drawers that got moved without packing and just generally finishing up those two rooms. From there I am going to be moving through the house one room or hall at a time.
Oh before I close for the day – in my bathroom the light fixture has been broken since I moved in. I could still get light from some of the bulbs, but it was not in good shape. I had purchased a new one, but electrical things I do not touch and I really did not know a good electrician. I am a little iffy about letting strangers into my house so was trying to make sure I found one I felt comfortable with. One of the prayer lists I subscribe to is for our local Via de Cristo and someone had posted a request for prayers for a job as he had just lost his. He is an electrician – so I called – and my lights are up and in great shape. He worked quickly and quietly – and if I have other electrical work I will be sure to call him. I will have to do some repainting on that wall as the previous occupants had, of course, never painted behind the old fixture and the size and shape are not the same. That will be a small task though – and I will start working on matching paint this week. I have to scrape paint from the mirrors and tile anyway because whoever painted in the past was not overly careful. There is even paint on windows. I will do all that paint stuff in one room at a time as I move through them. I actually think I can get enough paint in one of those small sample cans to do the little part of the wall, but later in the fall I will have to repaint the doors throughout the house. I have scrubbed them a lot since moving in but they are so stained that they just look grubby. A fresh coat of paint helps a lot of things.
Tuesday, 31 August – A nice relaxing day after last week’s scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. I think I might have mentioned that I was in the stage of DEEP CLEANING now – making the house clean to my standards rather than the previous occupant and their “cleaning” team standards. It took me two days to get my bathroom done. First I had to scrape all the blue paint off the tiles in the shower and tub. Still have some of that to remove but it will take paint remover – you would not believe all the places they have paint! Then I had to caulk the top of the shower where the tiles meet the wall. Interesting concept here – they caulk everything that needs fixed – but forgot to caulk the tub and shower enclosures. Hmmmmm! I see a pattern here.
After all the paint was removed, I started really deep cleaning – the baseboards and the doorframes. Then I tackled my tub. Remember, I said weeks ago, the tub would wait because I did have the shower clean and useable. I thought the tub was a sort of off white – almost gray in color. I used some sort of grime remover – and WOW! I have a shining white tub – and the floors, and all around my bathroom sparkle. I will have to repaint however as they did not cover up all the blue – in fact there is blue showing through everywhere – so there will be painting in the fall. I hope I do a better job of taping than they did. Oh wait! I am going to tape so of course I will do a better job.
After the bathroom, I started working my way around the baseboards in my bedroom. Remind me again why I wanted solid oak furniture. Heavy! Very Heavy! But I moved it all out – except my bed and we cleaned baseboards before we put that in – I am not totally stupid! As I was moving things around, I was also checking to see what outlet the second switch on my bedroom wall covers. So far I have found nothing that works with either switch. Guess it is just dead and sitting there doing nothing – not even looking pretty because it has paint on it. Worked down the hall and cleaned behind the one bookcase. Now starting Sep 1st after grocery shopping (and ink and sink shopping – and yes I did mean to write that – sink at Lowes; ink at COSTCO) I will finish the hall and the guest bathroom; on through the guest room; laundry room; den and into the living room. Those are just a matter of baseboards – and there are some of those done because as I put in the heavier furniture, I cleaned first. Then I will tackle the kitchen! While it is clean – there is baseboard work to be done – and small holes in the walls to be repaired. I am thinking of how to make it look good – and keep the dogs from eating the plaster. Any ideas? Maybe stone along the bottom? Hmmmm –
Sunday, September 05, 2010 – WOW – it is another month already. We started Children’s Church today. I am teaching grades 3 – 6. That will be a challenge but we have a great group of kids and I think they are up to it. Luckily I know most of the kids from Vacation Bible Schools the past three summers and our Thursday night children’s group. I will be involved with that again this year too.
I am having company for lunch tomorrow – have to run to the gym early and then get home and get the guest bathroom done – I have been a little lazy the past week. Well, not really lazy – more like exhausted and just not having enough energy to get more done. So I had the fall cleaning on hold. But I will finish it this coming week – in between studying for Via de Cristo weekend and all the other things that go on in my life. Have two doctor’s appts this week but that is good because they are getting further and further apart. My Crohn’s disease seems to be more or less under control right now and that is a good thing. There are flare-ups but I know when they are coming and I can handle them. So far they have not kept me from doing what I want to do. I do have to make sure that when I go somewhere, I know where the bathroom is located just in case – but luckily no embarrassing runs through a theater or anything so far.
Everyone keeps telling me what I can and cannot eat. My doctor says to eat what I want – if it bothers me – don’t eat it again. That makes sense to me. This disease reacts differently in each and every person who has it, so the forbidden foods will be different for each. So far I seem to be able to eat just about everything except extremely hot food. I made Cajun Shrimp for my son while he was home and even he said it was a bit on the hot side – I did have a bit of a reaction to that. I normally do not make it that hot – must have had some really hot pepper flakes on hand.
I am dreading my office fall cleaning. Because I was ill, I did not do the normal file cabinet cleanup that I do each year – and when they moved it without taking out any of the files some got mixed up and tossed around. So I am going to have to take everything out and sort it – and shred a lot. I will wait until closer to the end of the year and do my 2010 shredding along with the 2009 stuff. I also have to go through the papers in my “filing” box on my desk – a lot of stuff just got thrown in there while I was ill and then during the move and I need to know what I have. The really important stuff – passports and the like – are in my little safety box; but there are papers that have information that should be shredded. I am absolutely paranoid about shredding anything that might give the “bad” guys information about my family.
Once I am all sort of settled into the house, I want to get back to our family tree. I have traced it back to the 1400’s on one side and about the 1500’s on another. We have good family record and luckily there is a strong family connection to the Adams of MA – in fact John Adams is a cousin about 14 times removed. There was even DNA testing done to show which of all the Adams families in the states came from the original Henry Adams who settled in MA in 1636 and which were not. My uncle was tested and we fall into the Henry Adams group – of course we already had a lot of that traced back with records, but it was fun to read the DNA testing information. What was really amazing to me is that DNA from my mother’s brother could go back that far.
Of course on my dad’s side there is a real problem. My dad’s name was Smith and I am back about five generations. Do you have any idea how many George Smiths were born in Ohio in about 1822? Take a guess! And what makes it even more interesting/challenging is that George Smith may have still been George Schmidt. We are not sure when the name was changed to Smith. It will be fun.
Thursday, Sep 30, 2010. Is this month FINALLY over? Please tell me it is so! It has been so hectic. Besides working on the house – STILL – I have been preparing for various children’s church activities, preparing for the Via de Cristo weekend which was over last weekend. It was a wonderful weekend, but I am still exhausted.
Now I am back to working on the house. I finally found a curtain rod that will fit that corner window – or rather I should say “those corner windows” – in my family room. I have looked and looked and finally had to order it on the internet. BUT! When it came, the screws that came with it just were way too long to go into my wall. I am not sure, but I think the former owners probably did some repairs with concrete – no matter how hard I tried I could not get the screws to go in more than an inch. So I finally got to Lowes yesterday and got shorter ones – and God is very good, because they came in a package of only five – just one more than I need. I was figuring I would have screws enough to last a lifetime. Today I will get that up and get my checkbook updated – yes it is the end of the month – time to pay bills, balance the checkbook and then see if there is money left to work on the yard.
FINALLY – it is supposed to be cooler next week. I cannot believe we are still in triple digits at the end of September. It has been so hot it is unreal. However, they tell us that by next week we will have highs in the 70’s. Now isn’t that a kick – triple digits one day and 70’s the next! It will be nice though out in the yard and I can get started on my front border to keep the rocks in the yard instead of out. I also have to figure out how to get the ratty old bushes out of the yard so I can put some nice new ones in. Oh – and I also have to figure out what kind of a watering system I have and where the outlets are. The pine tree in the back looks like it is drying up totally. I think the clorine from the pool behind me might have something to do with that! I get water leaking through my wall at least once or twice a week. The kids sound like they are having a good time over there though, so I guess it is ok.
Once I get those curtain rods up – I MUST tackle this office. I have been putting it off because I just do not want to do it. Normally I clear up files and the like at the beginning of the year, but I was sick in the beginning of the year and between the recovery process and moving the office has been ignored. If I do not get busy I will be doing shredding for two years worth of files instead of just one at a time. My poor shredder will probably give up in despair.
Speaking of giving up in despair – my transmission decided that 181,000 miles was just enough. Last Thursday as I was driving over to pick up a friend for the weekend, my transmission suddenly started slipping the and the OD Off light started flashing. I called the garage and told them what was happening. They told me I should bring it right in! “But I’m driving up to Mt. Charleston for the weekend!” I wailed.
“I would not recommend that. But we can get you a rental car.”
So I drove a new Escape up the mountain – and am still driving it since while I was on the mountain my cell phone had no service and the garage could not reach me to get permission to spend the gazillion dollars to repair the transmission. I am getting new car fever driving this Escape – and new car fever is not something I can afford right now. The house comes first. I drive an Escape, just a much older one.
Scary time though – nothing like driving down the interstate and having the car suddenly not going anywhere. The engine just kept revving up – and the lights just flashed like Christmas lights. Yikes! Hopefully I will have my car back tomorrow. Do you have any idea of how many things we carry in our cars? Do you have any idea home many times we miss those things when our cars are in the garage?
So far I have had to find another checkbook, my cloth grocery bags and the few plastic ones I use for trash can liners are in my car (do not ask!), and last night I had to drive to the strip WITHOUT MY GPS! I managed to remember which exit to take, but I did get lost when I was coming home after the show. Oh and my cell phone charger is in the car. At least one pair of shoes must be there because they are not in my closet. My little jacket I take into restaurants and shows is in the car. I think I might just have to pack a bag of stuff out of the car and just carry it back and forth. Thank goodness my Sunday school materials are NOT in the car since we have Godz Kidz tonight and Children’s church on Sunday and I am not sure when the car will come home. Soon I hope – or this new car fever will consume me. HA!
As I said I went to the strip last night – that is not a place I normally go, but cousins from out of town were visiting and I met them for a night of fun. We hit one of the smaller buffets and wow the food was good. I normally do not eat that much beef, but the prime rib was so tender I could cut it with my fork. Then we went over to Treasure Island to see “Mystere”. If you ever get the chance – GO! WOW! What an amazing show. There was something going on all the time and the transitions from act to act were so smooth that there was no lag time. The acts were so amazing that I think my mouth was open most of the time. Not a very attractive picture is it! It was a two hour show and when it was over I was amazed that the two hours were over. I cannot describe the strength, grace and beauty of the show so you will just have to go. Then we went back to the MGM where they were staying and chatted and talked for another hour. Then I left – and immediately got lost. I took a wrong turn out of the hotel, and amazingly enough there are streets close to the strip that I really do not want to be on after 10:30 at night. THEN! The gas light came on and the rental car kept counting down the miles until I was empty. Luckily I got turned around eventually and was home by 11:00 – a drive that should have taken no more than a half hour at that time of night. Oh well – it was a fun evening and I would do it all over again. Well – maybe not the getting lost part, but the rest of it I would do over again.
Now I must get myself out to the family room and get those curtain rods up. Then it will be time to make the curtains. They are actually about half made, but when I could not get curtain rods to fit I put them aside. I have to pull them out and get them finished. Wish me luck. Oh yeah – I have to read journals from my fifth and sixth grade Godz Kidz and comment. So I will close for today. Tomorrow is a new month and hopefully not quite as busy a month.
And I FINALLY figured out how to put a link to my pictures in here without opening my Facebook up to the world. So here are pictures of the house and yard as they look so far.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038181&id=1339327159&l=da0f303af0
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038183&id=1339327159&l=55c11f13ab
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044429&id=1339327159&l=84c05d4538
Thurs Oct 7, 2010 – WOW! Life certainly does make it difficult to get all moved – whatever the age I guess. But now – WOW!
Just as I started to put up those curtain rods – my son called and needed me to come right over. Nothing like scaring mom half to death! It was important but luckily no one was dead, hurt or sick. That pretty much killed the rest of that day.
The next few days were taken up with things like getting food in the house – is everyone over 65 as bad as me about that. I HATE grocery shopping so I will wait until the cupboards are literally almost bare before I go – then I have to buy out the store. I do big cooking so I can put things in the freezer and not have to cook little meals. It is so hard to cook for one person – especially after cooking for my sons and all their friends for years. Now I cook a big pot of something – chicken and noodles for instance – send half to my son and his family and freeze the rest in meal size portions for me. My meal size portions are not very big so I get a lot of meals from that one pot of chicken and noodles. Do that with pretty much everything. So after I shopped I cooked! Still no curtain rods up.
Sunday I took care of my grandson – so got nothing done that day. Not that it was an unproductive day – just no work day. I seldom work on Sunday’s anyway – everyone needs one day of rest of a week. And I needed it this Sunday – Saturday I walked in the Breast Cancer Walk – we raised a lot of money on that five K walk – but I would swear it was pretty much uphill. ALL THE WAY! Got some good pictures of the walk but they are still on the phone. Of course – I forgot the camera. Not sure I would have wanted to carry it the whole way anyhow. The phone fits in my pocket. Not only did we walk the five K – but the shuttles from the parking lot were not visible so we walked from the parking lot and then back to the car – I think that was another K or two each way. It was fun though – was in a group from the gym and that made it a lot of fun. We did a lot of laughing along the way and that made it go more quickly. Then I went out to breakfast with the group and that was a lot of fun.
So why didn’t I get the curtain rods up on Monday or Tuesday – heck I don’t know. I don’t even remember what I did those days. Oh I know – called the garage a gazillion times to see if my car was ready YET – subbed at the Pre-K at our church and did a volunteer stint in reading/writing skills at a local elementary school. Next Monday I am subbing again at the Pre-K. That is just pure fun – the kids are so bright and really into learning. I know a lot of them from Children’s church and our Thursday night Children’s Ministry – so it is a lot of fun.
Yesterday, I got the curtain rods up and made the valances for those windows. At Last! BUT! One side of one window is just a little off in measurements so I have to move that curtain rod up about ¾ of an inch. I will do that maybe later today – after I got them hung yesterday I had to go through the journals my Thursday night kids write each week and comment on what they wrote. They are a good group and they really seem to think about the lesson of the week. Last week was on being selfish – and they had some pretty good thoughts on what they were selfish about and how to “fix” it. Good reading. Made me think even.
Now I am off to the doctor to see what is going to happen with my knee. I tore the meniscus quite some time ago and have been avoiding knee surgery like the plague since then. I am afraid that I may not be able to avoid it much longer – the knee hurts enough to wake me up at night and that is not good. I just hate the idea of being tied down without driving for awhile. Of course it is my left leg and I will probably NOT stay tied down as long as the doctor thinks I will! After the doctor is done, I am going to the library to do my volunteer stint at the Heritage Room (family tree stuff) and then on to the gym to punish my body for indulging in Oreos this week. Then maybe home for awhile so I can get ready for tonight’s kids thing at church.
Hmmmm! Maybe there is a reason it is taking me so long to get settled. Actually I only have two rooms that are somewhat unsettled – still have to finish the guest room – and my office is a shambles. I really need to go through files and shred, shred, shred. I just am avoiding it. I think I will keep that for one of those gray winter days that keep me locked inside. By that time it will be time to get rid of more files, so I can do both at once. Hmmmmm – a plan? Or procrastination?
Truly, the inside of the house is mostly done – and I am doing bits and pieces in the yard. Yesterday I trimmed my one tree so that people (me for one) could walk under it without getting whacked in the head. I figure if it hits me in the head it is going to hit everyone in the head except maybe kids. The tree still needs some branches thinned out, but I will wait until the leaves fall so I can see how to shape it. Next on the outside agenda – getting rid of that awful bush and replacing it with something that has flowers. I am going to use desert plants – there are several that are really pretty. There is one I especially like called the Desert Bird of Paradise. It has great bright orange flowers that attract hummingbirds among other things.
I am also planting Mimosa trees – however, they may not be in the ground for a bit as I am planting them from seeds. When I was still in Texas, we had this huge Mimosa by the building at work. The building and trees were scheduled for bulldozing to build housing for soldiers. So I grabbed some of the seed pods and planted them. Once they were big enough I planted two in my yard in Texas – they were beautiful and gave great shade. So I called a friend on the street and asked her if she could ask the new owners if I could have seed from the tree. Yesterday I received a large envelope of seed pods and after I go to Lowes today and get some peat pots – I will start Mimosa trees for here. I want at least two in the yard and it may end up being three – need shade on several windows – but I do want to put in more than one kind of tree. So we will see.
I also have an avocado started and will see how it does – it may end up outside too. They do grow here although I will not get avocados – I think I need a male and female tree for that and I certainly do not know how to tell the difference! And on that note I will close for today.
14 Oct – Thursday Well before I leave for church and Godz Kidz - (and don’t hit me on the spelling – it was not my idea) – I guess I will catch this up a little bit.
I did get the peat pots and now have several planted and green stuff coming up in some of them. There were some kitchen herbs there too so I grabbed some of them. I must grab more seeds very soon because this is planting season for things like Hollyhocks and other things I want to plant. They all seem like spring things to me – but not in this state! So next week I will be outside digging and digging and digging. I want to put up the retaining blocks along the front sidewalk and have to dig out the bed for the hollyhocks. I actually thought I had a little more time for that, but oh no, I live in a state where all the planting is backwards or something. It will get done, or at least some will get done. I can wait until January or February to plant some of the bushes which is good because before I can plant, I have to dig out this really, really, really ugly bush in the front yard. I have no idea what it is, but it is ugly to the max.
Last week I trimmed my one tree, but there is still a lot of trimming to be done on it. My son will be over this weekend so I might try to get him to do the high stuff. We are going to decorate for Halloween. I love decorating for the holidays and it is fun to do it when it is my own house. I know there will not be a landlord roaring up to yell at me because he or she does not like Halloween decorations or Christmas decorations or whatever. I am looking for a Nativity scene for my front yard. I might have to build my own!!!! You can find Santas and every other little thing, but do you think you can find Nativity scenes? Nope!
Today I was planning to go to the gym, but!!! After nearly two hours of tearing my garage apart and putting it back together, and power washing the floor, I decided that I had had my workout for the day. I sorted through some boxes of stuff that had just been stashed forever and ever and ever. Got rid of a lot of it! I figure if I have not seen it for two years or more, I probably do not need it anymore. The only thing that does not work for is paperwork. For tax reasons I have several boxes of files, but I think this winter I will be sorting through that and perhaps getting it to the shredder. We have a shredding truck that comes around or I can take it to the local shredder. I have a little office shredder, but it will not handle those boxes and boxes of paper. That is a task that must wait until I have at least gotten some done on the yard.
I measured the whole yard last Saturday. Since I was doing it alone, I am sure my neighbors thought I was a little crazy. I would lay the tape down and then sidestep down the length of the area I was measuring. I got it all done though and I think the measurements are accurate enough that I can decide what needs to be planted where. I want to definitely put in some honeysuckle in the backyard and I have other ideas too. Actually I have a book on gardening in Nevada and if I were to plant everything I have marked as “I like this” – I would need about ten acres. I am going to have to decide what I really want – sigh. But I want it all.
I am going to build a little wall between my yard and the neighbors. They have grass and I want to keep my rocks out of their grass. I also have to figure out where the watering system in this place is set up. It is very strange. I am hoping my son can help me figure it out. He used to do yard work and he is very good at it.
OH! FINALLY! I do not remember if I mentioned my recalled vacuum cleaner but – as a reminder the Angel dog ate the power supply on my little stick vacuum so I called Electrolux to order a new one. I found out the one I had was recalled and they were replacing it. Sooooooooooooooooo! They shipped me a Fedex label and I shipped the old one back to the factory and I have been waiting since for the replacement. It came today. You have never seen a vacuum this color. It is sort of a purple pink – pretty in its own way. I have it charging in my bedroom away for the Angel dog and can hardly wait until I can use it.
I have been letting the dogs out of the family room and into the rest of the house now that most of the stuff is unpacked and safely put away. It is a riot to see them. I close the doors to the bedrooms because I do not want to share the decorator pillows and animals on the beds with the dogs. My house is sort of built around a center. Coming in the front door you walk into the living/dining room. There is an open wall with a doorway which leads into the family room/kitchen. Just before that doorway there is a hall to the left that leads to the master bedroom. That turns to the left for another hallway to the other bedroom, bathroom, laundry room and out to the garage. In between the hall and the living room is my den which has a door from the 2nd hallway and French doors into the living room. Can you picture it?
When the dogs get into the main part of the house the hallways and my den become a raceway with then running in circles. Then all of a sudden one will switch directions and run like mad the other way with the other one right behind. It is a riot to watch them. The only thing I watch out for sure is that Angel does not get under my desk where there are cords galore for the computer and all the other electronics in that den. Once in a great while I shut off the den so they have to race around the hall and then turn and race back. I could sit and be entertained all day. Another reason I am so slow getting settled into this place.
I don’t let them run the house all the time and for sure when I am gone they are restricted to the family room where their food, water and doggie door can be found. Then there are fewer accidents! But they sure are entertaining little devils!
10 Nov (Wednesday) – October was such a busy month I did not even find time to write. Did not really do a lot of that sitting back and being entertained because I was busy with the yard and with Halloween.
First I dug out the bed for the hollyhocks; that will be the first bed in the front yard. I planted hollyhock seeds and have been watering diligently so I was not surprised to see little plants coming through. They will need thinning and moving around, but they are up and hopefully before we get a freeze they will be up and have strong enough roots to survive and come back next spring. I also planted some pansies in the bed so I will have color through the winter. They are strange because they are bright orange. I had never seen orange hollyhocks before.
Then I started on the border between my yard and the front sidewalk. WOW! With both the border and the flower bed I am finding that the dirt here is pure ROCK. Not only is it hard, but when they first put this yard together many years ago they just dumped the rocks onto the dirt so the decorative rock is deeply imbedded into the dirt. It has been so “interesting”. I got most of the front border done and will go out later today and work on the problem area. It seems that when the workers built the walls between the houses they dumped whatever leftover cement they had just wherever they wanted to dump it. So right at the end of my border I have about four inches of cement to chip away. My son did help some and will probably come back – it is simply a job of chipping away with a chisel and hammer until it is all gone. I found the same issue when I was doing the flower bed and had to actually move the bricks a little to compensate for cement.
I also started planting in the backyard. I am putting huge pots on the retaining wall because land here is so bad. Besides digging being so very difficult, the dirt itself is just cleachy clay – with no nourishment at all. That means lots and lots of additions to make it work and I decided that on the retaining wall I would just put big pots. Great idea! However, I did not take Angel into consideration when I planted the first pots. I planted three pots with one honeysuckle and then two bushes with bright yellow flowers. I do not know what they were but they were very beautiful. Note that I said they “were” – Angel dug them out of the pots and I guess she ate them since I found very little of them. I moved the pots over to the edge of the wall between me and the neighbors; that wall I think I have mentioned that I am afraid that Angel will jump over; and I replanted but this time with more honeysuckle. I am hoping that I will have a whole wall of honeysuckle. Besides keeping Angel from jumping across the wall, the honeysuckle will attract birds and it smells and looks so wonderful. It will bloom all summer and way into the fall so I will have color there. I will work on future pots when I figure out how to keep Angel out of the pots. By the way Angel has taught Maxi to dig too, so now I have TWO little devils to keep track of. I was hoping it would go the other way with Maxi teaching Angel to calm down. HA!
While I was at Lowes getting the new dirt and the new honeysuckle, I saw the most beautiful mums so I have two pots of those in front of the house. Finally! Color!
Here are my pictures of the yard so far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059385&id=1339327159&l=2da9232dc0
This link will take you to my Facebook pictures of the yard. I add photos there every so often. I also have pictures of the house from beginning to now on that page and that link is here:
Ok, now what else did I do in October that kept me from writing? Oh, yes! Halloween! My son and his family came over a couple of weeks before Halloween to help me decorate and did we ever decorate! However, I live in Nevada and the wind is much heavier than even that “windy city” we hear so much about. So we decorated and then I redecorated many, many times. Finally the last few days before Halloween, I just left the tombstones down and waited until after church on the 31st and put the graveyard back together.
Yes, my yard became a graveyard with tombstones and bones all over the place. The front door was covered with spider webs (fake for sure) and spiders (also fake). My granddaughter had a ball spreading the web all over the entry. The wind played havoc with that too and we have to put it all back on the 31st along with the graveyard. My one tree was filled with ghosts and more web and my ugly bush was also covered in spider webs and a huge purple and black spider. The two links that follow are us decorating and the yard when it was done just before the trick or treaters arrived.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059380&id=1339327159&l=f615588f3d
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059383&id=1339327159&l=8d86ff4a49
I am not sure I have mentioned that besides working on moving after age 65 I also do volunteer work. In October that work included going to a Harvest Party, as a worker, for foster kids in the valley. First I had to bake and decorate a cake. It turned out really cute with pale orange icing and lots of pumpkins and candy corn scattered about. However, it did not travel well and some of the icing oozed out as we drove to the party location. It turned out even cuter though because it looked like a spooky ooze and like it was meant to be that way. The cakes were for a cake walk and as the kids participated in the cake walk, they were awarded cakes to take home and share with their families. We had the foster kids and kids from the foster families so there were nearly a hundred kids at the party. There were various activities set up around the room with games and activities. I ran the craft table and my granddaughter who worked with me ran the fishing booth. We both had a very busy night! I thought the kids would not really want to do crafts with all the other exciting things going on, but I had two crafts that were kid magnets.
One was making rings out of pipe cleaners. Sounds kind of blah, but taking two pipe cleaners and fitting it around fingers, and then curling the pipe cleaners to make flowers turned out to be attractive to both boys and girls. Some of the litter children has problems with curling, so I did a lot of rings before the evening was over and several of the children sported rings on all fingers.
The other craft they liked was one of those scratch off coloring pages. There were little black pieces of paper which looked sort of “what is this for?” The children found out quickly that they could draw or just scratch and they would have a really pretty picture, with colors they could not have imagined. I had to finally limit them to two each, because they all wanted to sit there all night scratching off black wax. I did not mind them being there but I wanted everyone to have a turn and the lines were sort of long at times.
That was a few days before Halloween and it was quite a party. Food and drinks for the kids, adults in costume (another picture I will have to add later as my witch persona is not loaded yet either.) It was fun and exhausting. I was glad we had a few days to rest before Halloween.
Halloween was on a Sunday so we had all day to get ready. After church Dana came home with me and we fixed all the decorations and put the graveyard back together. Then we prepared for a family barbeque and got ready for trick or treaters. It was such a lovely mild evening that Dana sat on the floor in the open door handed out candy. We actually had many kids visit our little graveyard and they oohed and aahed over the decorations and pretended to be frightened of the spiders, but I am pretty sure they were just playing with us. None of the really little ones even noticed the decorations. They were focused on getting that candy in their bags. We did have the occasional really big kid who was much too old for trick or treating, but we handed them candy anyway.
I love Halloween. I think it is one of the few really fun holidays and I hope it stays fun for kids. One holiday where a child can dress up and pretend to be someone else and walk around having fun and being silly is just right. All the other holidays we have celebrate something. Halloween is just a kid day. I know that many adults have parties and dress up and have fun but it is a kid day and I hope it stays that way. I dress up to greet the kids because they think that is fun and I decorate for the kids and as long as I am able, I will continue to play with Halloween.
Finally, October was over and we are into November. My first week in November, I finally gave into the pain and accepted the referral to surgery that my pain management specialist has been talking about for two years. I assumed it would take several months between the visit and the actual surgery, but assuming is not good. We all know what that does for us! I am seeing him again today, November 10, and he will set the surgery date today. That of course is if all my blood work, lung X-ray and doctor clearances are in and ok. I just want it to be over now. I know there is going to be a period of recovery when the pain will probably match the pain of the knee before surgery, but being awakened several times during the night because the knee is on fire or being unable to do some of the things I want because it hurts so much is just wearing me down. I love to walk, but it hurts to walk so I have not been walking the dogs as much as they or I would like. I look at things I would like to do – go to the mountains, just go shopping – and I put them off because I hurt. This is not how I want to live, so I will go through the surgery and rehab and I will be back to hiking the mountains again before you know it. I have even put off my trips to California because being in the car for so long is just painful. (It is only five hours but to my knee it must seem like fifty.)
As I type I am holding this laptop on my lap and my knee is throbbing just from holding it up. It is time! So wish me luck! I will add writing about that to the story of moving after age 65. The knee has been a factor in not getting the yard done as quickly as I want – that and the just overwhelming pile of rocks. I have to take each one a step at a time and right now the step is toward getting the knee back to working so I can tackle those rocks.
The dogs are watching me so I had best get off the computer and pay some attention to them. Angel was in the flower pots again this morning. Oh I must add one more little thing about Angel and dirt. I had planted some herbs for an indoor herb garden and they were just beginning to come up when Angel discovered the on the shelf near the kitchen window. She ate them, dirt and all! What a mess. She did not eat all the dirt and it took me a long time to get the floor clean from the stains of that dirt. I have them all replanted and have taken woven fencing and wrapped my shelf so hopefully the plants will live to become adults this time!
Until later – I am off to do more settling it. I think it is time to mop that kitchen/family room floor again. The dogs are hard on floors but I would not give them up for anything. I am looking for someone to babysit them while I am in the hospital. I will ask my granddaughter to stay with me for a few days after to help me with chores and dogs until I am up and running again. I do not intend to be down long. I know the rehab takes awhile, but I do not intend to be laid up very long. I also know I will have to curtail some things – no more digging in the yard for awhile anyway – but I will restrain myself with looking at the plan of the yard and plan some more.
Nov 15 – Well today I have an electrician here putting in lights for the outside of the garage and lights in the garage. That little garage door light is just not doing it for me. It actually cost more for the parts than the labor this time. The lights will be motion lights so if someone comes creeping up the driveway in the middle of the night – not that I am expecting that but just in case – they will be spotlighted!
Still waiting to see when I am going to get the surgery. They had a date but it would have kept me in the hospital over Thanksgiving and with a limited staff that would not have given a lot of rehab. Sigh. I just want to get it over with now.
P.S. - The sink in the laundry room is replaced - my son did the work at a much lower price than the nearly $300.00 Lowes wanted.
The blinds arrived a week after I ordered them – last Friday. Sat I was tied up all day with a volunteer project; Sunday I was exhausted from all the stuff in the week before so Monday I started looking at instructions. I tried and tried to figure them out but they were lacking in clarity – at least to me. I knew that my son, Joe, had put up the same type of blinds a few weeks ago for his mother-in-law to be so I finally bit the bullet and cried “Uncle”. I sent a text to ask him to help. I did not expect him to do all thirteen windows – just show me and then I would do the rest.
He came over yesterday and in less than two hours had all the windows done. There was a slight “oops” with the sink in my laundry room – he did not realize it was just plastic and he stepped into it to reach that window and it split. I knew I was going to have to replace it, but now I guess I will replace it sooner. I will try the previous owners “fix-all” some good old caulk for a bit until I can find a new one. It is another oddball size – and this time I do not want plastic – so it might take a bit to find one.
My boarder left last week and I had to get the room he was using fixed up as a guest room. It looks great – even has pictures hung. Strangely, one of the mirrors that was on the wall fell with a crash the other day – and DID NOT BREAK! That is the “strangely” part. I actually heard the crash – but thought it was outside. Actually I thought the dogs has been into something again. They drag in some of the strangest things so a crash from them would not be a surprise.
Let’s see – what else have I learned in this past month’s experience of the moving process. Well, I learned that putting my mixer up above the pantry was not a smart move. To get it down I had to go to the garage and get a ladder. That did not seem like a really practical idea since I do use the mixer a lot. (Whenever I am stressed or blue – I cook!) So I had to do some rearranging in the kitchen-family room again. I moved the wine rack back across from the family room side to the kitchen side. (Remember, I had moved it over there and switched places with the bookcase in June.) Since the wine rack had a nice cutting board top – my mixer and blender have a good place to sit; they are out of the way but close when I need them and no ladder is needed to get them.
Oh – maybe I did not tell you all about the bookcase from the kitchen. Angel (yes the little devil dog) loves books – not to read but to eat. My cookbooks were in danger of extinction! So Joirdana and I moved the cookbook bookcase from the kitchen to the hall between the living room and the bedroom part of the house. It is still really close to the kitchen – and the books that were not dog food are now much safer. I found at least one book – or I should say I rescued one book – in the back yard – leaves and cover scattered to the four winds – or rather the four sides of the yard. Angel seemed so surprised when I yelled at her and picked up all the pages she was having such a good time scattering around – or eating as the case might be. She looks up with that surprised look as though she is saying “but what did I do?”
Speaking of the dogs – each and every time I cook they are there hoping, hoping, hoping that I will drop something – anything – they can snatch up. It has only happened once – dropped a piece of chicken I had boned and was putting back into the chicken and noodles. WOW! It was a good thing I did not want to get it up and put in into the pot – they had it quicker than a rattlesnake can strike. Good thing my fingers were not down there – I would be missing some.
Each and every time I eat they are there looking up at me with such pleading eyes. I know they are thinking, “Mom, that looks so much better than our dog food. Just one little bit, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” They do not get it – I really do not want to get them into the habit of begging at the table. And I do not want to get them into the habit of people food – although their dog food costs as much as my people food! Hmmmm – maybe I could beg them for some. Do you think?
Sunday Aug 8 – ok so I changed the way I am writing the date. Easier for me to do it this was – so!
This has been a busy busy week – we had vacation Bible school at our church. I am the craft lady and it was a busy time with 66 kids – and with some of the “leaders” not much older than the “kids” so wanting to do crafts also. The crafts this year were very cute, not too difficult for even the youngest of the kids and not overly messy – noisy yes, messy no. The kids are so cute – some of them are so tiny they can barely get their little noses above the table top to do the crafts. But they all persevered and had a great time. The final craft was making blankets to take to the mission. They were so cuddly and warm all the kids fell in love with them, but they prayed over them to give them away even though they left looking at them with longing.
I have volunteered to be the primary instructor for the upper elementary grades in our Sunday children’s church. Hopefully that will go well. I do like teaching the kids, but we have some pretty rowdy younguns in our church. I am also working on going on the mission trip in October – when I will take the blankets made in VBS to the mission. And in Sep I am serving on the Via de Cristo weekend – so the next two months may be kind of busy. This coming week I am going to CA for a few days – cooler temps, greener and seeing family members. What more can you ask? Oh yes, great Mexican!!!
A week or so ago, Joirdana and I put up the shelving unit in my garage – the last one. As we were putting the shelves on – I dropped one across my instep. It is STILL black and blue and hurts like the devil. Guess it is going to take awhile to heal. I would advice that you NOT drop shelves – especially heavy wooden ones – onto feet. It hurts!
I got on the computer on the 1st to balance my checkbook. Imagine my surprise when the “bill pay” for my pest control bill for the past two months had not cleared. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that I had not set up the bill pay for that payee and the bill had not been paid for the past two months. I got an immediate payment into the system – to pay it up in full. I felt like an idiot. I always put the monthly bills into the checkbook immediately, but this was a new payee and I had forgotten to set them up. They are always on time and do a great job – and I felt sooooo embarrassed.
Not doing anything exciting with the house these days so not a lot to write. Will be planning the yard very soon – as soon as it is cool enough to handle a metal measuring tape outside so I can measure everything and figure out what is going where. I want to put hollyhocks and sunflowers along my one wall next year. I think that will look really great and they do not need great soil to grow and bloom. Other than that, the only thing I know I want to put in are those bright orange bushes. They bloom all summer long, far into the fall. I am also thinking of honeysuckle along part of my back wall to keep my dear little Angel from figuring out she can actually get over the wall into the neighbor’s yard. The problem with that theory on her part is that while the jump on my side is short enough for her since my yard is terraced with a “garden” area, the other side is not terraced and she will have a free fall of about 8 feet onto a concrete patio. That is far too much for a little dog and I fear a broken leg or worse. So – I think the honeysuckle will head her off.
August 18 – Was gone all week last week. Went over to CA to visit my aunt and my younger son. Had a great time, but there were some traumatic moments for sure.
My cousin is a tiny little lady and her daughter (14) is even smaller. They were in their backyard playing with their little dogs when the three huge pit bulls from next door broke down the wooden privacy fence and attacked them. Cheryl and Steph got into the house and one of the little dogs got away and got into the house, but the pit bulls tore the other little dog to pieces – crushing its chest and doing so much damage the vet said he could do nothing to save her. It would have cost over $5000.00 to even try and he said he did not think there was even a small chance it would work out, so they had to put her down. Needless to say they were traumatized – and my aunt and I were awake all night thanking God that the dogs did not get the girls and having nightmares about it happening.
Animal control has been no help with the situation. They have given the owners of the pits 20 days to double the fence, make a cage for the dogs, get the dogs shots and licensed (oh yes, no shots or license for any of them) and get them under control. This is the second time the dogs have gotten out and injured a dog. Luckily the owner of that dog was a good size man with a baseball bat handy and he was able to beat them off. Actually one of the neighbors came over the other night when he heard Cheryl and Staph screaming, grabbed a shovel and beat the dogs into their own yard and then put the fence back up and nailed support boards to it. Aren’t neighbors great?
Now I am home again – all boxes are unpacked but I am going through the drawers that were moved as is. Have my desk done – what a huge mess. Have not even begun to tackle the file cabinet, or the shelves above my desk yet. BUT – I am pretty proud of myself. Today I did the fall housecleaning in my kitchen. When I moved in we sort of threw some shelf paper into the cupboards. Unfortunately it was of a kind where nothing would slide. I am 5’1 ¼” tall and sometimes I need to be able to slide something onto the top shelves. I do not want to keep the ladder in the kitchen – kitchen is too small. And I certainly do not want to have to get the ladder every time I need to push something back. (I have a small stepper that I can use to get stuff out – with a LOT of stretching. Getting those stretching exercises.)
I removed all the old paper and put down good old contact shelf paper. A huge job because – as most of you know – putting down contact paper evenly can be a challenge. They are all done and everything is back in the cupboards where it belongs. Actually I rearrange cupboards while I was doing the paper and moved a lot of stuff around. You know, when you first move in things get put into cupboards and then after you have used a kitchen for awhile, you realize that you need stuff in different places. So I did a bit of rearranging which I think will make it easier to use my stuff. THEN – I went through all my spices and checked dates – I had several that were way out of date so I have a nice long list to take shopping next time I go. I cook with spices, but there are some that are used so sparingly that it is impossible to use them up before their shelf life date.
THEN I decided to put my stereo up – finally. I wanted to put it on the hall bookcase because I think the music will flow around the house better that way. First I took all the books out of the bookcase with fingers crossed that there would be an outlet behind it. There was! So I moved the stereo from where it was stashed and set it up, moved the bookcase back against the wall and put all the books back in. While I was sorting books earlier this month, I gave a lot of my books to the shelter. I had a lot of books that I would only read maybe once or twice and I saw no reason to take up shelves. Now I have space to get more books!!!! YAY!!! (I love books and find reading to be my best relaxation. The only problem with that theory is that if I am reading something good, I have been known to stay up all night reading. I read extremely fast and can finish a good sized book in a few hours if I set my mind to it.) One of my speakers seemed to be among the missing and I looked and looked to no avail. Then I remembered that I had put it on one of the living room entertainment cabinet shelves when I unpacked it. I am loving having the stereo up – hook my i-Pod in and have a full array of all sorts of music all day.
After all of that I had to set up my Mary Kay sample box. Tomorrow night I do makeovers at the shelter and the box needed some attention before I go. I also needed to clean the mirrors and mirror cases and get them ready to go. They are drying now and as soon as all traces of dampness are gone I will put the mirrors in and stash them in the box. Then I am ready for tomorrow night.
I have invited my Saturday coffee group to meet at my house this week. I hope it works out because it will be fun to show them my house and to bake something yummy for the coffee. Making coffee and tea is easy. We have such a nice time – we talk about things that we need to pray for and about what is happening in our lives. They are such a great group of friends.
Oh one more thing – in Chapter 2, I told you about the garage door. It was replaced, but I guess they did not think the motor needed replacing. They were wrong! That seems to be the issue with the opening and closing problems – which continue to this day. I guess I am going to have to bit the bullet and get it done, but I sure hate to have to do it. Sigh. I wonder if it is covered under my insurance – I think I will check it out before I do anything. Who knows – that darn insurance might cover something. So far everything has been NOPE! But the garage door opener was working when I moved in – and the inspector said it was fine. Will keep you posted.
Sunday, August 22, 2010 – Coffee went great yesterday morning. I baked some muffins and a coffeecake, and my friends came. I so enjoyed showing my friends my house – it is probably 95% done now – in fact I took pictures Friday of everything so far. Most of what I will be doing now is going room to room to make sure that all the cracks and crannies are as clean as I want them. I seem to have been cleaning the entire time I have been in this house, but it is getting there. Although they did have cleaners in before the house closing, I want to scrub the baseboard areas better and I still have to remove the caulk from my big tub and replace it before I can do any of those long soaks that are nice in the wintertime. NOT in the summer. I do not know if I mentioned it anywhere, but July has record high temps here – at least ten days in a row over 110 during the middle of the month and over 100 every day. We got no rain during our supposedly “rainy monsoon” month. It did not even cool off at night so getting out into the yard was limited to picking up dog trash every few days. No weeding or the like and definitely no planning.
I am going to do a chapter 7 that is mostly pictures of walking through the house as it looks now that it is mostly done. I would like to put together an album of the entire process but that will be a winter project as I have taken a bunch of pictures during the project – they will have to be sorted into order and perhaps lined up to tell the story – and then maybe printed or put on DVD or something. That will be a whole “other” project and one for winter when I am more or less done with the house and cannot get outside.
Next week is a whole new week. I cannot believe that August is almost over. I will start the week with a visit from the insurance company to see what can be done with my garage door motor that has stopped working; then the people from Lowes will come and tell me how many gazillion dollars it will cost to replace the two sinks that need to go. I am worried about the one in the bathroom because of the vanity top – I really do not want to replace that at this time. Eventually it will have to be replaced as it is pretty well worn and stained – someone has smoked in there a lot. It is also such a strange shape – it runs out over the top of the toilet tank. That makes it very difficult to get into the tank – and like many I like having the over the toilet shelving units to hold bits and pieces. I also get the last of the three pain shots in my back this coming week. They help so much. I had gone way over time to get them this time – I just was thinking that I was overdoing it and that was why my back was hurting so much. I get them about every six months – but the last series was last October. Hmmmm – but I am doing fine so guess I did no permanent harm.
Then I will start in my bathroom/bedroom with the baseboards, sorting some of my dresser drawers that got moved without packing and just generally finishing up those two rooms. From there I am going to be moving through the house one room or hall at a time.
Oh before I close for the day – in my bathroom the light fixture has been broken since I moved in. I could still get light from some of the bulbs, but it was not in good shape. I had purchased a new one, but electrical things I do not touch and I really did not know a good electrician. I am a little iffy about letting strangers into my house so was trying to make sure I found one I felt comfortable with. One of the prayer lists I subscribe to is for our local Via de Cristo and someone had posted a request for prayers for a job as he had just lost his. He is an electrician – so I called – and my lights are up and in great shape. He worked quickly and quietly – and if I have other electrical work I will be sure to call him. I will have to do some repainting on that wall as the previous occupants had, of course, never painted behind the old fixture and the size and shape are not the same. That will be a small task though – and I will start working on matching paint this week. I have to scrape paint from the mirrors and tile anyway because whoever painted in the past was not overly careful. There is even paint on windows. I will do all that paint stuff in one room at a time as I move through them. I actually think I can get enough paint in one of those small sample cans to do the little part of the wall, but later in the fall I will have to repaint the doors throughout the house. I have scrubbed them a lot since moving in but they are so stained that they just look grubby. A fresh coat of paint helps a lot of things.
Tuesday, 31 August – A nice relaxing day after last week’s scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. I think I might have mentioned that I was in the stage of DEEP CLEANING now – making the house clean to my standards rather than the previous occupant and their “cleaning” team standards. It took me two days to get my bathroom done. First I had to scrape all the blue paint off the tiles in the shower and tub. Still have some of that to remove but it will take paint remover – you would not believe all the places they have paint! Then I had to caulk the top of the shower where the tiles meet the wall. Interesting concept here – they caulk everything that needs fixed – but forgot to caulk the tub and shower enclosures. Hmmmmm! I see a pattern here.
After all the paint was removed, I started really deep cleaning – the baseboards and the doorframes. Then I tackled my tub. Remember, I said weeks ago, the tub would wait because I did have the shower clean and useable. I thought the tub was a sort of off white – almost gray in color. I used some sort of grime remover – and WOW! I have a shining white tub – and the floors, and all around my bathroom sparkle. I will have to repaint however as they did not cover up all the blue – in fact there is blue showing through everywhere – so there will be painting in the fall. I hope I do a better job of taping than they did. Oh wait! I am going to tape so of course I will do a better job.
After the bathroom, I started working my way around the baseboards in my bedroom. Remind me again why I wanted solid oak furniture. Heavy! Very Heavy! But I moved it all out – except my bed and we cleaned baseboards before we put that in – I am not totally stupid! As I was moving things around, I was also checking to see what outlet the second switch on my bedroom wall covers. So far I have found nothing that works with either switch. Guess it is just dead and sitting there doing nothing – not even looking pretty because it has paint on it. Worked down the hall and cleaned behind the one bookcase. Now starting Sep 1st after grocery shopping (and ink and sink shopping – and yes I did mean to write that – sink at Lowes; ink at COSTCO) I will finish the hall and the guest bathroom; on through the guest room; laundry room; den and into the living room. Those are just a matter of baseboards – and there are some of those done because as I put in the heavier furniture, I cleaned first. Then I will tackle the kitchen! While it is clean – there is baseboard work to be done – and small holes in the walls to be repaired. I am thinking of how to make it look good – and keep the dogs from eating the plaster. Any ideas? Maybe stone along the bottom? Hmmmm –
Sunday, September 05, 2010 – WOW – it is another month already. We started Children’s Church today. I am teaching grades 3 – 6. That will be a challenge but we have a great group of kids and I think they are up to it. Luckily I know most of the kids from Vacation Bible Schools the past three summers and our Thursday night children’s group. I will be involved with that again this year too.
I am having company for lunch tomorrow – have to run to the gym early and then get home and get the guest bathroom done – I have been a little lazy the past week. Well, not really lazy – more like exhausted and just not having enough energy to get more done. So I had the fall cleaning on hold. But I will finish it this coming week – in between studying for Via de Cristo weekend and all the other things that go on in my life. Have two doctor’s appts this week but that is good because they are getting further and further apart. My Crohn’s disease seems to be more or less under control right now and that is a good thing. There are flare-ups but I know when they are coming and I can handle them. So far they have not kept me from doing what I want to do. I do have to make sure that when I go somewhere, I know where the bathroom is located just in case – but luckily no embarrassing runs through a theater or anything so far.
Everyone keeps telling me what I can and cannot eat. My doctor says to eat what I want – if it bothers me – don’t eat it again. That makes sense to me. This disease reacts differently in each and every person who has it, so the forbidden foods will be different for each. So far I seem to be able to eat just about everything except extremely hot food. I made Cajun Shrimp for my son while he was home and even he said it was a bit on the hot side – I did have a bit of a reaction to that. I normally do not make it that hot – must have had some really hot pepper flakes on hand.
I am dreading my office fall cleaning. Because I was ill, I did not do the normal file cabinet cleanup that I do each year – and when they moved it without taking out any of the files some got mixed up and tossed around. So I am going to have to take everything out and sort it – and shred a lot. I will wait until closer to the end of the year and do my 2010 shredding along with the 2009 stuff. I also have to go through the papers in my “filing” box on my desk – a lot of stuff just got thrown in there while I was ill and then during the move and I need to know what I have. The really important stuff – passports and the like – are in my little safety box; but there are papers that have information that should be shredded. I am absolutely paranoid about shredding anything that might give the “bad” guys information about my family.
Once I am all sort of settled into the house, I want to get back to our family tree. I have traced it back to the 1400’s on one side and about the 1500’s on another. We have good family record and luckily there is a strong family connection to the Adams of MA – in fact John Adams is a cousin about 14 times removed. There was even DNA testing done to show which of all the Adams families in the states came from the original Henry Adams who settled in MA in 1636 and which were not. My uncle was tested and we fall into the Henry Adams group – of course we already had a lot of that traced back with records, but it was fun to read the DNA testing information. What was really amazing to me is that DNA from my mother’s brother could go back that far.
Of course on my dad’s side there is a real problem. My dad’s name was Smith and I am back about five generations. Do you have any idea how many George Smiths were born in Ohio in about 1822? Take a guess! And what makes it even more interesting/challenging is that George Smith may have still been George Schmidt. We are not sure when the name was changed to Smith. It will be fun.
Thursday, Sep 30, 2010. Is this month FINALLY over? Please tell me it is so! It has been so hectic. Besides working on the house – STILL – I have been preparing for various children’s church activities, preparing for the Via de Cristo weekend which was over last weekend. It was a wonderful weekend, but I am still exhausted.
Now I am back to working on the house. I finally found a curtain rod that will fit that corner window – or rather I should say “those corner windows” – in my family room. I have looked and looked and finally had to order it on the internet. BUT! When it came, the screws that came with it just were way too long to go into my wall. I am not sure, but I think the former owners probably did some repairs with concrete – no matter how hard I tried I could not get the screws to go in more than an inch. So I finally got to Lowes yesterday and got shorter ones – and God is very good, because they came in a package of only five – just one more than I need. I was figuring I would have screws enough to last a lifetime. Today I will get that up and get my checkbook updated – yes it is the end of the month – time to pay bills, balance the checkbook and then see if there is money left to work on the yard.
FINALLY – it is supposed to be cooler next week. I cannot believe we are still in triple digits at the end of September. It has been so hot it is unreal. However, they tell us that by next week we will have highs in the 70’s. Now isn’t that a kick – triple digits one day and 70’s the next! It will be nice though out in the yard and I can get started on my front border to keep the rocks in the yard instead of out. I also have to figure out how to get the ratty old bushes out of the yard so I can put some nice new ones in. Oh – and I also have to figure out what kind of a watering system I have and where the outlets are. The pine tree in the back looks like it is drying up totally. I think the clorine from the pool behind me might have something to do with that! I get water leaking through my wall at least once or twice a week. The kids sound like they are having a good time over there though, so I guess it is ok.
Once I get those curtain rods up – I MUST tackle this office. I have been putting it off because I just do not want to do it. Normally I clear up files and the like at the beginning of the year, but I was sick in the beginning of the year and between the recovery process and moving the office has been ignored. If I do not get busy I will be doing shredding for two years worth of files instead of just one at a time. My poor shredder will probably give up in despair.
Speaking of giving up in despair – my transmission decided that 181,000 miles was just enough. Last Thursday as I was driving over to pick up a friend for the weekend, my transmission suddenly started slipping the and the OD Off light started flashing. I called the garage and told them what was happening. They told me I should bring it right in! “But I’m driving up to Mt. Charleston for the weekend!” I wailed.
“I would not recommend that. But we can get you a rental car.”
So I drove a new Escape up the mountain – and am still driving it since while I was on the mountain my cell phone had no service and the garage could not reach me to get permission to spend the gazillion dollars to repair the transmission. I am getting new car fever driving this Escape – and new car fever is not something I can afford right now. The house comes first. I drive an Escape, just a much older one.
Scary time though – nothing like driving down the interstate and having the car suddenly not going anywhere. The engine just kept revving up – and the lights just flashed like Christmas lights. Yikes! Hopefully I will have my car back tomorrow. Do you have any idea of how many things we carry in our cars? Do you have any idea home many times we miss those things when our cars are in the garage?
So far I have had to find another checkbook, my cloth grocery bags and the few plastic ones I use for trash can liners are in my car (do not ask!), and last night I had to drive to the strip WITHOUT MY GPS! I managed to remember which exit to take, but I did get lost when I was coming home after the show. Oh and my cell phone charger is in the car. At least one pair of shoes must be there because they are not in my closet. My little jacket I take into restaurants and shows is in the car. I think I might just have to pack a bag of stuff out of the car and just carry it back and forth. Thank goodness my Sunday school materials are NOT in the car since we have Godz Kidz tonight and Children’s church on Sunday and I am not sure when the car will come home. Soon I hope – or this new car fever will consume me. HA!
As I said I went to the strip last night – that is not a place I normally go, but cousins from out of town were visiting and I met them for a night of fun. We hit one of the smaller buffets and wow the food was good. I normally do not eat that much beef, but the prime rib was so tender I could cut it with my fork. Then we went over to Treasure Island to see “Mystere”. If you ever get the chance – GO! WOW! What an amazing show. There was something going on all the time and the transitions from act to act were so smooth that there was no lag time. The acts were so amazing that I think my mouth was open most of the time. Not a very attractive picture is it! It was a two hour show and when it was over I was amazed that the two hours were over. I cannot describe the strength, grace and beauty of the show so you will just have to go. Then we went back to the MGM where they were staying and chatted and talked for another hour. Then I left – and immediately got lost. I took a wrong turn out of the hotel, and amazingly enough there are streets close to the strip that I really do not want to be on after 10:30 at night. THEN! The gas light came on and the rental car kept counting down the miles until I was empty. Luckily I got turned around eventually and was home by 11:00 – a drive that should have taken no more than a half hour at that time of night. Oh well – it was a fun evening and I would do it all over again. Well – maybe not the getting lost part, but the rest of it I would do over again.
Now I must get myself out to the family room and get those curtain rods up. Then it will be time to make the curtains. They are actually about half made, but when I could not get curtain rods to fit I put them aside. I have to pull them out and get them finished. Wish me luck. Oh yeah – I have to read journals from my fifth and sixth grade Godz Kidz and comment. So I will close for today. Tomorrow is a new month and hopefully not quite as busy a month.
And I FINALLY figured out how to put a link to my pictures in here without opening my Facebook up to the world. So here are pictures of the house and yard as they look so far.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038181&id=1339327159&l=da0f303af0
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2038183&id=1339327159&l=55c11f13ab
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044429&id=1339327159&l=84c05d4538
Thurs Oct 7, 2010 – WOW! Life certainly does make it difficult to get all moved – whatever the age I guess. But now – WOW!
Just as I started to put up those curtain rods – my son called and needed me to come right over. Nothing like scaring mom half to death! It was important but luckily no one was dead, hurt or sick. That pretty much killed the rest of that day.
The next few days were taken up with things like getting food in the house – is everyone over 65 as bad as me about that. I HATE grocery shopping so I will wait until the cupboards are literally almost bare before I go – then I have to buy out the store. I do big cooking so I can put things in the freezer and not have to cook little meals. It is so hard to cook for one person – especially after cooking for my sons and all their friends for years. Now I cook a big pot of something – chicken and noodles for instance – send half to my son and his family and freeze the rest in meal size portions for me. My meal size portions are not very big so I get a lot of meals from that one pot of chicken and noodles. Do that with pretty much everything. So after I shopped I cooked! Still no curtain rods up.
Sunday I took care of my grandson – so got nothing done that day. Not that it was an unproductive day – just no work day. I seldom work on Sunday’s anyway – everyone needs one day of rest of a week. And I needed it this Sunday – Saturday I walked in the Breast Cancer Walk – we raised a lot of money on that five K walk – but I would swear it was pretty much uphill. ALL THE WAY! Got some good pictures of the walk but they are still on the phone. Of course – I forgot the camera. Not sure I would have wanted to carry it the whole way anyhow. The phone fits in my pocket. Not only did we walk the five K – but the shuttles from the parking lot were not visible so we walked from the parking lot and then back to the car – I think that was another K or two each way. It was fun though – was in a group from the gym and that made it a lot of fun. We did a lot of laughing along the way and that made it go more quickly. Then I went out to breakfast with the group and that was a lot of fun.
So why didn’t I get the curtain rods up on Monday or Tuesday – heck I don’t know. I don’t even remember what I did those days. Oh I know – called the garage a gazillion times to see if my car was ready YET – subbed at the Pre-K at our church and did a volunteer stint in reading/writing skills at a local elementary school. Next Monday I am subbing again at the Pre-K. That is just pure fun – the kids are so bright and really into learning. I know a lot of them from Children’s church and our Thursday night Children’s Ministry – so it is a lot of fun.
Yesterday, I got the curtain rods up and made the valances for those windows. At Last! BUT! One side of one window is just a little off in measurements so I have to move that curtain rod up about ¾ of an inch. I will do that maybe later today – after I got them hung yesterday I had to go through the journals my Thursday night kids write each week and comment on what they wrote. They are a good group and they really seem to think about the lesson of the week. Last week was on being selfish – and they had some pretty good thoughts on what they were selfish about and how to “fix” it. Good reading. Made me think even.
Now I am off to the doctor to see what is going to happen with my knee. I tore the meniscus quite some time ago and have been avoiding knee surgery like the plague since then. I am afraid that I may not be able to avoid it much longer – the knee hurts enough to wake me up at night and that is not good. I just hate the idea of being tied down without driving for awhile. Of course it is my left leg and I will probably NOT stay tied down as long as the doctor thinks I will! After the doctor is done, I am going to the library to do my volunteer stint at the Heritage Room (family tree stuff) and then on to the gym to punish my body for indulging in Oreos this week. Then maybe home for awhile so I can get ready for tonight’s kids thing at church.
Hmmmm! Maybe there is a reason it is taking me so long to get settled. Actually I only have two rooms that are somewhat unsettled – still have to finish the guest room – and my office is a shambles. I really need to go through files and shred, shred, shred. I just am avoiding it. I think I will keep that for one of those gray winter days that keep me locked inside. By that time it will be time to get rid of more files, so I can do both at once. Hmmmmm – a plan? Or procrastination?
Truly, the inside of the house is mostly done – and I am doing bits and pieces in the yard. Yesterday I trimmed my one tree so that people (me for one) could walk under it without getting whacked in the head. I figure if it hits me in the head it is going to hit everyone in the head except maybe kids. The tree still needs some branches thinned out, but I will wait until the leaves fall so I can see how to shape it. Next on the outside agenda – getting rid of that awful bush and replacing it with something that has flowers. I am going to use desert plants – there are several that are really pretty. There is one I especially like called the Desert Bird of Paradise. It has great bright orange flowers that attract hummingbirds among other things.
I am also planting Mimosa trees – however, they may not be in the ground for a bit as I am planting them from seeds. When I was still in Texas, we had this huge Mimosa by the building at work. The building and trees were scheduled for bulldozing to build housing for soldiers. So I grabbed some of the seed pods and planted them. Once they were big enough I planted two in my yard in Texas – they were beautiful and gave great shade. So I called a friend on the street and asked her if she could ask the new owners if I could have seed from the tree. Yesterday I received a large envelope of seed pods and after I go to Lowes today and get some peat pots – I will start Mimosa trees for here. I want at least two in the yard and it may end up being three – need shade on several windows – but I do want to put in more than one kind of tree. So we will see.
I also have an avocado started and will see how it does – it may end up outside too. They do grow here although I will not get avocados – I think I need a male and female tree for that and I certainly do not know how to tell the difference! And on that note I will close for today.
14 Oct – Thursday Well before I leave for church and Godz Kidz - (and don’t hit me on the spelling – it was not my idea) – I guess I will catch this up a little bit.
I did get the peat pots and now have several planted and green stuff coming up in some of them. There were some kitchen herbs there too so I grabbed some of them. I must grab more seeds very soon because this is planting season for things like Hollyhocks and other things I want to plant. They all seem like spring things to me – but not in this state! So next week I will be outside digging and digging and digging. I want to put up the retaining blocks along the front sidewalk and have to dig out the bed for the hollyhocks. I actually thought I had a little more time for that, but oh no, I live in a state where all the planting is backwards or something. It will get done, or at least some will get done. I can wait until January or February to plant some of the bushes which is good because before I can plant, I have to dig out this really, really, really ugly bush in the front yard. I have no idea what it is, but it is ugly to the max.
Last week I trimmed my one tree, but there is still a lot of trimming to be done on it. My son will be over this weekend so I might try to get him to do the high stuff. We are going to decorate for Halloween. I love decorating for the holidays and it is fun to do it when it is my own house. I know there will not be a landlord roaring up to yell at me because he or she does not like Halloween decorations or Christmas decorations or whatever. I am looking for a Nativity scene for my front yard. I might have to build my own!!!! You can find Santas and every other little thing, but do you think you can find Nativity scenes? Nope!
Today I was planning to go to the gym, but!!! After nearly two hours of tearing my garage apart and putting it back together, and power washing the floor, I decided that I had had my workout for the day. I sorted through some boxes of stuff that had just been stashed forever and ever and ever. Got rid of a lot of it! I figure if I have not seen it for two years or more, I probably do not need it anymore. The only thing that does not work for is paperwork. For tax reasons I have several boxes of files, but I think this winter I will be sorting through that and perhaps getting it to the shredder. We have a shredding truck that comes around or I can take it to the local shredder. I have a little office shredder, but it will not handle those boxes and boxes of paper. That is a task that must wait until I have at least gotten some done on the yard.
I measured the whole yard last Saturday. Since I was doing it alone, I am sure my neighbors thought I was a little crazy. I would lay the tape down and then sidestep down the length of the area I was measuring. I got it all done though and I think the measurements are accurate enough that I can decide what needs to be planted where. I want to definitely put in some honeysuckle in the backyard and I have other ideas too. Actually I have a book on gardening in Nevada and if I were to plant everything I have marked as “I like this” – I would need about ten acres. I am going to have to decide what I really want – sigh. But I want it all.
I am going to build a little wall between my yard and the neighbors. They have grass and I want to keep my rocks out of their grass. I also have to figure out where the watering system in this place is set up. It is very strange. I am hoping my son can help me figure it out. He used to do yard work and he is very good at it.
OH! FINALLY! I do not remember if I mentioned my recalled vacuum cleaner but – as a reminder the Angel dog ate the power supply on my little stick vacuum so I called Electrolux to order a new one. I found out the one I had was recalled and they were replacing it. Sooooooooooooooooo! They shipped me a Fedex label and I shipped the old one back to the factory and I have been waiting since for the replacement. It came today. You have never seen a vacuum this color. It is sort of a purple pink – pretty in its own way. I have it charging in my bedroom away for the Angel dog and can hardly wait until I can use it.
I have been letting the dogs out of the family room and into the rest of the house now that most of the stuff is unpacked and safely put away. It is a riot to see them. I close the doors to the bedrooms because I do not want to share the decorator pillows and animals on the beds with the dogs. My house is sort of built around a center. Coming in the front door you walk into the living/dining room. There is an open wall with a doorway which leads into the family room/kitchen. Just before that doorway there is a hall to the left that leads to the master bedroom. That turns to the left for another hallway to the other bedroom, bathroom, laundry room and out to the garage. In between the hall and the living room is my den which has a door from the 2nd hallway and French doors into the living room. Can you picture it?
When the dogs get into the main part of the house the hallways and my den become a raceway with then running in circles. Then all of a sudden one will switch directions and run like mad the other way with the other one right behind. It is a riot to watch them. The only thing I watch out for sure is that Angel does not get under my desk where there are cords galore for the computer and all the other electronics in that den. Once in a great while I shut off the den so they have to race around the hall and then turn and race back. I could sit and be entertained all day. Another reason I am so slow getting settled into this place.
I don’t let them run the house all the time and for sure when I am gone they are restricted to the family room where their food, water and doggie door can be found. Then there are fewer accidents! But they sure are entertaining little devils!
10 Nov (Wednesday) – October was such a busy month I did not even find time to write. Did not really do a lot of that sitting back and being entertained because I was busy with the yard and with Halloween.
First I dug out the bed for the hollyhocks; that will be the first bed in the front yard. I planted hollyhock seeds and have been watering diligently so I was not surprised to see little plants coming through. They will need thinning and moving around, but they are up and hopefully before we get a freeze they will be up and have strong enough roots to survive and come back next spring. I also planted some pansies in the bed so I will have color through the winter. They are strange because they are bright orange. I had never seen orange hollyhocks before.
Then I started on the border between my yard and the front sidewalk. WOW! With both the border and the flower bed I am finding that the dirt here is pure ROCK. Not only is it hard, but when they first put this yard together many years ago they just dumped the rocks onto the dirt so the decorative rock is deeply imbedded into the dirt. It has been so “interesting”. I got most of the front border done and will go out later today and work on the problem area. It seems that when the workers built the walls between the houses they dumped whatever leftover cement they had just wherever they wanted to dump it. So right at the end of my border I have about four inches of cement to chip away. My son did help some and will probably come back – it is simply a job of chipping away with a chisel and hammer until it is all gone. I found the same issue when I was doing the flower bed and had to actually move the bricks a little to compensate for cement.
I also started planting in the backyard. I am putting huge pots on the retaining wall because land here is so bad. Besides digging being so very difficult, the dirt itself is just cleachy clay – with no nourishment at all. That means lots and lots of additions to make it work and I decided that on the retaining wall I would just put big pots. Great idea! However, I did not take Angel into consideration when I planted the first pots. I planted three pots with one honeysuckle and then two bushes with bright yellow flowers. I do not know what they were but they were very beautiful. Note that I said they “were” – Angel dug them out of the pots and I guess she ate them since I found very little of them. I moved the pots over to the edge of the wall between me and the neighbors; that wall I think I have mentioned that I am afraid that Angel will jump over; and I replanted but this time with more honeysuckle. I am hoping that I will have a whole wall of honeysuckle. Besides keeping Angel from jumping across the wall, the honeysuckle will attract birds and it smells and looks so wonderful. It will bloom all summer and way into the fall so I will have color there. I will work on future pots when I figure out how to keep Angel out of the pots. By the way Angel has taught Maxi to dig too, so now I have TWO little devils to keep track of. I was hoping it would go the other way with Maxi teaching Angel to calm down. HA!
While I was at Lowes getting the new dirt and the new honeysuckle, I saw the most beautiful mums so I have two pots of those in front of the house. Finally! Color!
Here are my pictures of the yard so far:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059385&id=1339327159&l=2da9232dc0
This link will take you to my Facebook pictures of the yard. I add photos there every so often. I also have pictures of the house from beginning to now on that page and that link is here:
Ok, now what else did I do in October that kept me from writing? Oh, yes! Halloween! My son and his family came over a couple of weeks before Halloween to help me decorate and did we ever decorate! However, I live in Nevada and the wind is much heavier than even that “windy city” we hear so much about. So we decorated and then I redecorated many, many times. Finally the last few days before Halloween, I just left the tombstones down and waited until after church on the 31st and put the graveyard back together.
Yes, my yard became a graveyard with tombstones and bones all over the place. The front door was covered with spider webs (fake for sure) and spiders (also fake). My granddaughter had a ball spreading the web all over the entry. The wind played havoc with that too and we have to put it all back on the 31st along with the graveyard. My one tree was filled with ghosts and more web and my ugly bush was also covered in spider webs and a huge purple and black spider. The two links that follow are us decorating and the yard when it was done just before the trick or treaters arrived.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059380&id=1339327159&l=f615588f3d
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059383&id=1339327159&l=8d86ff4a49
I am not sure I have mentioned that besides working on moving after age 65 I also do volunteer work. In October that work included going to a Harvest Party, as a worker, for foster kids in the valley. First I had to bake and decorate a cake. It turned out really cute with pale orange icing and lots of pumpkins and candy corn scattered about. However, it did not travel well and some of the icing oozed out as we drove to the party location. It turned out even cuter though because it looked like a spooky ooze and like it was meant to be that way. The cakes were for a cake walk and as the kids participated in the cake walk, they were awarded cakes to take home and share with their families. We had the foster kids and kids from the foster families so there were nearly a hundred kids at the party. There were various activities set up around the room with games and activities. I ran the craft table and my granddaughter who worked with me ran the fishing booth. We both had a very busy night! I thought the kids would not really want to do crafts with all the other exciting things going on, but I had two crafts that were kid magnets.
One was making rings out of pipe cleaners. Sounds kind of blah, but taking two pipe cleaners and fitting it around fingers, and then curling the pipe cleaners to make flowers turned out to be attractive to both boys and girls. Some of the litter children has problems with curling, so I did a lot of rings before the evening was over and several of the children sported rings on all fingers.
The other craft they liked was one of those scratch off coloring pages. There were little black pieces of paper which looked sort of “what is this for?” The children found out quickly that they could draw or just scratch and they would have a really pretty picture, with colors they could not have imagined. I had to finally limit them to two each, because they all wanted to sit there all night scratching off black wax. I did not mind them being there but I wanted everyone to have a turn and the lines were sort of long at times.
That was a few days before Halloween and it was quite a party. Food and drinks for the kids, adults in costume (another picture I will have to add later as my witch persona is not loaded yet either.) It was fun and exhausting. I was glad we had a few days to rest before Halloween.
Halloween was on a Sunday so we had all day to get ready. After church Dana came home with me and we fixed all the decorations and put the graveyard back together. Then we prepared for a family barbeque and got ready for trick or treaters. It was such a lovely mild evening that Dana sat on the floor in the open door handed out candy. We actually had many kids visit our little graveyard and they oohed and aahed over the decorations and pretended to be frightened of the spiders, but I am pretty sure they were just playing with us. None of the really little ones even noticed the decorations. They were focused on getting that candy in their bags. We did have the occasional really big kid who was much too old for trick or treating, but we handed them candy anyway.
I love Halloween. I think it is one of the few really fun holidays and I hope it stays fun for kids. One holiday where a child can dress up and pretend to be someone else and walk around having fun and being silly is just right. All the other holidays we have celebrate something. Halloween is just a kid day. I know that many adults have parties and dress up and have fun but it is a kid day and I hope it stays that way. I dress up to greet the kids because they think that is fun and I decorate for the kids and as long as I am able, I will continue to play with Halloween.
Finally, October was over and we are into November. My first week in November, I finally gave into the pain and accepted the referral to surgery that my pain management specialist has been talking about for two years. I assumed it would take several months between the visit and the actual surgery, but assuming is not good. We all know what that does for us! I am seeing him again today, November 10, and he will set the surgery date today. That of course is if all my blood work, lung X-ray and doctor clearances are in and ok. I just want it to be over now. I know there is going to be a period of recovery when the pain will probably match the pain of the knee before surgery, but being awakened several times during the night because the knee is on fire or being unable to do some of the things I want because it hurts so much is just wearing me down. I love to walk, but it hurts to walk so I have not been walking the dogs as much as they or I would like. I look at things I would like to do – go to the mountains, just go shopping – and I put them off because I hurt. This is not how I want to live, so I will go through the surgery and rehab and I will be back to hiking the mountains again before you know it. I have even put off my trips to California because being in the car for so long is just painful. (It is only five hours but to my knee it must seem like fifty.)
As I type I am holding this laptop on my lap and my knee is throbbing just from holding it up. It is time! So wish me luck! I will add writing about that to the story of moving after age 65. The knee has been a factor in not getting the yard done as quickly as I want – that and the just overwhelming pile of rocks. I have to take each one a step at a time and right now the step is toward getting the knee back to working so I can tackle those rocks.
The dogs are watching me so I had best get off the computer and pay some attention to them. Angel was in the flower pots again this morning. Oh I must add one more little thing about Angel and dirt. I had planted some herbs for an indoor herb garden and they were just beginning to come up when Angel discovered the on the shelf near the kitchen window. She ate them, dirt and all! What a mess. She did not eat all the dirt and it took me a long time to get the floor clean from the stains of that dirt. I have them all replanted and have taken woven fencing and wrapped my shelf so hopefully the plants will live to become adults this time!
Until later – I am off to do more settling it. I think it is time to mop that kitchen/family room floor again. The dogs are hard on floors but I would not give them up for anything. I am looking for someone to babysit them while I am in the hospital. I will ask my granddaughter to stay with me for a few days after to help me with chores and dogs until I am up and running again. I do not intend to be down long. I know the rehab takes awhile, but I do not intend to be laid up very long. I also know I will have to curtail some things – no more digging in the yard for awhile anyway – but I will restrain myself with looking at the plan of the yard and plan some more.
Nov 15 – Well today I have an electrician here putting in lights for the outside of the garage and lights in the garage. That little garage door light is just not doing it for me. It actually cost more for the parts than the labor this time. The lights will be motion lights so if someone comes creeping up the driveway in the middle of the night – not that I am expecting that but just in case – they will be spotlighted!
Still waiting to see when I am going to get the surgery. They had a date but it would have kept me in the hospital over Thanksgiving and with a limited staff that would not have given a lot of rehab. Sigh. I just want to get it over with now.
P.S. - The sink in the laundry room is replaced - my son did the work at a much lower price than the nearly $300.00 Lowes wanted.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sumertime - and the living is busy!
23 Jul – YES JUL! It has been awhile since I was even on the computer. My friend from Texas actually arrived early by about half a day – so she actually came in on the mess from the door window and saw it temporarily held together with 100 mile an hour tape.
We had a great visit – went on the mandatory “dam” tour of Hoover Dam. It is pretty interesting, but I was not thrilled to be several hundred feet below ground and below the lake. Even though the lake is low, it still has plenty of water to fill up that entire underground complex. It is quite interesting though, as the power that is “made” there not only powers all the electricity to the dam complex, but the rest is sold and with fees from visitors – the dam is self sufficient. Can’t say that about every tourist area. There were many, many people there – even in the summer heat. It actually had not even gotten really hot yet – by that time we had only had a few days over 100 degrees. After the dam tour, on another day, we found a chocolate factory that I did not even know existed, so we took that tour and walked through their native garden. I got a lot of ideas for my own yard when I can finally get out there and work on it – and I even found out the name of the flowering shrub that I have fallen in love with – so I will be able to tell the nursery what I want now. I also took pictures to take with me.
Oh, yes, I took her over to Boulder City to see the great horned sheep that come down from the mountains to graze in one of the parks there. They come so close to the human occupants of the park that it is amazing. However people need to remember that they are still wild animals – some try to walk right up to the sheep to get closer pictures. That is what a zoom lens is for! There was a lamb there and it was pretty frisky – we got great up close pictures as it was frisking right up almost into touching range. Not that I would have touched, but that is how close it came. It’s mama (and maybe papa) were watching pretty closely though. She was pretty thrilled with getting so close to them.
Her visit ended on the 1st and after she left I started gearing up for my friend from FL who was arriving in the afternoon. He called about 11 and said he had missed his plane and would be in the next dayHe has been a friend since the mid-80’s and I was looking forward to seeing him again – but I almost breathed a sigh of relief as I was not quite ready for him yet – still washing sheets so I could make the day bed back up and all that sort of stuff. His visit was a lot of fun – we went too many places to list here. Some of the highlights were going to a David Copperfield show. That man is AMAZING! Other highlights – visiting the aquarium, going to the train museum in Boulder City and riding the old train and the fourth of July fireworks in Boulder City. Had a great time and was sorry to see him go.
Then it was recovery time – time to get my head out of the clouds and back down to getting settled in. Took longer than I expected because I ended up with a good old summer sinus infection which put me down for awhile. Unfortunately, my Crohns does like antibiotics so I had an “interesting” few days. However, I am back to normal now and starting to do something about these window coverings.
I went to Home Depot yesterday thinking I could go ahead and get the blinds I want and get them up. Silly me! They carry very limited in stock stuff these days and instead want people to order online. I have not done it yet, but I will have to order all the blinds today. In the meantime, I am making curtains and valances for the windows so they will be “dressed” once the blinds arrive. That window in the back door is such an odd size that I have not been able to find curtains to fit. I would need curtains about 64 ½ inches long which means that either I buy 84 inch curtains or I could make them myself. Well, I could not find curtains I liked for that window nor for the window in my bathroom which is also an odd size – actually every window in this house is a strange size. So I went fabric shopping and this morning I am making curtains. I will stop now and finish the curtains for the back door. Have about three seams to finish sewing and they are done. Then I have to work on the valances for the family room. I am designing them myself – have them pictured in my mind at the moment but that is about all. Sometime today I will take the time to order the blinds.
5 Aug – yes summertime and the living is NOT lazy! It seems I have been so busy that writing has not been on my mind. Well it has been on my mind, just not getting to it.
I ordered the blinds – went online first to Home Depot and they could not cut the blinds to order for me – I had to order them in the closest size and take them to a local store to get them cut after they arrived. They also only had two colors, blah and blaher – and only sizes big and huge. Soooooooooooooo – I googled blinds and found a site with great reviews so I took an (expensive) chance and ordered the blinds. They had colors galore and I could fit each of my oddball windows. The great thing was I was able to actually talk to a customer rep throughout the whole process – and the cost was much less than either of the big box home improvement stores.
The blinds arrived a week after I ordered them – last Friday. Sat I was tied up all day with a volunteer project; Sunday I was exhausted from all the stuff in the week before so Monday I started looking at instructions. I tried and tried to figure them out but they were lacking in clarity – at least to me. I knew that my son, Joe, had put up the same type of blinds a few weeks ago for his mother-in-law to be so I finally bit the bullet and cried “Uncle”. I sent a text to ask him to help. I did not expect him to do all thirteen windows – just show me and then I would do the rest.
He came over yesterday and in less than two hours had all the windows done. There was a slight “oops” with the sink in my laundry room – he did not realize it was just plastic and he stepped into it to reach that window and it split. I knew I was going to have to replace it, but now I guess I will replace it sooner. I will try the previous owners “fix-all” some good old caulk for a bit until I can find a new one. It is another oddball size – and this time I do not want plastic – so it might take a bit to find one.
My boarder left last week and I had to get the room he was using fixed up as a guest room. It looks great – even has pictures hung. Strangely, one of the mirrors that was on the wall fell with a crash the other day – and DID NOT BREAK! That is the “strangely” part. I actually heard the crash – but thought it was outside. Actually I thought the dogs has been into something again. They drag in some the of strangest things so a crash from them would not be a surprise.
Let’s see – what else have I learned in this past month’s experience of the moving process. Well, I learned that putting my mixer up above the pantry was not a smart move. To get it down I had to go to the garage and get a ladder. That did not seem like a really practical idea since I do use the mixer a lot. (Whenever I am stressed or blue – I cook!) So I had to do some rearranged in the kitchen-family room again. I moved the wine rack back across from the family room side to the kitchen side. (Remember, I had moved it over there and switched places with the bookcase in June.) Since the wine rack had a nice cutting board top – my mixer and blender have a good place to sit; they are out of the way but close when I need them and no ladder is needed to get them.
Oh – maybe I did not tell you all about the bookcase from the kitchen. Angel (yes the little devil dog) loves books – not to read but to eat. My cookbooks were in danger of extinction! So Joirdana and I moved the cookbook bookcase from the kitchen to the hall between the living room and the bedroom part of the house. It is still really close to the kitchen – and the books that were not dog food are now much safer. I found at least one book – or I should say I rescued one book – in the back yard – leaves and cover scattered to the four winds – or rather the four sides of the yard. Angel seemed so surprised when I yelled at her and picked up all the pages she was having such a good time scattering around – or eating as the case might be. She looks up with that surprised look as though she is saying “but what did I do?”
Speaking of the dogs – each and every time I cook they are there hoping, hoping, hoping that I will drop something – anything – they can snatch up. It has only happened once – dropped a piece of chicken I had boned and was putting back into the chicken and noodles. WOW! It was a good thing I did not want to get it up and put in into the pot – they had it quicker than a rattlesnake can strike. Good thing my fingers were not down there – I would be missing some.
Each and every time I eat they are there looking up at me with such pleading eyes. I know they are thinking, “Mom, that looks so much better than our dog food. Just one little bit, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” They do not get it – I really do not want to get them into the habit of begging at the table. And I do not want to get them into the habit of people food – although their dog food costs as much as my people food! Hmmmm – maybe I could beg them for some. Do you think?
Sunday Aug 8 – ok so I changed the way I am writing the date. Easier for me to do it this way – so!
This has been a busy busy week – we had vacation Bible school at our church. I am the craft lady and it was a busy time with 66 kids – and with some of the “leaders” not much older than the “kids” so wanting to do crafts also. The crafts this year were very cute, not too difficult for even the youngest of the kids and not overly messy – noisy yes, messy no. The kids are so cute – some of them are so tiny they can barely get their little noses above the table top to do the crafts. But they all persevered and had a great time. The final craft was making blankets to take to the mission. They were so cuddly and warm all the kids fell in love with them, but they prayed over them to give them away even though they left looking longfully at them.
I have volunteered to be the primary instructor for the upper elementary grades in our Sunday children’s church. Hopefully that will go well. I do like teaching the kids, but we have some pretty rowdy younguns in our church. I am also working on going on the mission trip in October – when I will take the blankets made in VBS to the mission. And in Sep I am serving on the Via de Cristo weekend – so the next two month may be kind of busy. This coming week I am going to CA for a few days – cooler temps, greener and seeing family members. What more can you ask? Oh yes, great Mexican!!!
A week or so ago, Joirdana and I put up the shelving unit in my garage – the last one. As we were putting the shelves on – I dropped one across my instep. It is STILL black and blue and hurts like the devil. Guess it is going to take awhile to heal. I would advice that you NOT drop shelves – especially heavy wooden ones – onto feet. It hurts!
I got on the computer on the 1st to balance my checkbook. Imagine my surprise when the “bill pay” for my pest control bill for the past two months had not cleared. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that I had not set up the bill pay for that payee and the bill had not been paid for the past two months. I got an immediate payment into the system – to pay it up in full. I felt like an idiot. I always put the monthly bills into the checkbook immediately, but this was a new payee and I had forgotten to set them up. They are always on time and do a great job – and I felt sooooo embarrassed.
Not doing anything exciting with the house these days so not a lot to write. Will be planning the yard very soon – as soon as it is cool enough to handle a metal measuring tape outside so I can measure everything and figure out what is going where. I want to put hollyhocks and sunflowers along my one wall next year. I think that will look really great and they do not need great soil to grow and bloom. Other than that, the only think I know I want to put in are some bright orange bushes – have pictures to take to the nursery but I am not sure what they are called. They are a desert plant though – not a lot of foliage, but bright flowers. They bloom all summer long, far into the fall. I am also thinking of honeysuckle along part of my back wall to keep my dear little Angel from figuring out she can actually get over the wall into the neighbor’s yard. The problem with that theory on her part is that while the jump on my side is short enough for her since my yard is terraced with a “garden” area, the other side is not terraced and she will have a free fall of about 8 feet onto a concrete patio. That is far too much for a little dog and I fear a broken leg or worse. So – I think the honeysuckle will head her off.
We had a great visit – went on the mandatory “dam” tour of Hoover Dam. It is pretty interesting, but I was not thrilled to be several hundred feet below ground and below the lake. Even though the lake is low, it still has plenty of water to fill up that entire underground complex. It is quite interesting though, as the power that is “made” there not only powers all the electricity to the dam complex, but the rest is sold and with fees from visitors – the dam is self sufficient. Can’t say that about every tourist area. There were many, many people there – even in the summer heat. It actually had not even gotten really hot yet – by that time we had only had a few days over 100 degrees. After the dam tour, on another day, we found a chocolate factory that I did not even know existed, so we took that tour and walked through their native garden. I got a lot of ideas for my own yard when I can finally get out there and work on it – and I even found out the name of the flowering shrub that I have fallen in love with – so I will be able to tell the nursery what I want now. I also took pictures to take with me.
Oh, yes, I took her over to Boulder City to see the great horned sheep that come down from the mountains to graze in one of the parks there. They come so close to the human occupants of the park that it is amazing. However people need to remember that they are still wild animals – some try to walk right up to the sheep to get closer pictures. That is what a zoom lens is for! There was a lamb there and it was pretty frisky – we got great up close pictures as it was frisking right up almost into touching range. Not that I would have touched, but that is how close it came. It’s mama (and maybe papa) were watching pretty closely though. She was pretty thrilled with getting so close to them.
Her visit ended on the 1st and after she left I started gearing up for my friend from FL who was arriving in the afternoon. He called about 11 and said he had missed his plane and would be in the next dayHe has been a friend since the mid-80’s and I was looking forward to seeing him again – but I almost breathed a sigh of relief as I was not quite ready for him yet – still washing sheets so I could make the day bed back up and all that sort of stuff. His visit was a lot of fun – we went too many places to list here. Some of the highlights were going to a David Copperfield show. That man is AMAZING! Other highlights – visiting the aquarium, going to the train museum in Boulder City and riding the old train and the fourth of July fireworks in Boulder City. Had a great time and was sorry to see him go.
Then it was recovery time – time to get my head out of the clouds and back down to getting settled in. Took longer than I expected because I ended up with a good old summer sinus infection which put me down for awhile. Unfortunately, my Crohns does like antibiotics so I had an “interesting” few days. However, I am back to normal now and starting to do something about these window coverings.
I went to Home Depot yesterday thinking I could go ahead and get the blinds I want and get them up. Silly me! They carry very limited in stock stuff these days and instead want people to order online. I have not done it yet, but I will have to order all the blinds today. In the meantime, I am making curtains and valances for the windows so they will be “dressed” once the blinds arrive. That window in the back door is such an odd size that I have not been able to find curtains to fit. I would need curtains about 64 ½ inches long which means that either I buy 84 inch curtains or I could make them myself. Well, I could not find curtains I liked for that window nor for the window in my bathroom which is also an odd size – actually every window in this house is a strange size. So I went fabric shopping and this morning I am making curtains. I will stop now and finish the curtains for the back door. Have about three seams to finish sewing and they are done. Then I have to work on the valances for the family room. I am designing them myself – have them pictured in my mind at the moment but that is about all. Sometime today I will take the time to order the blinds.
5 Aug – yes summertime and the living is NOT lazy! It seems I have been so busy that writing has not been on my mind. Well it has been on my mind, just not getting to it.
I ordered the blinds – went online first to Home Depot and they could not cut the blinds to order for me – I had to order them in the closest size and take them to a local store to get them cut after they arrived. They also only had two colors, blah and blaher – and only sizes big and huge. Soooooooooooooo – I googled blinds and found a site with great reviews so I took an (expensive) chance and ordered the blinds. They had colors galore and I could fit each of my oddball windows. The great thing was I was able to actually talk to a customer rep throughout the whole process – and the cost was much less than either of the big box home improvement stores.
The blinds arrived a week after I ordered them – last Friday. Sat I was tied up all day with a volunteer project; Sunday I was exhausted from all the stuff in the week before so Monday I started looking at instructions. I tried and tried to figure them out but they were lacking in clarity – at least to me. I knew that my son, Joe, had put up the same type of blinds a few weeks ago for his mother-in-law to be so I finally bit the bullet and cried “Uncle”. I sent a text to ask him to help. I did not expect him to do all thirteen windows – just show me and then I would do the rest.
He came over yesterday and in less than two hours had all the windows done. There was a slight “oops” with the sink in my laundry room – he did not realize it was just plastic and he stepped into it to reach that window and it split. I knew I was going to have to replace it, but now I guess I will replace it sooner. I will try the previous owners “fix-all” some good old caulk for a bit until I can find a new one. It is another oddball size – and this time I do not want plastic – so it might take a bit to find one.
My boarder left last week and I had to get the room he was using fixed up as a guest room. It looks great – even has pictures hung. Strangely, one of the mirrors that was on the wall fell with a crash the other day – and DID NOT BREAK! That is the “strangely” part. I actually heard the crash – but thought it was outside. Actually I thought the dogs has been into something again. They drag in some the of strangest things so a crash from them would not be a surprise.
Let’s see – what else have I learned in this past month’s experience of the moving process. Well, I learned that putting my mixer up above the pantry was not a smart move. To get it down I had to go to the garage and get a ladder. That did not seem like a really practical idea since I do use the mixer a lot. (Whenever I am stressed or blue – I cook!) So I had to do some rearranged in the kitchen-family room again. I moved the wine rack back across from the family room side to the kitchen side. (Remember, I had moved it over there and switched places with the bookcase in June.) Since the wine rack had a nice cutting board top – my mixer and blender have a good place to sit; they are out of the way but close when I need them and no ladder is needed to get them.
Oh – maybe I did not tell you all about the bookcase from the kitchen. Angel (yes the little devil dog) loves books – not to read but to eat. My cookbooks were in danger of extinction! So Joirdana and I moved the cookbook bookcase from the kitchen to the hall between the living room and the bedroom part of the house. It is still really close to the kitchen – and the books that were not dog food are now much safer. I found at least one book – or I should say I rescued one book – in the back yard – leaves and cover scattered to the four winds – or rather the four sides of the yard. Angel seemed so surprised when I yelled at her and picked up all the pages she was having such a good time scattering around – or eating as the case might be. She looks up with that surprised look as though she is saying “but what did I do?”
Speaking of the dogs – each and every time I cook they are there hoping, hoping, hoping that I will drop something – anything – they can snatch up. It has only happened once – dropped a piece of chicken I had boned and was putting back into the chicken and noodles. WOW! It was a good thing I did not want to get it up and put in into the pot – they had it quicker than a rattlesnake can strike. Good thing my fingers were not down there – I would be missing some.
Each and every time I eat they are there looking up at me with such pleading eyes. I know they are thinking, “Mom, that looks so much better than our dog food. Just one little bit, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” They do not get it – I really do not want to get them into the habit of begging at the table. And I do not want to get them into the habit of people food – although their dog food costs as much as my people food! Hmmmm – maybe I could beg them for some. Do you think?
Sunday Aug 8 – ok so I changed the way I am writing the date. Easier for me to do it this way – so!
This has been a busy busy week – we had vacation Bible school at our church. I am the craft lady and it was a busy time with 66 kids – and with some of the “leaders” not much older than the “kids” so wanting to do crafts also. The crafts this year were very cute, not too difficult for even the youngest of the kids and not overly messy – noisy yes, messy no. The kids are so cute – some of them are so tiny they can barely get their little noses above the table top to do the crafts. But they all persevered and had a great time. The final craft was making blankets to take to the mission. They were so cuddly and warm all the kids fell in love with them, but they prayed over them to give them away even though they left looking longfully at them.
I have volunteered to be the primary instructor for the upper elementary grades in our Sunday children’s church. Hopefully that will go well. I do like teaching the kids, but we have some pretty rowdy younguns in our church. I am also working on going on the mission trip in October – when I will take the blankets made in VBS to the mission. And in Sep I am serving on the Via de Cristo weekend – so the next two month may be kind of busy. This coming week I am going to CA for a few days – cooler temps, greener and seeing family members. What more can you ask? Oh yes, great Mexican!!!
A week or so ago, Joirdana and I put up the shelving unit in my garage – the last one. As we were putting the shelves on – I dropped one across my instep. It is STILL black and blue and hurts like the devil. Guess it is going to take awhile to heal. I would advice that you NOT drop shelves – especially heavy wooden ones – onto feet. It hurts!
I got on the computer on the 1st to balance my checkbook. Imagine my surprise when the “bill pay” for my pest control bill for the past two months had not cleared. Imagine my embarrassment when I realized that I had not set up the bill pay for that payee and the bill had not been paid for the past two months. I got an immediate payment into the system – to pay it up in full. I felt like an idiot. I always put the monthly bills into the checkbook immediately, but this was a new payee and I had forgotten to set them up. They are always on time and do a great job – and I felt sooooo embarrassed.
Not doing anything exciting with the house these days so not a lot to write. Will be planning the yard very soon – as soon as it is cool enough to handle a metal measuring tape outside so I can measure everything and figure out what is going where. I want to put hollyhocks and sunflowers along my one wall next year. I think that will look really great and they do not need great soil to grow and bloom. Other than that, the only think I know I want to put in are some bright orange bushes – have pictures to take to the nursery but I am not sure what they are called. They are a desert plant though – not a lot of foliage, but bright flowers. They bloom all summer long, far into the fall. I am also thinking of honeysuckle along part of my back wall to keep my dear little Angel from figuring out she can actually get over the wall into the neighbor’s yard. The problem with that theory on her part is that while the jump on my side is short enough for her since my yard is terraced with a “garden” area, the other side is not terraced and she will have a free fall of about 8 feet onto a concrete patio. That is far too much for a little dog and I fear a broken leg or worse. So – I think the honeysuckle will head her off.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Pajamas and locks - not good!
26 Jun – Well let’s see – it has been a busy week around here – nothing big. Working in the yard – trying to figure out landscaping and how to keep those rocks in the yard and not on the sidewalk and being a safety hazard.
Can anyone please tell me how weeds can grow through three inches of rock – when the last rain we got was in March? And why do desert plants all have thorns that are longer than my gloves? I cleaned up all the weeds in the front this week – if I am out there by 6:30 in the morning I can work a couple of hours before it gets to be so hot – then crawl into the shower. That massaging shower head feels good on aching muscles. Got both sides of the front done and I think I have ideas of what I am going to do to make it look like something more than a rock pile. For one thing I have to rake the rocks up and put down a barrier! And I am planning a flower planter/seat wall along one side of the yard – and will do something along the front with bricks or blocks or something to keep the rocks in. I cannot wall it in too much or when we have our few rains (read “deluge”) a year – my yard will be a swimming pool – and everything will wash out. We do not get lots of rain – but when we get it – it comes down in buckets for a little while.
Not sure what I will do along the driveway. And the backyard – well among other things I still have weeks to pull there. And did I mention the terracing that would keep the dogs out of my plantings? Hmmm – well guess WHO can get up there – I watched her today and it looks like she just climbs up the wall – straight up! My little angel – ha!
Ordered my security/screen doors this week and they will be installed Monday. It is more for the screen door part that I want them – I love being able to open front and back door in the early mornings and air out the house before the heat bludgeons us to death. We are in the triple digits now – that will run through August and maybe even September, but the evenings are relatively comfortable and the mornings so far have been in the high 70’s and that is still comfortable yard working weather. The way my house sits – my patio is not in the hot, hot late afternoon sun – so it is pleasant out there as the sun goes down and the breeze – ok WIND – comes up. It is pretty windy here – but when it is sort of gentle it is not too bad and I like it.
I think I should just have Lowes drive their delivery trucks by my house and dump stuff off – it might be easier. I have to run by there tomorrow after church and get the locks for the security doors keyed alike – I hate carrying a ton of keys.
Speaking of keys – today was one of the more interesting days I have had lately! I got up a little later than usual – about 6:30 instead of my normal time – made breakfast and ate out on the patio while trying to keep the dogs from stealing my oatmeal and coffee. Then I came in and was puttering around the house doing a few little chores; folding the towels from the dryer and putting them away; dusting; going to the garage to get paper towels because I was out. Ok – this is the interesting part. You will notice, I have not mentioned showering and dressing for the day – but going to a closed garage is ok in pajamas! BUT! Yes, there has to be a but in there. I forgot to unlock on the door handle – and the door closes all by itself every time I go into the garage – SO I was locked out. No key in the garage! No cell phone to call my son or his girl friend! My boarder was not home! I was in pajamas – bed hair smoothed a little, but not looking good here. Thought maybe I had unlocked the front door – nope.
Luckily my neighbor was out waxing his car and came to the rescue. First he tried getting into a couple of windows. The good news is that I have REALLY GOOD locks on my windows. The bad news is that we could not get them open. The window on my back door has been loose and in fact I have been planning to fix it – it is on the list, but not near the top of the list. Now it is the top. Ali was able to take the frame off and get the window out and get the door unlocked. At the moment the window is held back together with 100 mile an hour tape. (If you do not know what that is – ask a veteran!) I ran to Lowes and got liquid nail – oh the reason the window was on the list and not already fixed is that it is a plastic window frame on a metal door – which was taking a little thinking – ergo liquid nails at Lowes today.
Before it could be put back together, I had to clean it all up – which meant scraping off the ton of caulk – bathroom caulk – they used to hold it together. Whoever did the repairs in this house previously seems to have felt that bathroom caulk was the one all purpose mender for every job. So far I have found so many strange things held together by caulk – I could not even begin to list them. Holding the window in place with caulk was interesting. I got it all cleaned out – under part of the caulk at the bottom of the window was about an eighth of an inch of dirt. Plain old dirt. Obviously whoever caulked it did not see any reason to clean it first. I scraped and scrubbed and scraped some more but it is clean now.
Well, Ali just left after “nailing” the frame in – we are using 100 mile an hour tape to hold it in until the liquid nails dry – then cleanup – the old razor blade will get used a lot for that – and caulking and my window should be good as new for awhile. Well the door does need painting – inside and out – but that is a fall job. It is just too hot to paint right now – and I do not want my house all shut up with paint fumes.
Let’s see – what other adventures can a old lady get into when buying a house – just little things like putting up paper towel holder in the laundry room, towel racks in the master bathroom, sorting the garage and those things. I did get another shelving unit for the garage and I have to put that together and get it up – it will work great in the space I want it in – and get stuff off the floor. I hate clutter and I do not want my garage cluttered anymore than my house.
Now I will digress for a minute – my son from CA came last weekend and into the early part of this week and we were talking about the drive to and from CA. I drive over to the San Diego area about once a month – or every other month – for a week of “green” and visiting with family. I have two sons and aunt and cousins living in the area. I remembered the last time I drove over and was going through the CA agriculture control point. They are adamant they do not want anything not grown in CA coming into their state. Of course you drive nearly a hundred miles past the NV line before you get there, but no biggie because the inspectors are pretty much not checking. As I drove through the inspector was looking over his shoulder laughing and talking with his buddy in the next booth – I could have been waving orange trees out my car window and he would not have noticed! He would have just waved me on through. It reminded me of that old Johnny Cash song about pig iron.
Will be out of the “moving in” business for the next 2 ½ weeks as I have visitors coming. First my friend from Texas will be here from tomorrow until the first. Then on the afternoon of the first another friend – one who has been a friend for over 20 years – will be arriving from Florida for an eight day visit. I am looking forward to seeing them and having them see my house – as unsettled as it still it. There is much to do, but it is all on the list and eventually it will all get done.
Til later – talk to you in a week or so.
Can anyone please tell me how weeds can grow through three inches of rock – when the last rain we got was in March? And why do desert plants all have thorns that are longer than my gloves? I cleaned up all the weeds in the front this week – if I am out there by 6:30 in the morning I can work a couple of hours before it gets to be so hot – then crawl into the shower. That massaging shower head feels good on aching muscles. Got both sides of the front done and I think I have ideas of what I am going to do to make it look like something more than a rock pile. For one thing I have to rake the rocks up and put down a barrier! And I am planning a flower planter/seat wall along one side of the yard – and will do something along the front with bricks or blocks or something to keep the rocks in. I cannot wall it in too much or when we have our few rains (read “deluge”) a year – my yard will be a swimming pool – and everything will wash out. We do not get lots of rain – but when we get it – it comes down in buckets for a little while.
Not sure what I will do along the driveway. And the backyard – well among other things I still have weeks to pull there. And did I mention the terracing that would keep the dogs out of my plantings? Hmmm – well guess WHO can get up there – I watched her today and it looks like she just climbs up the wall – straight up! My little angel – ha!
Ordered my security/screen doors this week and they will be installed Monday. It is more for the screen door part that I want them – I love being able to open front and back door in the early mornings and air out the house before the heat bludgeons us to death. We are in the triple digits now – that will run through August and maybe even September, but the evenings are relatively comfortable and the mornings so far have been in the high 70’s and that is still comfortable yard working weather. The way my house sits – my patio is not in the hot, hot late afternoon sun – so it is pleasant out there as the sun goes down and the breeze – ok WIND – comes up. It is pretty windy here – but when it is sort of gentle it is not too bad and I like it.
I think I should just have Lowes drive their delivery trucks by my house and dump stuff off – it might be easier. I have to run by there tomorrow after church and get the locks for the security doors keyed alike – I hate carrying a ton of keys.
Speaking of keys – today was one of the more interesting days I have had lately! I got up a little later than usual – about 6:30 instead of my normal time – made breakfast and ate out on the patio while trying to keep the dogs from stealing my oatmeal and coffee. Then I came in and was puttering around the house doing a few little chores; folding the towels from the dryer and putting them away; dusting; going to the garage to get paper towels because I was out. Ok – this is the interesting part. You will notice, I have not mentioned showering and dressing for the day – but going to a closed garage is ok in pajamas! BUT! Yes, there has to be a but in there. I forgot to unlock on the door handle – and the door closes all by itself every time I go into the garage – SO I was locked out. No key in the garage! No cell phone to call my son or his girl friend! My boarder was not home! I was in pajamas – bed hair smoothed a little, but not looking good here. Thought maybe I had unlocked the front door – nope.
Luckily my neighbor was out waxing his car and came to the rescue. First he tried getting into a couple of windows. The good news is that I have REALLY GOOD locks on my windows. The bad news is that we could not get them open. The window on my back door has been loose and in fact I have been planning to fix it – it is on the list, but not near the top of the list. Now it is the top. Ali was able to take the frame off and get the window out and get the door unlocked. At the moment the window is held back together with 100 mile an hour tape. (If you do not know what that is – ask a veteran!) I ran to Lowes and got liquid nail – oh the reason the window was on the list and not already fixed is that it is a plastic window frame on a metal door – which was taking a little thinking – ergo liquid nails at Lowes today.
Before it could be put back together, I had to clean it all up – which meant scraping off the ton of caulk – bathroom caulk – they used to hold it together. Whoever did the repairs in this house previously seems to have felt that bathroom caulk was the one all purpose mender for every job. So far I have found so many strange things held together by caulk – I could not even begin to list them. Holding the window in place with caulk was interesting. I got it all cleaned out – under part of the caulk at the bottom of the window was about an eighth of an inch of dirt. Plain old dirt. Obviously whoever caulked it did not see any reason to clean it first. I scraped and scrubbed and scraped some more but it is clean now.
Well, Ali just left after “nailing” the frame in – we are using 100 mile an hour tape to hold it in until the liquid nails dry – then cleanup – the old razor blade will get used a lot for that – and caulking and my window should be good as new for awhile. Well the door does need painting – inside and out – but that is a fall job. It is just too hot to paint right now – and I do not want my house all shut up with paint fumes.
Let’s see – what other adventures can a old lady get into when buying a house – just little things like putting up paper towel holder in the laundry room, towel racks in the master bathroom, sorting the garage and those things. I did get another shelving unit for the garage and I have to put that together and get it up – it will work great in the space I want it in – and get stuff off the floor. I hate clutter and I do not want my garage cluttered anymore than my house.
Now I will digress for a minute – my son from CA came last weekend and into the early part of this week and we were talking about the drive to and from CA. I drive over to the San Diego area about once a month – or every other month – for a week of “green” and visiting with family. I have two sons and aunt and cousins living in the area. I remembered the last time I drove over and was going through the CA agriculture control point. They are adamant they do not want anything not grown in CA coming into their state. Of course you drive nearly a hundred miles past the NV line before you get there, but no biggie because the inspectors are pretty much not checking. As I drove through the inspector was looking over his shoulder laughing and talking with his buddy in the next booth – I could have been waving orange trees out my car window and he would not have noticed! He would have just waved me on through. It reminded me of that old Johnny Cash song about pig iron.
Will be out of the “moving in” business for the next 2 ½ weeks as I have visitors coming. First my friend from Texas will be here from tomorrow until the first. Then on the afternoon of the first another friend – one who has been a friend for over 20 years – will be arriving from Florida for an eight day visit. I am looking forward to seeing them and having them see my house – as unsettled as it still it. There is much to do, but it is all on the list and eventually it will all get done.
Til later – talk to you in a week or so.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Caulk is NOT an all purpose mending tool!
19 June – Well here it is the weekend and it has been a busy last several days. On Wednesday my granddaughter called and asked me to take her to the library – then we came back to my house and she helped me put new door handles on all the interior doors to replace the well worn knobs. Oh my – if we had known what we were getting into, I wonder if we would have started.
In the guest bedroom, the door is either smaller than the frame – or the lock does not extend as far as it should and the door does not exactly hold tight. Of course you would have to push it to get it open so it should not be a problem. I cannot see myself pushing into my guest room in the middle of the night and scaring guests – then again on Halloween it might be fun. Hmmmmmm! Then as I was working in my bedroom Dana found that the screw heads in all the bathroom screws had been damaged so that she could not get them to turn. With my ratchet screwdriver and a LOT of pushing – I repeat a LOT of pushing – I managed to get them out far enough that we could do the rest by fingertip. We found the same thing in one of the plate screws for my bedroom door.
Then – the big one – the door to the den which also serves as an extra guest room. The French doors were fine and went together well except I had to drill an extra hold for the lower screw since the circular part of the door handle was bigger on the new ones. That was ok and it worked out fine – but then we went to the other door – the way the den is laid out it is almost a pass through room from the living room to the back of the house – as far as we can figure out someone who lived here had an anger management problem and had – we are guessing here – slammed into the locked door so hard he or she had pulled the plate right off the frame – more than off the frame – it had ripped some of the frame off and damaged the hole. So – in his or her infinite wisdom – shoving the hole full of bathrub caulk and shoving the plate back on and sticking the screws into the caulk was a good way to fix the broken door.
We scraped out the caulk – well I did – and Dana filled in all the damaged places with wood filler – we will still have to build up the broken frame a little, sand it down and then paint it but it looks pretty good and it seems to be cured so I will drill it tomorrow and put the plate on. Then I will work on the buildup of the frame next week.
Then we unpacked all the pictures of family and either hung them on the walls or placed them around the house on various bookcases and tables. I did the “military” wall in my den – that has pictures of me and two of the three sons in uniform. I am still looking for one of my youngest son in uniform but he is not into having pictures taken so I might not be able to find one. I also have pictures of various ships the two Navy sons have been on and a flag from Iraq that was given to me because of support activities I was involved in with the youth of my church in Texas. That is pretty special to me. Then I have my “I love me wall”. You know, those awards and accolades they give you when you retire instead of a load of money! And I put up at least one of my diplomas.
Wednesday afternoon around two the plumber finally got there – he was the reason we were staying very close to home. He had to replace all the valves in all the sinks in the house. He was not a happy camper about the one in the kitchen – it took him longer to do that one sink than it did all the rest (four more) put together. He said he had never seen such a cobbled up mess. You might have read earlier – the reason I had a plumber at all was when we were trying to put new faucets in – my son and his friend found out that the valves were messed up. And were they ever!!! But now I have nice new valves, pipes and faucets. Eventually I am going to have to replace the guest bathroom sink – and eventually I want to replace my tub in the master bath with a whirlpool – but that is going to be a long time coming. The important things have to come first.
Thursday I really mostly took the day off – I did finally get the rebate from the gas company for the energy efficient appliances and thermostat I put in the house. Now if only I would get the rebates from Nevada for the other energy efficient appliances – I might be able to get those windows done.
I did meet my next door neighbor – we met in the yard and she showed me their backyard – WOW! They have an amazing pool and all sorts of stuff – a garden that she is trying to shade with solar screens so the plants do not burn up in the NV sun; a yard full of deck furniture and children’s play stuff – just an interesting yard. We weeded our respective yards for a bit and I invited her in to see what I have done with the house so far – she told me one of the reasons there were so many problems with the house is that the last seven sets of people who have lived here have been renters and they just did not seem to care about the place. She thought some of them might have been on drugs – oh yay. Hope they do not have any stashes hidden away in the attic or anything – I would hate to have my house blow up in the middle of the night.
Friday was literally a waiting day – ALL DAY. Had to wait for my end tables to be delivered – the original one I ordered had been backordered so many times, I just gave up and cancelled that one – and then found two that were on sale that came out to the same price as the original one – I just love sale prices! I also had to wait for the pest control guy to come and spray and I had to wait for the people from Lowes to measure my door frames. I want to put security/screen doors on front and back. They offer security but they also will allow me to open my doors on nice days and get a good breeze going through the house. Since the patio door is almost full length window, I think I will sleep better if I have the security door closed and locked at night. Of course that does not cover the ten other windows in the house – but my security system is supposed to pick up glass breaking so – hopefully – it will go off and scare anyone away.
I am not really afraid of living alone and yet I am taking precautions that I might not have worried about when I lived in that small town in Texas. I am in a huge city now and it seems there are problems all over. I think the current economic problems add to those temptations and some people who might not turn to thievery are now doing whatever they can to eat. No, I do not condone it, but I try to understand it. Would I do it – no. I have taken some pretty crummy jobs in my life just to feed my kids, and I would do it all over again. But there are those who are desperate – so!
It took all day Friday to get everything delivered – so I unpacked a few more boxes.
24 Jun – Well let’s see – it has been a busy week around here – nothing big. Working in the yard – trying to figure out landscaping and how to keep those rocks in the yard and not on the sidewalk and being a safety hazard.
Can anyone please tell me how weeds can grow through three inches of rock – when the last rain we got was in March? And why do desert plants all have thorns that are longer than my gloves? I cleaned up all the weeds in the front this week – if I am out there by 6:30 in the morning I can work a couple of hours before it gets to be so hot – then crawl into the shower. That massaging shower head feels good on aching muscles. Got both sides of the front done and I think I have ideas of what I am going to do to make it look like something more than a rock pile. For one thing I have to rake the rocks up and put down a barrier! And I am planning a flower planter/seat wall along one side of the yard – and will do something along the front with bricks or blocks or something to keep the rocks in. I cannot wall it in too much or when we have our few rains (read “deluge”) a year – my yard will be a swimming pool – and everything will wash out. We do not get lots of rain – but when we get it – it comes down in buckets for a little while.
Not sure what I will do along the driveway. And the backyard – well among other things I still have weeks to pull there. And did I mention the terracing that would keep the dogs out of my plantings? Hmmm – well guess WHO can get up there – I watched her today and it looks like she just climbs up the wall – straight up!
Ordered my security/screen doors this week and they will be installed Monday. It is more for the screen door part that I want them – I love being able to open front and back door in the early mornings and air out the house before the heat bludgeons us to death. We are in the triple digits now – that will run through August and maybe even September, but the evenings are relatively comfortable and the mornings so far have been in the high 70’s and that is still comfortable yard working weather. The way my house sits – my patio is not in the hot, hot late afternoon sun – so it is pleasant out there as the sun goes down and the breeze – ok WIND – comes up. It is pretty windy here – but when it is sort of gentle it is not too bad and I like it.
I think I should just have Lowes drive their delivery trucks by my house and dump stuff off – it might be easier. I have to run by there tomorrow after church and get the locks for the security doors keyed alike – I hate carrying a ton of keys.
Speaking of keys – today was one of the more interesting days I have had lately! I got up a little later than usual – about 6:30 instead of my normal time – made breakfast and ate out on the patio while trying to keep the dogs from stealing my oatmeal and coffee. Then I came in and was putting around the house doing a few little chores; folding the towels from the dryer and putting them away; dusting; going to the garage to get paper towels because I was out. Ok – this is the interesting part. You will notice, I have not mentioned showering and dressing for the day – but going to a closed garage is ok in pajamas! BUT! Yes, there has to be a but in there. I forgot to click the lock on the door handle – and the door closes all by itself every time I go into the garage – and I was locked out. No key in the garage! No cell phone to call my son or his girl friend! My boarder was not home! I was in pajamas – bed hair smoothed a little, but not looking good here. Thought maybe I had unlocked the front door – nope.
Luckily my neighbor was out waxing his car and came to the rescue. First he tried getting into a couple of windows. The good news is that I have REALLY GOOD locks on my windows. The bad news is that we could not get them open. The window on my back door has been loose and in fact I have been planning to fix it – it is on the list, but not near the top of the list. Now it is the top. Al was able to take the frame off and get the window out and get the door unlocked. At the moment the window is held back together with 100 mile an hour tape. (If you do not know what that is – ask a veteran!) I ran to Lowes and got liquid nail – oh the reason the window was on the list and not already fixed is that it is a plastic window frame on a metal door – which was taking a little thinking – ergo liquid nails at Lowes today.
Before it could be put back together, I had to clean it all up – which meant scraping off the ton of caulk – bathroom caulk – they used to hold it together. Whoever did the repairs in this house previously seems to have felt that bathroom caulk was the one all purpose mender for every job. So far I have found so many strange things held together by caulk – I could not even begin to list them. Holding the window in place with caulk was interesting. I got it all cleaned out – under part of the caulk at the bottom of the window was about an eighth of an inch of dirt. Plain old dirt. Obviously whoever caulked it did not see any reason to clean it first. I scraped and scrubbed and scraped some more but it is clean now.
Well, Al just left after “nailing” the frame in – we are using 100 mile an hour tape to hold it in until the liquid nails dry – then cleanup – the old razor blade will get used a lot for that – and caulking and my window should be good as new for awhile. Well the door does need painting – inside and out – but that is a fall job. It is just too hot to paint right now – and I do not want my house all shut up with paint fumes.
Let’s see – what other adventures can a old lady get into when buying a house – just little things like putting up paper towel holder in the laundry room, towel racks in the master bathroom, sorting the garage and those things. I did get another shelving unit for the garage and I have to put that together and get it up – it will work great in the space I want it in – and get stuff off the floor. I hate clutter and I do not want my garage cluttered anymore than my house.
Now I will digress for a minute – my son from CA came last weekend and into the early part of this week and we were talking about the drive to and from CA. I drive over to the San Diego area about once a month – or every other month – for a week of “green” and visiting with family. I have two sons and aunt and cousins living in the area. I remembered the last time I drove over and was going through the CA agriculture control point. They are adamant they do not want anything not grown in CA coming into their state. Of course you drive nearly a hundred miles past the NV line before you get there, but no biggie because the inspectors are pretty much not checking. As I drove through the inspector was looking over his shoulder laughing and talking with his buddy in the next booth – I could have been waving orange trees out my car window and he would not have noticed! He would have just waved me on through. It reminded me of that old Johnny Cash song about pig iron.
Will be out of the “moving in” business for the next 2 ½ weeks as I have visitors coming. First my friend from Texas will be here from tomorrow until the first. Then on the afternoon of the first another friend – one who has been a friend for over 20 years – will be arriving from Florida for an eight day visit. I am looking forward to seeing them and having them see my house – as unsettled as it still it. There is much to do, but it is all on the list and eventually it will all get done.
Til later – talk to you in a week or so.
In the guest bedroom, the door is either smaller than the frame – or the lock does not extend as far as it should and the door does not exactly hold tight. Of course you would have to push it to get it open so it should not be a problem. I cannot see myself pushing into my guest room in the middle of the night and scaring guests – then again on Halloween it might be fun. Hmmmmmm! Then as I was working in my bedroom Dana found that the screw heads in all the bathroom screws had been damaged so that she could not get them to turn. With my ratchet screwdriver and a LOT of pushing – I repeat a LOT of pushing – I managed to get them out far enough that we could do the rest by fingertip. We found the same thing in one of the plate screws for my bedroom door.
Then – the big one – the door to the den which also serves as an extra guest room. The French doors were fine and went together well except I had to drill an extra hold for the lower screw since the circular part of the door handle was bigger on the new ones. That was ok and it worked out fine – but then we went to the other door – the way the den is laid out it is almost a pass through room from the living room to the back of the house – as far as we can figure out someone who lived here had an anger management problem and had – we are guessing here – slammed into the locked door so hard he or she had pulled the plate right off the frame – more than off the frame – it had ripped some of the frame off and damaged the hole. So – in his or her infinite wisdom – shoving the hole full of bathrub caulk and shoving the plate back on and sticking the screws into the caulk was a good way to fix the broken door.
We scraped out the caulk – well I did – and Dana filled in all the damaged places with wood filler – we will still have to build up the broken frame a little, sand it down and then paint it but it looks pretty good and it seems to be cured so I will drill it tomorrow and put the plate on. Then I will work on the buildup of the frame next week.
Then we unpacked all the pictures of family and either hung them on the walls or placed them around the house on various bookcases and tables. I did the “military” wall in my den – that has pictures of me and two of the three sons in uniform. I am still looking for one of my youngest son in uniform but he is not into having pictures taken so I might not be able to find one. I also have pictures of various ships the two Navy sons have been on and a flag from Iraq that was given to me because of support activities I was involved in with the youth of my church in Texas. That is pretty special to me. Then I have my “I love me wall”. You know, those awards and accolades they give you when you retire instead of a load of money! And I put up at least one of my diplomas.
Wednesday afternoon around two the plumber finally got there – he was the reason we were staying very close to home. He had to replace all the valves in all the sinks in the house. He was not a happy camper about the one in the kitchen – it took him longer to do that one sink than it did all the rest (four more) put together. He said he had never seen such a cobbled up mess. You might have read earlier – the reason I had a plumber at all was when we were trying to put new faucets in – my son and his friend found out that the valves were messed up. And were they ever!!! But now I have nice new valves, pipes and faucets. Eventually I am going to have to replace the guest bathroom sink – and eventually I want to replace my tub in the master bath with a whirlpool – but that is going to be a long time coming. The important things have to come first.
Thursday I really mostly took the day off – I did finally get the rebate from the gas company for the energy efficient appliances and thermostat I put in the house. Now if only I would get the rebates from Nevada for the other energy efficient appliances – I might be able to get those windows done.
I did meet my next door neighbor – we met in the yard and she showed me their backyard – WOW! They have an amazing pool and all sorts of stuff – a garden that she is trying to shade with solar screens so the plants do not burn up in the NV sun; a yard full of deck furniture and children’s play stuff – just an interesting yard. We weeded our respective yards for a bit and I invited her in to see what I have done with the house so far – she told me one of the reasons there were so many problems with the house is that the last seven sets of people who have lived here have been renters and they just did not seem to care about the place. She thought some of them might have been on drugs – oh yay. Hope they do not have any stashes hidden away in the attic or anything – I would hate to have my house blow up in the middle of the night.
Friday was literally a waiting day – ALL DAY. Had to wait for my end tables to be delivered – the original one I ordered had been backordered so many times, I just gave up and cancelled that one – and then found two that were on sale that came out to the same price as the original one – I just love sale prices! I also had to wait for the pest control guy to come and spray and I had to wait for the people from Lowes to measure my door frames. I want to put security/screen doors on front and back. They offer security but they also will allow me to open my doors on nice days and get a good breeze going through the house. Since the patio door is almost full length window, I think I will sleep better if I have the security door closed and locked at night. Of course that does not cover the ten other windows in the house – but my security system is supposed to pick up glass breaking so – hopefully – it will go off and scare anyone away.
I am not really afraid of living alone and yet I am taking precautions that I might not have worried about when I lived in that small town in Texas. I am in a huge city now and it seems there are problems all over. I think the current economic problems add to those temptations and some people who might not turn to thievery are now doing whatever they can to eat. No, I do not condone it, but I try to understand it. Would I do it – no. I have taken some pretty crummy jobs in my life just to feed my kids, and I would do it all over again. But there are those who are desperate – so!
It took all day Friday to get everything delivered – so I unpacked a few more boxes.
24 Jun – Well let’s see – it has been a busy week around here – nothing big. Working in the yard – trying to figure out landscaping and how to keep those rocks in the yard and not on the sidewalk and being a safety hazard.
Can anyone please tell me how weeds can grow through three inches of rock – when the last rain we got was in March? And why do desert plants all have thorns that are longer than my gloves? I cleaned up all the weeds in the front this week – if I am out there by 6:30 in the morning I can work a couple of hours before it gets to be so hot – then crawl into the shower. That massaging shower head feels good on aching muscles. Got both sides of the front done and I think I have ideas of what I am going to do to make it look like something more than a rock pile. For one thing I have to rake the rocks up and put down a barrier! And I am planning a flower planter/seat wall along one side of the yard – and will do something along the front with bricks or blocks or something to keep the rocks in. I cannot wall it in too much or when we have our few rains (read “deluge”) a year – my yard will be a swimming pool – and everything will wash out. We do not get lots of rain – but when we get it – it comes down in buckets for a little while.
Not sure what I will do along the driveway. And the backyard – well among other things I still have weeks to pull there. And did I mention the terracing that would keep the dogs out of my plantings? Hmmm – well guess WHO can get up there – I watched her today and it looks like she just climbs up the wall – straight up!
Ordered my security/screen doors this week and they will be installed Monday. It is more for the screen door part that I want them – I love being able to open front and back door in the early mornings and air out the house before the heat bludgeons us to death. We are in the triple digits now – that will run through August and maybe even September, but the evenings are relatively comfortable and the mornings so far have been in the high 70’s and that is still comfortable yard working weather. The way my house sits – my patio is not in the hot, hot late afternoon sun – so it is pleasant out there as the sun goes down and the breeze – ok WIND – comes up. It is pretty windy here – but when it is sort of gentle it is not too bad and I like it.
I think I should just have Lowes drive their delivery trucks by my house and dump stuff off – it might be easier. I have to run by there tomorrow after church and get the locks for the security doors keyed alike – I hate carrying a ton of keys.
Speaking of keys – today was one of the more interesting days I have had lately! I got up a little later than usual – about 6:30 instead of my normal time – made breakfast and ate out on the patio while trying to keep the dogs from stealing my oatmeal and coffee. Then I came in and was putting around the house doing a few little chores; folding the towels from the dryer and putting them away; dusting; going to the garage to get paper towels because I was out. Ok – this is the interesting part. You will notice, I have not mentioned showering and dressing for the day – but going to a closed garage is ok in pajamas! BUT! Yes, there has to be a but in there. I forgot to click the lock on the door handle – and the door closes all by itself every time I go into the garage – and I was locked out. No key in the garage! No cell phone to call my son or his girl friend! My boarder was not home! I was in pajamas – bed hair smoothed a little, but not looking good here. Thought maybe I had unlocked the front door – nope.
Luckily my neighbor was out waxing his car and came to the rescue. First he tried getting into a couple of windows. The good news is that I have REALLY GOOD locks on my windows. The bad news is that we could not get them open. The window on my back door has been loose and in fact I have been planning to fix it – it is on the list, but not near the top of the list. Now it is the top. Al was able to take the frame off and get the window out and get the door unlocked. At the moment the window is held back together with 100 mile an hour tape. (If you do not know what that is – ask a veteran!) I ran to Lowes and got liquid nail – oh the reason the window was on the list and not already fixed is that it is a plastic window frame on a metal door – which was taking a little thinking – ergo liquid nails at Lowes today.
Before it could be put back together, I had to clean it all up – which meant scraping off the ton of caulk – bathroom caulk – they used to hold it together. Whoever did the repairs in this house previously seems to have felt that bathroom caulk was the one all purpose mender for every job. So far I have found so many strange things held together by caulk – I could not even begin to list them. Holding the window in place with caulk was interesting. I got it all cleaned out – under part of the caulk at the bottom of the window was about an eighth of an inch of dirt. Plain old dirt. Obviously whoever caulked it did not see any reason to clean it first. I scraped and scrubbed and scraped some more but it is clean now.
Well, Al just left after “nailing” the frame in – we are using 100 mile an hour tape to hold it in until the liquid nails dry – then cleanup – the old razor blade will get used a lot for that – and caulking and my window should be good as new for awhile. Well the door does need painting – inside and out – but that is a fall job. It is just too hot to paint right now – and I do not want my house all shut up with paint fumes.
Let’s see – what other adventures can a old lady get into when buying a house – just little things like putting up paper towel holder in the laundry room, towel racks in the master bathroom, sorting the garage and those things. I did get another shelving unit for the garage and I have to put that together and get it up – it will work great in the space I want it in – and get stuff off the floor. I hate clutter and I do not want my garage cluttered anymore than my house.
Now I will digress for a minute – my son from CA came last weekend and into the early part of this week and we were talking about the drive to and from CA. I drive over to the San Diego area about once a month – or every other month – for a week of “green” and visiting with family. I have two sons and aunt and cousins living in the area. I remembered the last time I drove over and was going through the CA agriculture control point. They are adamant they do not want anything not grown in CA coming into their state. Of course you drive nearly a hundred miles past the NV line before you get there, but no biggie because the inspectors are pretty much not checking. As I drove through the inspector was looking over his shoulder laughing and talking with his buddy in the next booth – I could have been waving orange trees out my car window and he would not have noticed! He would have just waved me on through. It reminded me of that old Johnny Cash song about pig iron.
Will be out of the “moving in” business for the next 2 ½ weeks as I have visitors coming. First my friend from Texas will be here from tomorrow until the first. Then on the afternoon of the first another friend – one who has been a friend for over 20 years – will be arriving from Florida for an eight day visit. I am looking forward to seeing them and having them see my house – as unsettled as it still it. There is much to do, but it is all on the list and eventually it will all get done.
Til later – talk to you in a week or so.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)