Jan 9th Favorite Christmas Present

Lydia gave us a calendar for Christmas. It is our favorite present. (I'm sure she had a little help from her Mom.)

Cover


Each month was a picture and a monthly calendar.

Jan



Feb


Mar


Apr


May


June


July


Aug


Sept


Oct


Nov


Dec

December

I haven't posted for a long time. Below are some December photos.

Grammy & Lydia relaxing in the hot tub. Been a warm December.


Interesting mural on a retaining wall at a Jefferson City gas station. The mural is makes it appear that there is a bridge and that you look down the highway. It shows what you would see, the capital building, if you could see through the retaining wall.


There used to be a bearing wall, supporting the upstairs and part of the roof, from the new post over to the corner by Doug, 15' long. We took it out and put in a new beam, and the post. The new beam is also supports an existing 12' beam that used to span between the dining room and living room. There will be no walls between the dining room, living room & kitchen when complete. There will be a large island. Kitchen is completely gutted.

 Christmas Dinner.


Lydia working with handicraft stuff she got for Christmas.


Saturday morning after breakfast. Trying out a new game. You put whipped cream on the paddle, spin a needle to see how many tries you have to see if the paddle pops up and splashes you with whipped cream.
 

 She finally got a some whipped cream on her face. Everyone but "stick in the mud" Gpa Bert gave it a try.
 

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas.

Sept 30th - Been A While

God is good!

It has been a long time since I've posted. I thought it was time to post a few photos and provide a few thoughts/comments/updates.

Kathy is doing great after her surgery. Hallelujah! We go to St. Louis Friday for a follow up with the surgeon and to get her staples removed.

Weather has been nice here, but DRY. I think it has been 3 weeks since I've mowed the lawn, not that I complaining about that.

I thought all the fish in our pond had died because the duck week had cut reduced the oxygen levels. All the big fish are dead but we do have small ones. I haven't noticed any catfish so far, which is fine with me. I wonder if the other ones were eggs that survived the time when the oxygen levels were so low. I still need to get another grass carp, but that can wait until spring.

I've been working for ARSEE/T&L some while here at home, 5-10 hours per week. I still enjoy it so I'll keep it up until ARSEE's work load gets back to normal, or until I get tired of it.

I've advertised the motorhome and CR-V on a couple of web sites. A lady may come from the Dallas, TX area to look at it this weekend. I've probably spent 4 hours, either on the phone or emailing her, to discuss the sale.

The photos aren't in any order.

Watching the construction from Kathy's room was interesting. They have 3 tower cranes working and are working 24 hours a day. When I took this photo there was a guy hanging out over the side of the building welding on a column and another, one up on the floor above him, doing something with a BIG torch.

Hot tub fun.

This was the view outside from my motel room window in St. Louis. This is not a parking lot, it is a traffic jamb on one of the main Interstates feeding into St. Louis. The morning we drove to St. Louis it took us less time to get the first 60 miles than it did the last 15. Makes me want to kiss the rural ground of central MO, but I'd much rather kiss the ground of rural TN <grin>. (Actually that isn't so. I wouldn't trade time with Kelsey and Lydia for anything.)

Picking cucumbers with Grammy. We have NEVER had cucumbers produce before. We might get a couple and then the vine would die. This year Kathy has given me 2 bags to give away at church, and she has given away more to others.

Sun bathing after "swimming" in the hot tub. Notice the ice cream cone. Its a rough life.

Last Saturday the girls made tomato juice. I helped by cranking the Squeezo.

 Hospital visitors

 Fixing/eating a waffle on tomato juice day.

May God bless you and yours. He certainly has blessed me.

Sept 7th - In Indy

Made it to Fishers, IN today with no problems. Traffic was much lighter than I expected, but I arrived here around 6:30 PM. It probably got a lot heavier later in the evening.

I will be working at ARSEE this week and head back to MO Saturday morning.

Several years ago I purchased a used tandem axle trailer in TN, to move the Kubota I bought in TN to MO. It had never been titled or plated. In TN you don't have to put plates on a trailer that you only pull in the state. (TN is such a grand state) In order to put a MO plate on it (so that I would have the privilege of paying MO personal property tax on it) I needed to have someone from the county Sheriffs office come out, inspect it, fill out the paper work to get a VIN #, etc. The trailer was to big to use for carrying firewood up to the house at our HILLY, WOODED 4 acres in MO.

I ordered a new 5'6"x10' single axle trailer last week. It is big enough to carry my Kubota and small enough to use to bring wood I cut back to the house. Yesterday afternoon I listed the tandem axle trailer on craigslist. By 8 this morning a guy came from 50 miles away, paid me $100 more than I had paid for it, and hauled it away. PTL!

Lydia went off to the park with Doug & Anthony this morning. She loves it when her Indy Gpa's come to visit. They will head back to Indy tomorrow (Tuesday) morning.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Sept 4th - Nothing Exciting

We came back to MO last Saturday. Its a pretty boring 600 mile drive. Sure wished it was closer.

Nothing exciting going on here. Lydia stayed with us 2 days and was just a peach. Kelsey, Kathy & Lydia went out to lunch yesterday and Lydia was NOT a peach.

Kelsey had a Doctor's appointment today and all is well.

Doug & Anthony are coming Saturday evening and going back to Indy Tuesday morning. Lydia will be happy to see her Indy Grandpas.

I'm going to Indy (actually Fishers, IN, just northeast of Indy) on Monday, so that I can work in ARSEE's office, or go to the Tate & Lyle Lafayette plants as needed Tuesday-Friday. I will drive back to MO on Saturday. I'm still enjoying the work, and the money is nice.

God is good. May He richly bless you and yours.

Aut 27th - Early Morning Update from TN

All is well in TN, well almost all, Kathy's Dad is not doing so good.

Last Saturday's trip here was relatively uneventful. The only issue was a traffic jam in Lebanon, TN. We like it when our travels to or from here allow a stop to eat at Demo's, a restaurant in Lebanon, TN. Saturday afternoon, as we exited the I40 in Lebanon we noticed that eastbound traffic was backed up. We were able to get off OK and had another great meal at Demo's. When we drove back to the exit to get back on I40 eastbound traffic was "parked" as far as we could see. Being seasoned travelers <grin> we weren't concerned, we decided to take route 70 to Crossville as an alternative. We headed for route 70 and learned that hundreds, maybe thousands, of others had made the same decision. When we were still miles from even getting on 70, traffic came to a standstill; we didn't mover a mile in 20 minutes. Kathy checked the travel/map app on her phone and it appeared that traffic was again moving on I40. We made a U-turn and made our way back to the Interstate. It had begun moving slowly and within about 10 minutes we were back up to normal speed. We never learned the cause of the backup.

I drove over to Lenoir City, TN Sunday afternoon and stayed in a motel Sunday & Monday nights. I stayed at one of the motels I used to stay at 25 years ago when I came down to work at the Loudon, TN plant. The eastern part of TN is on Eastern time. The central part, including Crossville, is on Central time, same as we are in MO. I had to be at the plant at 7AM Eastern time Monday morning and would have had to leave our place in Crossville no later than 4:30AM Central time to make the 90 minute drive to Loudon. I chose to stay in Lenoir City, a 15 minute drive from the plant, instead. My two days at the plant went well and I was back in Crossville late Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday evening I did cleaned up my notes, marked up some photos I took and then scanned them and transmitted them to ARSEE's server. The people in the office will put together a report for Tate & Lyle. I still have some work (8-12 hours?) to do on one of the Lafayette plant projects and then I will be finished with what I have been asked to do. I have enjoyed doing it and would probably do some more when they get overloaded again.

Wednesday I ran 3 tanks of gas through my weed eater/brush cutter. It was some good exercise and I was tired last night. I went to bed around 8PM, which is why I am up now at 3:30AM <grin>. No doubt a nap will be in order this afternoon, or maybe even around mid-morning. I feel pretty good this morning. I thought I might be stiff and sore, but not to much.

The weather is BEAUTIFUL. We have the windows open all day but have to close them in the evening because it gets to cool. When I was out weed eating I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and was not overly warm. I'm sure not used to wearing a long sleeve shirt while working in late August.

I will probably do some more brush clearing today. Maybe a combination of some light chain saw work and heavy duty weed eating. I can cut down 2" trees with my weed eater/brush cutter (when I have the saw blade installed) but some of the trees where I am clearing are a little bigger than that. I've been cutting them anyway, but a chain saw would be a better tool for cutting the larger ones.

God is so good to me. May He bless you and yours as richly as He has blessed me.

August 19th - Motorhome Back in Our Driveway - Finally

Yesterday I got a call from Camping World saying the repairs on our motorhome were done. We took it up there May 1st. 3 1/2 months!

I will give them credit for one thing. I initially asked them for a price to take off the Diamond Shield (plastic film on front for protection from rock chips) because there was mold growing between the film and the paint. When they told us it was done a couple of weeks ago the Diamond Shield had not been removed. The Service Tech said that they had not included the removal in the estimate. After seeing copies of the emails I had taken with me the Service Manager agreed to "eat" the cost of the removal. They said it took almost 50 manhours of labor and $80 worth of material to get it off. The Service Manager asked me if I was curious about what it would have cost if I had to pay for it, I was...a little over $5,000. They got over $8,000 from me and my insurance company for the work they did, without being paid to remove the Diamond Shield. I don't know if it really took that much time but before taking it up to them another place estimated the cost of removal, if I remember correctly, at $2,700.

I still need to buy & install 4 new 6v golf cart batteries for the "coach" 12v power. I bought the existing batteries in 2010 so we got good use out of them. Camping World wanted $127/battery plus installation. Rural King's web site says they have them for $70. On our way back and forth to TN we drive close to a couple Rural Kings so I need to stop and pick 4 up.

Lydia came for the day yesterday. She & Kathy  made a "house" out of a large box that we had. She helped me work a little but I don't do much work when she is here.

We do still have fish in our pond. I was certain they had all died but Kathy kept saying there were still some alive. Lydia and I threw some fish food on the water yesterday. In a few minutes we saw some small fish eating some of it. I couldn't see them very well. I'm hoping all the catfish died. I don't think the ones I saw were catfish. They didn't eat like the catfish that used to be in the pond.

We got a HARD rain last night. One of the guys at this mornings men's Bible study breakfast said he got 2.5". It misted some a little while ago and I wouldn't be surprised if we get a little more before morning. We need it.

I'm supposed to be at the Tate & Lyle plant in Loudon, TN at 7AM next Monday, for safety training, which takes 3 hours. I'm supposed to be at the plant Monday and Tuesday. The plant is about a 90 minute drive from our place in Crossville. I think I'm going to drop Kathy off at our place Sunday afternoon/evening and then drive over and stay a couple of nights at a motel near the plant. Loudon is Eastern time and we are Central. I would have to leave our place no later than 4:30AM, our time, to get there on time.

I worked 28 hours per week the past 2 weeks, but won't work that many this week, maybe only 16.  I will need to write a report based on what I see at Loudon but then that might get ARSEE to the point where they won't need any more help. I've had a good time going back to work, but I won't be real sad if it is over.

God is good! May He bless you and yours, He sure has blessed me.