Always Too Late!

Here at year-end, WonderMom and I are preparing for Christmas, of course, but also for our annual retreat to the Valley of the Sun. And again, we have remained in the Plains of Winter too long. We, along with a few! other midwesterners, are ice bound. Last night's ice storm pretty much shut down a whole lot of the area. The world remains ice coated 24 hours later, with the promise of new snow to hide it from us (sigh!). Here are a couple of photos of the more attractive? aspects of the weather.

Weird Icicle!

Winter's Beauty!

     

This guy figured no one would be outside to see him. I got lucky and was able to sneak up to about 50 feet from him to get these shots. It didn't take him long to leave the area, with a flash of his white tail.

Well, I thought I'd give you a wrap up of 2008, from my POV. If you're not interested, this is a good place to stop reading. I'll see you at Westward Ho & Back over the next 3 months.

2008 has been a mixed year for us, some good, some not so good.
The good:
Pleasant summer weather - no 95 degree days with 95% humidity;
A great visit from Shimmy and her family in July;
A good crop of spring flowers and summer tomatoes;
A well done remodel of the bathroom;
Many visits from/with the local grandkids;
A great visit with Socket and his family down in tarheel territory;
WonderMom's first venture into competative quilting!;
And finally, an election that ended favorably.

The not so good:
Socket lost a part of his right index finger in an industrial accident;
We lost our winter gardener, house sitter, and good friend in AZ.;
The financial world tanked and we all lost money one way or another;
W's still in office!. Talk about staying too long!

So all in all, the good outnumbered the not so good. WonderMom and I are still in good health and looking forward to a warm winter and a good 2009. Hope your year was a good one, your holidays are happy and spent with good friends or family, and your 2009 is a good one.

We'll be heading west in a few days, and I'll be blogging at Westward Ho & Back if you're still interested.

My Two Cents

YES, WE CAN!

YES, WE DID!

I've been relatively quiet about this past presidential campaign and election, except at home with WonderMom.  I just felt I needed to express my views on the candidates and the election results.  We're fiercely Independent voters, having NEVER voted a straight ticket!  We commonly vote Republican for state offices to counter the overwhelming Democratic candidates coming out of Upstate... and did so this time.

I'm obviously an Obama supporter, and happy he won.  He did win!  McCain didn't lose, he was beaten by an opponent who had better ideas, a more forward looking, well thought out, and eloquently presented plan for the future.  A candidate of a caliber we haven't seen in my adult lifetime.

I'm sorry, but I don't want my president to be a 'regular' guy, a Joe Sixpack! All of that senseless rhetoric just avoided talking about the real issues, and McCain's plans for solving our problems.  I want my president to be smarter than me, and savvy enough to hold his own when dealing with those who would take advantage of us.  I didn't see that in McCain, who asked us to trust that he knew how to solve our problems, and "had the scars to prove it".  And then there was the lipsticked dipstick!  What a bonehead move by McCain's campaign.  The real McCain started to re-emerge in the last two weeks of the campaign, but it was too late, and he had the iceberg in tow!

Mr. Obama has renewed my hopes for the future of my kids and grandkids.  I still believe they will not have the same level of lifestyle my middle class job afforded me to provide for them as they were growing up, but maybe not as depressed as I had imagined.  We will see.

I have high expectations (probably too high) for Mr. Obama, and I strongly disagree with his position on amnesty for illegal aliens.  You can't have everything, I guess.  I'm certainly willing to give him a chance to change the course of the country before I complain about him.  His performance on the campaign trail showed me he was a thinking man, not a platform slave.  He can assimilate new information and change his plans and directions as needed. He knows he doesn't have all the answers and is very good at picking the right advisors.  But he will be the decider, after carefully weighing of the facts.  I expect him to have some serious disagreements with his Democratic congress, and get his way most of the time.  I expect him to select members of his administration from all quarters of the political spectrum, and use their advice in shaping his decisions and the future of this country.

Much is being made of the fact that Obama is the first black POTUS.  That's a good thing because it is a sign that we Americans are starting to grow up!

Maybe the black community voted for him because he was black, and I think they were entitled to do so, but I believe he was evaluated on his character and abilities and found to be superior.  

It never crossed our minds, that he was black once we got to know him. Did we hold him to a higher standard than we would a white candidate? Probably, because we are a product of our past, however, our bias is not based on skin color, but on attitude and ideals, both of which we found agreeable in Mr. Obama.  This is the same criteria to which we would hold any candidate.

OK!  That's it.  Comment if you like, disagree if you are of a mind to.

It's Finished - Finally!

The Bathroom is finally finished!  After almost 2 months, most of which was waiting for ReBath, the bathroom is finally fully decorated and appointed.  Well there is still some calking to be cleaned from the window, but WonderMom is happy.  Here are some photos of the finished product.  They don't show it too well because it is too small to get a decent photo from inside!

This shot shows the new toilet, 

refinished vanity with new lavatory

and the newly installed GFCI outlet, 

small corner shelf on the left,

and vinyl flooring.

Yes, it is a tight fit on the potty since the

 new tub is an inch wider than the old tub.

This shot shows the new shower curtain on the

curved shower rod, and the overhead 

storage doors covered with wallpaper

With the curtain open you can see the new two-headed 

shower, and some of the details in the shower itself.  

Also it shows the wallpaper border.

I forgot to show you WonderMom's 

decorative creation for the new loo!

She has been working on this wall

quilt for almost as long as I have 

been working on the bathroom.

(Yes Cricket, the border is all one piece!)

ReBath ReDeux

They did it!  

And they're done!  

ReBath showed up today with all the right stuff and completed their job.  It looks great, but will look a lot better after I get the rest of the bathroom finished.

BEFORE

AFTER

Tomorrow WonderMom goes in for jury duty so I can pull the old toilet, pull up the carpet, prime the walls for wallpapering, and put the beadboard in on two walls. 

 Wednesday is wallpaper, flooring, new toilet, and lavatory install day.  Sounds a little ambitious for me, but we'll see what I can do.  I'll have completion photos when completion happens - including trim, Cricket!

High Five Comes Up Short

Last week, our son, Socket, down in the Tarheel state was the star performer in an industrial accident!  He got his right hand caught in the lift mechanism of a forklift truck he was repairing and lost half of his right index finger.  He also damaged a tendon in his middle finger. 

I waited until now to blog about it so I could include news of his condition. Other than losing an important piece of an important finger, he's fine physically.  Mentally he is kicking himself for doing something he knew better than to do.  I think it's a tossup, yeah he put his hand in there, but the actual accident was just that, an accident.  Stuff happens!  You just try to be somewhere else when it does.  Sometimes you aren't!

He was pretty with it and actually assisted the EMTs in retrieving his finger piece from the mechanism.  He also walked to the ambulance and climbed onto the gurney, then walked into the hospital under his own steam.  He is just too big to pick up and carry!

They took him to the hospital Durham to see if they could reattach the finger, but no soap.  The bone was too badly crushed.  He was in surgery for about 2 hours.  His wife, Mistletoe, is miffed at him for getting hurt and scaring the bejesus out of her.  WonderMom is not happy that he didn't take better care of the nice fingers she made for him!  AND HE CAN ONLY GIVE YOU A HIGH 4.5 WITH HIS RIGHT HAND! By the way, he is fairly ambidextrous, but he is mostly left-handed.

Anyhow, here are a couple of photos, taken by him on his cell phone in the Dr.'s office after the surgical bandages were removed and his splint and tension band (for the middle finger) were installed.  If you're squeamish, stop here! 

If you'd like to send him an e-mail to cheer him up or bawl him out, click here->Socket's email

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***** WARNING  DISTURBING PHOTOS FOLLOW *****

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The splinted hand.  The rubber band is to keep tension on the damaged tendon.

The missing finger before splinting!

You were warned!

New Photos Are Up

I finally got the new photos of the quilt up on he previous blog.  The reason it took so long was I had to build a frame outside that we could hang the quilt from.  It is way too big to hang in the house and I wouldn't be able to get far enough away from it to get it all in one frame.

A Prairie Gem

Well, this weekend was the long awaited quilt show.  WonderMom entered her serendipitous quilt and showed it off proudly to those who came to see it.  Here's the best shot we could get of the whole thing.  It was hung on the side of a booth and we couldn't get far enough away to get a straight shot at it.  I'll get better shots of it tomorrow and replace/add to this one, so check back.  Sorry it took so long, but here is a full on photo of the quilt.

and as close up of the quilting

No, she didn't win anything, and that came as no surprise after seeing some of her competition.  It was obvious to us that her quilt didn't have enough actual quilting on it, even if the quilting was excellent.  Most of the other quilts were closely quilted over their entire surface.  Her quilt was only quilted in the border and in the black "came" between the pieces of colored fabric.  In any event, it was an enjoyable and educational experience for her, and she doesn't feel badly about not winning anything.

Here are a couple of the quilts that did win something.  Although it is hard to tell from these photos, there is a bunch of quilting on all of them.

These are some of the small quilts WonderMom made for the auctions held during the show.  They brought in some good bids and $ for the 

guild.  

On to AZ next winter to enter in the ASU Quilt show.  Maybe she'll come up with an idea to add quilting to the project and improve her chances.

 

Teaser!

WonderMom got her special quilt back from the quilter last Friday.  She's really pleased with the results.   She plans to enter it into a quilt show competition this coming weekend.  Before then she has to trim it to square it up, hand sew 32 feet of binding, attach a quilt hanger, and a label.  I thought I'd post a couple of teaser photos prior to the quilt show.  

Front

Back

I should have some good photos of the completed quilt as it hangs in the show. It is too big to hang anywhere in our house!

ReBath Revisited!

I blogged earlier about having ReBath redo our tub/shower area.  They called last week and scheduled the installation for Friday, Sept. 19th.  Tomorrow at 7:30 AM (ouch)!  So today, Thursday, Sept 18,  I tore into the bathroom, stripped old paneling off of the walls, ripped up the carpeting, and removed the lavatory, all of which we are replacing. 

I was working on the paneling, and ReBath called and said they would be late - 9AM.  That's OK.  Better for me.  

So right after I removed the lavatory, and the vanity, essentially making the bathroom unusable except for the toilet, ReBath calls again.  They just inspected the tub insert for my installation and found a manufacturing defect!  

My options are:

a) wait 2 weeks for a replacement insert to be made (in Mesa, AZ!)

b) They will install a replacement tub, which is actually a new tub, not an insert.  They say this is a more expensive option, but they won't charge me any more money.  

OK, no brainer on which way to go there!  It'll be interesting to see how the get a new tub into this bathroom which is only 5 feet by 6 feet!  The tub, which is 5 feet long, fits in the 5 foot dimension, of course, and takes up 28 inches of the 6 foot dimension.  Yes, it is a tiny room, but it works for us - for overnight company, not so much!  We have a half bath in the basement.

Friday morning Bert and Ernie from ReBath show up.  We go through the project together, and they seem like good guys, friendly and accommodating.  I ask to see the replacement tub to make sure it is something we want - it's fine.  

They start tearing off the old shower surround and removing fixtures while I'm working on stuff in the garage, when it happens!

Bert comes out, talking on the phone and asks me if the house is a modular home - it is, mostly factory built in 1956.  The old tub is a non-standard size narrower than normal.  The new tub won't fit.  It's not too long, but too wide - 33 inches!  There won't be room for the vanity if the try to put it in.  Rats!

We discuss it for a while.  They apologize all over themselves for the mistakes (made by the office) and offer to do all kinds of things to make me happy.  We decide that the best thing would be to wait for the replacement for the liner to come from AZ - a minimum of 2 weeks.  They put the fixtures back and calk the open corners of the exposed old shower paneling with all the glue lines on it from the surround plastic I put over it.  It is serviceable, but ugly.  

So we'll be roughing it until the 2nd week of Oct. anyhow.  I told WonderMom I would put the lavatory back for the duration and she says, "Don't bother.  I can brush my teeth in the kitchen!  Just make the shower work."  Isn't she wonderful?

I'll follow up on this when it happens, so check back.

Up, Up, and Away!

This weekend is the annual Balloon Rally in West Forgottonia.  We went there with Cricket and her kids (Paco was busy protecting us with his tuba)!  Well, this year, the balloon glow got drizzled out.  Only a few of the almost 30 balloons were inflated for the glow.  I got a few videos of them, but it wasn't nearly as nice as in the past.  Too bad!  Here are some photos and a video of the event.  Enjoy!

We're Home, Y'all!

Can't spend too much time down here in tarheel country. Ya start to talk funny!

The visit with Socket and family was great. We got to sleep in their bed and they suffered the inflatable on the floor! That sure was thoughty of them, don't cha think! (See! I told you.) 

We arrived Friday afternoon had a fun visit with Pickle who was happy to see us and gave us lots of hugs!

She delighted in showing us her bicycling skills and was so pleased with herself. She is a hoot!

We had dinner at a recently re-opened (after being hit by an airplane!) seafood buffet Friday night. The food was... filling!  They (NC folks and southerners in general) have a different idea of what tastes good than we northerners do, so we don't usually appreciate their cuisine!

Socket drove so he could show off his new (to them) Camry - nice, and because I can't find my way around down there. Not a straight road in the state!  Their system of roads was laid out by cows and wild game! And I'm suspicious about the source of the road names, also!

Saturday was rest up, get reacquainted (we haven't seen them since May '07), and grocery shopping day. Socket checked out the "Check Engine" light that came on in our van on the way down. He has the technology and knowledge to do these things so we're in good hands. Nothing serious, but we have to put up with the light being on all of the time. I reciprocated by rescueing stuff from the hard drive on his old (defunct) PC and getting them on his Mac. He also cooked some steaks on the grill for dinner. 

After dinner we went to visit some of their neighbors, an older retired couple who treat Pickle like their own grandchild. She visits them on her own quite a bit and even eats lunch with them sometimes. It's good that she has someone like that around for her since we can't be there all the time (or very much).

Sunday was fun day. We went to t'baccy town to the Marbles Kids' Museum!

They have a magic machine that shrinks you down to the size of chess pieces so you follow the action close up!  Here are Pickle and Gramma (aka WonderMom) at a tiny table by the chess board! (kidding!)

Socket and Pickle ham it up for the cameras at the fire station.

And they had a fantastic Thomas Tank Engine layout.

Pickle was the center of attention in the sockey rink.

And was pleased as punch with her sweet self!

After the Marbles Museum, the "grownups" got to go to their fun places... The Apple Store and Barnes & Noble book store.

Monday was Socket's birthday so WonderMom and Mistletoe fixed him a bodacious cake. Socket whipped up some homemade peach ice cream. We had the neighbors over for cake and ice cream and a little birthday singing after dinner.

Tuesday morning, after dropping Pickle off at day care, we headed home, with an overnight stay in Chillicothe, OH, same as on the way down. Wednesday we arrived back at the ranch about 1 PM, and spent the rest of the day resting up. The drive was fine as was the weather, both ways - except for the rain in the 30 miles closest to home - both ways.

We did get a little of the fallout from Gustav while we were in NC, an occasional rain, no wind. Looks like Hannah is heading up the coast with Raleigh as a target. Thankfully it looks like it is running out of steam, so the threat is minimal. We apparently had a brisk tailwind
heading up through VA and WV because the Snowbird got 27+ mpg!

So we're home again and ready to get on with fall.

Let There Be (less) Light

WonderMom has had be working on a new (revitalized) project these last 2 weeks. She started by making an appointment with ReBath for an estimate on redoing our tub/shower area. She was happy with the proposal so we bit.


As a part of the ReBath proposal, I said I would take care of replacing the window that took up most of the wall in the shower, with a glass block window we bought 5 years (or more) ago with this remodel in mind. So for the last 2 weeks I have been working on said project, 1 week of thinking, planning, and collecting supplies, 1 week of actual labor! Sadly I didn't take any before or during photos.

Here's what the new installation looks like from the outside.
The window I removed was the same size as the one on the left. The new window is on the right!


A close up to show off the job I did on the aluminum flashing!

One of the things that helped was the fact that I didn't have to procure any weird materials to complete the job.  The only items I had to purchase were some caulking cartridges (my old ones had dried out), and a piece of angled trim for the outside sill. Sometimes it pays to be a packrat!

The siding to patch the former window space came from the side of the garage that faces the same way, so the color matched (WonderMom's idea). The garage siding was replaced with some panels left over from the original siding job. They had been stored in my shed, and were darker than the installed siding and were covered with an 18 year accumulation of dirt, dust and oil. Cleanup will happen at some later date.



The aluminum flashing was from a coil I rescued from my folks garage when their house was sold back in the 90's. I was able to form the flashing by hand with satisfactory results. The white J-channel around the window was reused from the old window.

Here's a shot from the inside to give you an idea of the difference in the sizes of the old and new window. The ReBath boys will take care of the inside

Tomorrow and Wednesday we teach an AARP Driving Safety Program from 8:30AM til 12:30PM, a Dr. appointment for me and on Thursday we leave for hurricane country to visit Socket, Mistletoe, and Pickle for the weekend. Haven't seen them in a while so we're anxious to go. Pickle is growing fast and showing Daddy what it was like to be his parents when he was 5! Paybacks are... interesting!

Wii Have Been Assimilated!

I mentioned earlier that our daughter, Cricket, had introduced us to the Wii game console, and that our daughter Shimmy has one, as well as one of our local friends. Well, as of this past Friday, we have become Wii! Cricket found one at her local China-Mart in Forgottonia and picked it up for us. They brought it with them Friday evening and spent Friday evening and Saturday morning making sure we knew the care, feeding, and usage of the beast!

I'm forced to say that Wii is an enjoyable pastime - so far. It may be less exercise than a brisk walk, but it sure beats sitting and computing, or watching the boob tube for working up a sweat!

WonderMom and I had our first opportunity to attack it on our own today, and it was fun! WonderMom cleans my clock in bowling, but I can still beat her on the golf links. Give her time! Tennis is still a challenge for us both.

Wii also connects to the Internet, wirelessly, and can provide news and weather channels that are usable. There are also Wii shopping channels available, which Nintendo would appreciate us using - NOT!

Well, WonderMom has gone to bed, so I think I'll get in a little solo bowling practice, heh, heh, heh!

Summer Wanes!

Well, I'm back, if anyone is watching. July was a busy month, but nothing too interesting happened, thus the lack of posts.

Our daughter, Shimmy, and her family flew in from L.A. on the first of July. Sysguy stayed a week, but Shimmy and the Things stayed for 3 weeks. Mostly they stayed with Cricket at her place 'cause that's where all the kid stuff is... swimming pool, water slide, play set, and Crickets 3 kids! Thing 1 and Scooter got along famously, as did Thing 2 and Sweetie Pie. Cutie Pie just played with whoever would let her, which usually worked out OK.

We had a great visit with Shimmy - when she wasn't knitting. On her last weekend here, my sisters from UPstate visited as did Shimmy's old flame from her single days. Now he's been coming to see us about every summer. This is the first time their visits have coincided - he's from out of state - way out of state. He brought us some smoked, canned King salmon which he personally caught. They had a nice reunion, and spent a lot of time catching up an each other's lives. Shimmy was happy to have seen him. My sisters seemed to enjoy their visit and spent a lot of time with our grandchildren whom they don't see very often.

Now that everyone's gone, we can start working on our home projects!
We're getting tomatoes now, what a pleasure to taste real tomatoes again. The upside down beefsteaks aren't doing too well. Any fruit they've produced have suffered from serious blossom end rot. The Romas are producing a lot of fruit and starting to turn red. The grape and cherry varieties have been throwing red fruit for a week or so now. As usual, we have several volunteers from last year's plants, and they are also bearing good fruit.

Almost lost the potted flowers last week because I forgot to water before we went away for a couple days. They're still with us, but not looking as good as they did before.

Seems like ice cream making was the summer's big adventure. All 3 of our children expressed an interest in an ice cream maker attachment for their KitchenAid mixers. So that was the birthday gift of the year. We bought them each one and had it sent to their respective homes. We were also bitten by the ice cream bug and have made a few batches of it in different flavors; vanilla, chocolate malt, and English Toffee (Heath Bar bits). So far OK! The grand kids liked it well enough.

Flowers of Summer

Time to show off our summer flowers which are in full bloom now. We don't have to plant anything anymore, these are all perennials. We do plant a few pots of bright petunias to add some color while we wait for the lilies, purple cone flowers, and black-eyed susans. Enjoy! We do!



Purple Cone flowers Provide a meeting place for the Bumble Bees!
Later the dried seeds will give the birds a change of diet.



This stand of Moonbeam Coriopsis has been around a long time.



Asiatic Lillies make splashes of color.





Day Lillies add their color too.



A Black-eyed Susan vine and Clematis adorn the mail box.





And the Petunia pots are bursting!




The tomato and pepper plants are bearing fruit, but not quite ripe yet, but we did get a couple of ripe grape tomatos yesterday - mmmmm! Even the upside down tomatoes have fruit on them, but they don't look as healthy as the regular plants, which are also planted in pots.