Road trip to Minnesota

My brother, Ed, is retiring from his job as manager with the street department with the city of Mankato, Minnesota. There is a party in his honor on the 31st, so I decided to attend. I also want to see other family, especially Mom. She is 87 and still lives alone in an apartment.

Yesterday I did the necessary chores that needed to get done: Mowed the lawn, planted garden and perennials, and of course packed. Our soil is rock hard clay so the plants will be struggling. Now that I have a permanent location for the garden and some flowers, I can start amending the soil. The best thing to add is well rotted horse manure. We have several neighbors with horses, so I should go meet them and ask if I can have some.

I am taking two days to drive the 1000 miles. I have DH's XM radio and several books on CDs.
I don't mind quiet time either. On the way back, I will visit friends in Kankakee, IL for two days. I will post when I have access to the internet.

Mulch and dirt

G said he had 25 things on his to do list today. I don't think he got any of the things on the list done, but we really worked hard. We just did things that were not on the list. I asked if he would go with me to our local waste management facility. They take yard waste free and then shred it and sell it back as mulch. It is about half price you would pay of you had it delivered from a landscaping company. But we had to load into our trailer ourselves. We shoveled one ton of the stuff. That is a lot. I then shoveled over half of it under my pine trees. At the rate I am going I will need three more ton.

Then the man who farms our land came over. We had been wanting to move some stuff (mostly iron) so that he could work in a straight line instead of going around it. He lent G his skid steer tractor. We moved the iron and now G has been on that thing for about 7 hours. We had a large hole by our deck where an above ground pool had been. He filled that in with dirt and then has been moving dirt from a huge pile he had near the road.

We then had one thing left that we did not know what to do with. The previous owner of our property had left this old rusty manure spreader with rotted wood and only one tire. I had toyed with the idea of trying to paint it, and use it as a lawn ornament, but changed my mind. We burned it, and will recycle the iron. "In the Sticks" you are allowed to burn.















Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend.

Sitting on sofas

Last night I took G to "try out" sofas. We went to a furniture store that I like and he spent an hour there sitting on one sofa after another. But, we are not at the place where I can start looking at the fabric. First things first. His legs are short in proportion to the rest of him, so on most sofas his feet do not rest on the floor. He reminded us of the character from Laugh-In years ago, Edith Ann, who sat in a chair much to big for her. This store has the Norwalk brand, which gives you a lot of choices in style and fabric. You pick out the style and fabric and then they make it to your specifications.

A few months ago I took an interior decorating class from a sales woman, Marcia, who works at this store. As part of the class we took field trips to member's homes. So she knows what our living room looks like and what our style is. Or maybe I should say what our style is not, because I do not like the furniture I now have (early American) nor the style the house was made for (country). She is very patient, which is a necessary trait when dealing with G and I buying things. She is trying to help us find what really works for us instead of just being a salesperson and making the sale.

Our next step is to think about what we have looked at, then go back and hopefully narrow it down.

Friends

For the last couple of years I have met for breakfast with three or four friends. Recently, I have returned home asking myself, "why did I go?". They have a pattern of spending the entire 1-1/2 hours talking about people I do not even know. These people are not even their family or close friends but other people from the church or community. And of course it is about the problems these people have: with the law, with their jobs, with their families, or in school.

So on Tuesday, I told them I may not be meeting with them any more. I explained that I was hoping that we would become close enough friends that we could talk about our lives, ideas, etc. I also said that if they needed to talk about these people that was ok. (I was trying real hard not to judge, because it I know it may fill a need for them.) None of them said we will try to change and would really like you to continue coming. But then, I just sprang it on them and they may need time to think about it. So we will see where it leads.

Last night G asked if I was going back. I don't feel that I need to decide that now. Whatever happens is what is supposed to. This whole situation is teaching me a lot about myself so it is great. I don't mean for this to sound like a downer at all. It is not for me. It may be time for me to go in some other direction. We'll see.

Never a dull moment here

If you visited today, you would have witnessed the following:
There is a toilet tank on the floor in the living room.
My gas kitchen stove is sitting on the kitchen table, with parts of the oven in the hall.
The Audi was quickly driven into the garage because the sun roof opened by itself and would not close and it was raining.

Now if you know us at all, you would say, "So, what is so unusual about all of those things?"
And I would have to admit that it probably not much.

I have taken all the things off the walls in the bathroom and taped it in preparation for painting. It will be a light turquoise in color. That explains the toilet tank being where it is.

G is trying to find the cause of a gas smell in the stove. It is not fixed yet, but he has some ideas. Not to fear, we will not blow up the house. The gas to the stove is turned off.

I am not sure I can explain the Audi issue, other than once in the past this happened when the battery went dead. And the battery seems to be not charging as it should since our cat turned the headlights on and ran the battery down. I can't recall if I told that story or not in a previous post. G was working on the car in the shop (where cat lives in the Winter) and left the window open on the car. Cat climbed in and somehow turned on the lights, causing the battery to be dead when G came out again. She almost lost one of her nine lives.

So we have our work cut out for us this week to remedy all of these issues.

Filling cracks to save money

Today a worker from our electric co-op came to our house and did a "blower test". As you can see in the picture, he placed a fan in the front door and blew air out. You could then put your hand over electrical outlets, window frames, doors and pipes and actually feel the air coming in. He was here almost three hours and we now have a long list of places to caulk, insulate and repair so that we are not wasting heat (which translates into money). Our house is 12 years old, but since we did not build it ourselves, we really don't know what is behind the walls.

I can put the foam gaskets behind the outlets and switches, but G will need to do the caulking and other repairs.

He was knowledgeable about geothermal heating and cooling so was able to give us some good advice about what kind of system to put it. My next step is to get a few more estimates of how much a system will cost.

The Devil Wears Prada

I just could not resist the title. After about five years of wearing the same glasses I have new ones. The brand of the frames is Prada. I know the picture is a bit weird, as I am not real good at taking pictures of myself. I don't know if I look any better, but I can see a lot better, which is what really matters. I added the non glare coating and it makes a great difference too. I don't even seem to need sun glasses. Since I have progressive lenses, I did not use the $39 site Styling with RM did.

Mother's Day was celebrated at son's house. It was a laid back day. He stood under an umbrella to grill our hamburgers. Thanks son. Even the boys (cats) were relaxed. They have four male cats and they are affectionately referred to as the boys. The picture is of Logan.

Free days

I was called for jury day three days this week, so I cleared my schedule. Hard to do when you are retired. It was for our local municipal court, which I think handles misdemeanors, not felonies. But as it turned out there were no scheduled jury trials so I didn't have to go. So I felt I had three free days. Actually it would have been interesting as I have never been called before.

The garden is coming along nicely. G and I put a fence around it to keep out the rabbits. I had added some soil around the bottom where there were gaps. Our soil is heavy clay, so it certainly needs amending. I will probably work on that all year. So far I have planted peas, radishes and a couple herbs. The weather forecast is rain for eight out of the next ten days. So my focus will not be on the yard and garden.

A Miracle or at Least Great News

About once a month our dear son comes here for a "Work Day with Dad". Dad goes to his house for equal times of work days there. Son came yesterday and spend most of the day helping with electrical work in the shop. They wired for 22o for the welders. Son was in the attic with cables while Dad was down in the shop making sure they were the right length. They then started reorganizing some of the large pieces of equipment, like having all the welders by the new outlets, and all the tool boxes in an accessible area.

Well, apparently the conversation then went to where to put the mattresses. (Remember the mattresses from a previous blog?) I was called in to the conversation and asked if they could be stored in our newly cleaned out garage and if I would place them on Free Cycle. For those of you not familiar with Free Cycle, it is an internet site for giving away things. By now you have probably figured out that the Miracle is that Dad (DH) agreed to this. For readers who are coming for the reunion or wedding reception, I should add that we will not give away all the mattresses in the house.

On Thursday, I spent most of the day with granddaughter, K, so that her mother could finish decorating the bathroom she started a couple of weeks ago. I forgot to take a picture of the end results, will another time. I am posting pictures of their patio, which was at least three years in the making. Building a patio with pavers is quite a task. It was a great bonding experience with our son, his wife and her parents. But all of us say we will not do it again. Give me the stamped concrete any time.

It looks like we have a "foodie" in the making.
She is bring the food to the "boys".



Later in the evening, we had dinner, again on an outdoor patio, but not cooked by K.