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Projects...this year and next

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:06 pm

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Of the five major indoor projects I wanted us to complete this year, only two were done - the wall of shutters and the wall of bookcase in my new room. The others, re-doing our bedroom, re-doing Randy's home office/workroom and replacing the sliding glass patio door with a wall and regular doors have been moved to the list for next year.....again.

Then there are the outdoor projects, replacing some of the eaves where the squirrels chewed thru to get into the attic, paint the house, make paths in the back yard and start re-doing the front yard. None of which were done mainly because neither of us wanted to work in the gosh awful heat we had.

My personal project was knitting ponchos and scarves for the women and girls at the local women's shelter. I have a dozen of each ready to be delivered next week and will make more off and on during the year for new comers they have. I really enjoyed making them, choosing the colors and patterns....it is just terrible that they are needed under those circumstances.

Next years project for me is to concentrate more on painting or pretending I know how anyway. That includes the inside of the kitchen cabinets and the doors to the linen closet/laundry hamper in the hallway and maybe even the bedroom doors. Who knows how obsessed I will become once I get started.

I have always had so many things I wanted to try my hand at that either I never got around to most of them or I dabbled in each one and never got really good at any of them. Quilting and knitting are the only ones I have spent any length of time perfecting in anyway. I really have to rethink things. I have accumulated the supplies for so many ideas that have been sitting in baskets, boxes or jars on my shelves waiting for me to get around to doing them that I am beginning to feel pretty stressed when I go into my craft room, therefore I do not go into my craft room because of the stress, hence nothing gets done.
Between now and the new year I really have to go thru my assorted supplies and fearlessly weed out things.
Just hope I have the courage to actually do that.



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It was Friday the 13th, so I guess I wasn't going anywhere

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:36 am

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We left this afternoon a little after 4 p.m. to visit my Mom 2 hours west of here. Something had been niggling at the back of my mind all week about this trip. I wasn't afraid of a disaster, just something was not right.

It took us 2 1/2 hours to make the 45 minute trip from our house to north Ft. Worth. We stopped for dinner at Ryan's Buffet to let the traffic clear out some. Other than the meatloaf I had that keeps reminding me of it's after taste, the dinner was good.

We made it to Weatherford, about 45 minutes from where we ate, just fine and in good time. Then the headlights started blinking, the AC started going off and on and then the battery and alternator dash lights started flashing. The trip from that point to my Mom's is desolate and very little chance of a cell phone signal making it passed the hood of our car so we turned around and headed back home. 1 1/2 hours later (almost 5 hours after we left home) we limped back into the driveway. I kept the car running while Randy moved his pickup out of the driveway so I could pull in, got the car in place, killed the engine and good bye power.

So tomorrow morning, he makes a trip around to find an alternator in stock somewhere for under $300. If he finds one we make the trip to Mom's later tomorrow.....if not, he orders one and we make the trip next weekend.

Something tells me I should not have voted in the superstition poll Frank posted this morning. :)

Last edited: Sat Oct 14, 2006 3:52 am

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Bad things happen in threes

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 4:10 pm

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Or as Randy said about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, "and the hits just keep on a comin'"

Tuesday on his way home from work, the right front tire on his pickup truck blew out about 20 minutes into his journey. Meaning he was on the side of a very busy highway changing the tire. About 15 minutes later, the spare he had put on started shredding and sending chunks of itself flying everywhere bending the fender and breaking out a light on the side of the fender. It didn't go flat and being only 15 minutes away from home, he was able to take an earlier exit and drive home on backstreets at about 10 miles per hour. He worked from home on Wednesday and Two new tires were bought on Thursday, $183.00

Friday morning was his normal everyother Friday off so we were going to start installing the wall of shutters to make my room more private. I had a load of laundry in the dryer and another one just starting in the washer when he passed by the bathroom and found water gushing up from both the bathtub and the toilet and in the process of covering the floor. Called a plumber and started taking stuff out of the bathroom....this is the only bathroom we have so while waiting for the plumber we did have to make a couple of trips to a local fast food establishment to use their facilities. Plumber arrived about 3 and cleared out the sewer line from our house to the city sewer line out in the alley. Bathroom usable again, $124.50.

Saturday we had the grandsons for the day. I had made a quick trip to the grocery store, opened the pantry door to put things up to find that water was about 1/4" deep and rising on the floor. The central AC drain line on the other side of one wall of the pantry had stopped up and water was overflowing. Thankfully this was something that Randy could take care of so no repair person was called upon to provide us with yet another bill for services rendered.

The shutters are still leaning against the wall and will be until at least next payday.



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We all slept better last night

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 2:17 pm

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Randy got home from Chicago safely early yesterday afternoon.
We have a waterbed and after 5 nights of sleeping on a hard hotel mattress I know Randy slept better last night.
I do not sleep soundly when he is out of town because I am a usually a little nervous, so I slept better last night.

Now poor Rambo, our 9 year old Field Spaniel really doesn't sleep well when Randy is gone. He knows that he is "on duty" more than usual on those nights. Normally he will sleep in our or Amanda's doorway or in the hallway between the rooms. But when he is on duty, he stretches out in front of the front door or is on the couch in the livingroom. His sleep is interrupted by any and all sounds outside, even the ones that occur every night and are routine, like the neighbor leaving for work at midnight. The trouble with that is then he "woofs" at the sound waking me up and I have to go check it out which makes me nervous about what I will see outside....thanks a lot Rambo : )
Then since he is awake anyway, he makes the rounds of the house to check things out. I hear him come into the room, sniff around, snort and then hear the tapping of his toe nails as he goes to Amanda's room and back into the livingroom.
Yesterday when Randy got home, Rambo was sooooo happy. He got his back scratched and a peppermint. He trotted around the house checking things out. He went out back to do his business and check out the yard. Then he stretched out on the livingroom floor and in no time was sleeping so soundly that his snoring could be heard from the next room. I don't think he moved for a couple of hours.
His world was back to normal so I know he slept better last night too.

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I give up

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:36 am

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Even with watering everything early in the morning and again late in the evening I can not keep anything alive. Plus I can not justify watering plants when there is a distinct possibility that water restrictions could very soon include how much we can use for household needs.

I guess I could say, "oh well there is always next year". But after going thru weather almost this bad last year (had the drought but not the heat) that is what I said last Sept...I really thought that everything would return to normal and all my work would survive this year.

Most of my plants are perennials so there is hope that they will return next year, what remains to be seen is whether it will be worth it.

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No power so we left home

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:33 pm

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Sunday afternoon the wind really started kicking up, the lights flickered then everything went out. The so called storm was more flash than substance. We got about 30 minutes of really strong winds, a nice lightning show, some dark clouds and less than an 1/8th inch of rain. Since the temp outside had already hit 100 for the day, the inside temp quickly climbed to match the outside temp. We took Rambo with us and headed for Dunn Brothers, the coffee shop we really like. Sat outside watching the clouds swiftly clear out, the wind come to a complete stop and the sun come back out

I had called the power company before we left to report the outage but after a couple of hours at the coffee shop the power was still out. We called Lisa to see if they were home and headed up there. About 8 pm the power was still out.
Since we had already planned on going out to my Mom's on Monday, we decided to head out there and spend the night there. Lisa volunteered their spare bed for Amanda and Rambo and then she could stay with the boys while Lisa was at school.

We called our home number several times on the way out to Ranger. If the power had come back on then the answering machine would come on...but nothing.
Our last call being just after midnight as we pulled into the motel parking lot. But sometime between then an 8:30 a.m. when we called again the power was back.

The only food casualties in the freezer was the ice cream and the brine shrimp and blood worms Amanda feeds her fish.

We called Lisa on the way home last evening, we could see some storm clouds that appeared to be over Dallas and she said it had been raining a nice steady soaking rain for almost 3 hours. And the sudden hard rain had caused some flooding in Dallas.

BUT GUESS WHAT!!! Almost none of that had happened on my yard. We got a whopping 1/4th inch. She is barely 10 miles north of us and the flooding was about 20 miles south of us and we were bascially high and dryish in the middle. Temps are returning to their usual hovering around 100 again for the rest of the week.

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On July 18, 2005 - looooooong story : )

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 5:26 pm

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When we bought this house the attached garage had been converted to a room. This means that on the other side of front wall of this room is the driveway and on the driveway sits our cars and on the in side of wall is where my computer desk sat.
Also, in the summer on days when Amanda doesn't have school or work, I let Randy take my car to work therefore his pickup truck is sitting in the driveway. This truck is a 1970 Dodge, not made of tin or fiberglass as the newer vehicles are but of good hard to damage steel.

On July 18,2005 just before 2 p.m. I had checked my email and done a little work on the rEcycle list I am a co-owner of then left the front of the room, going to the back part of the room where my craft area is located. I was sitting at my table minding my own business when I heard a really loud roar, a screech of tires trying to catch up with the speed of the engine and then a really loud crash.

I grabbed the cell phone and ran out front expecting to find a horrible crash in the street. What I found was a green Ford Contour pulling away from the backend of my husbands pickup truck....and the front of the pickup truck sitting about 2 feet inside the house....I had not even noticed the bulging wall before I headed out side.
I called 911 to report it and as I was talking to the police dispatcher the boy who had been in the car got out and went into his house across the street. A young girl was standing there screaming at him. He came back out, they got in the car and drove away as I was giving the dispatcher the license plate number.

To shorten this story down a bit.....
The girl was an unlicensed 14 yr old from a town about 20 miles from here. She had taken the car keys out of her Mom's purse and when Mom left for work she took the car for a joy ride. As her story goes...she found herself in front of the house across the street when she had car troubles (sounds fishy to me) Anyway, the 16 yr old unlicensed boy there and his friend decided to play "white knight" and help her. They pushed the car into their drive way, the 16 yr old started the engine...his story goes, he put it in reverse but the throttle was stuck full open and he couldn't stop it so it raced backwards out of his driveway into ours and crashed into the back bumper of the pickup.

When they drove away, they got down around the corner where the boy got out and ran back home thru the alley and broke into their house to hide.....like I didn't know who he was and where he lived??? After his Mom got home from work, they came over and he apologized and that is when he realized that the house had been damaged. The police officer came back to talk with Mom and son, they being hispanic Mom was yelling at the son in Spanish and didn't realize that the officer could understand what she said. He told us later that she was really giving me the riot act for being so stupid. But as soon as Dad got home, we never heard another word from them. Our insurance company told us that Dad refused to accept the fact that his son had caused the damage and put all the blame on the girl.

Over the next two months we found out that the car was uninsured and the people across the street refused to acknowledge any responsibilty or even report it to their insurance.
Our auto insurance paid for the damages to the truck, there weren't many since it is made of steel...minus a $250 deductible. Our home owners insurance paid for the rebuilding of this room. The Mom is paying $100 a month to our insurance companies to reimburse them.....the house repairs alone were $7800 so she will be paying on that forever.

Almost two months to the day after waiting for the insurance company to send us a contractor we felt we could trust, the rebuilding of the room was completed. Only took them from 8 a.m. that Monday to 3p.m. Wednesday.
Because the paneling that was on the walls couldn't be matched (it was 30 yrs old), they took it all down and we asked for regular walls (sheetrock,texture and paint). The ceiling had to be redone too and since the opening between this room and the living room had trim that had to be taken down, that damaged the ceiling in the livingroom and one wall there... the livingroom ceiling was completely redone and the whole room repainted.

The funny thing about this is, when the construction crew tore out the front wall, they found the original garage door still there. The previous home owner had her son do the work, he nailed some sheets of foam to the inside of the garage door and covered the whole thing with paneling. The demolition crew had a good laugh at that.

After the room was finished Randy built us a book case 8' long and 8' tall and mounted it to the front wall.....I do not want to be sitting there again. My computer is now in the middle of the room instead. We had been hoping to redo this room someday but it just never got to the top of our long to do list.

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Yet another update on my daughter

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:56 am

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Lisa had the surgical procedure to remove the skin cancer spot this morning. It went like clock work, they started at 8 and she was home by 11:30. They were able to get everything out and cleared with a hole only the size of a nickel (roughly 7/8" in diameter)
The scar she will have on her neck will be approx 5 inches long and reaching from just behind her ear to almost the front middle of her neck....that is so they can stitch it together with the least amount of puckering and scaring.

She was tired and sore when she woke up this afternoon and called me and we are glad that is over.

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Edom and the Blueberries

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:25 pm

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We had a really great day Saturday. We turned onto Lisa's street at 6 a.m. and she was sitting on the porch waiting for us having left Kenny and the boys sleeping and a list of the birthday parties that they were to attend (each had one)on the table for Kenny.

We stopped at our favorite coffee shop (Dunn Brothers) for morning coffee and breakfast. Then headed out for the 1 1/2 hour drive east. Got to the blueberry farm a little after 8 so it was still a little cool and very few people there yet.
We each only picked about 3/4ths of a peck in the two hours we were out there, the heat and sun were starting to takes it's toll on all of us. The blueberry farm didn't have as good a crop as usual because of the drought so there weren't even any bags of already picked berries for us to buy. Oh, well, at least we did get two of their pies. That recipe is on the website and is really yummy.

The little town of Edom has two cafes, a clothing boutique, two small antique stores, two potters studios, two studios where really expensive jewelry is made and the studio/shop of a birdhouse maker...not your ordinary wood birdhouses, not even the cutesy ones with old license plates for the roof. These things are made from assorted copper and brass items on large gourds and large tree limbs.
http://arborcastlebirdhouses.com/index.html
There is a quilter too, he bought an old gas station, lives upstairs and has his quilting studio downstairs but is not open to the public.

After lunch and wandering thru the shops, we took the backroad to Canton and wandered thru the shops there. Then to Starbucks for a cold coffee and on to an outlet mall across the highway. When we realized it was too late to get Lisa back home for dinner with her family, we had dinner at Applebees. Got her back home around 7p.m.

Lisa was almost 13 yrs old when Randy and I got married, we had 5 years as a family unit. Since she graduated from high school in 1985 and moved out for college and her new life adventure we have had very few days of just the three of us like before, so when we get one we hang on to it as long as we can.



Last edited: Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:31 pm

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I Left My Heart On Blueberry Hill

Category: Random bulletins from my brain | Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 5:04 am

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Randy and I are taking my oldest daughter with us tomorrow morning to pick blueberries in east
Texas. http://blueberryhillfarms.com/

I am hoping for a rainy day like we had last year, but not holding out much hope for it.
The little town of Edom where the farm is has become an artist colony. The rundown buildings in downtown ( a whole block long) have been turned into shops and studios by the artists. Mostly potters, but also a guy that makes the most wonderfully fanciful birdhouses...actually they would make great faerie houses.

The daughters of the blueberry farm owners make the most wonderful blueberry pies, so of course we will have to buy at least three...one to eat after lunch at the local diner,one for us and one for Lisa to take home. Since the weather has not cooperated this year, we may not actually get to pick berries but hopefully they will have some in pre-picked that we can buy. They are usually open from the first weekend in June thru the end of July but are closing down this Sunday this year.

Either way, it is a great way to spend a day out and a wonderful little town to wander thru.



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