Visitor!

My sis came to visit today on her way north to visit Elkton and points north to Seattle.  She brought family treasures for which I shall be the treasure master.

Grandma Latimer hand pieced this flower basket quilt for Mom when she was born.  Mom was born in 1926 so that makes the quilt  86 years old.  Grandma Horn kept the quilt in a chest for years and Mom did the same until she decided she was going to finish the quilt.  She set the turkey red dye in a vinegar rinse, she backed it with cotton and cotton batt filling. I remember she hand quilted the thing using very thick white thread.  I am not certain but she might have done this in the 1980's, just not sure. It has held up well over the years, has never been used and I have on hand an archival box and archival papers to store the quilt in.  I am thrilled to hold this lovely family treasure in trust.  I wonder if I should get it evaluated.  May on Antiques Road Show...nahhh.

Oh the school book bench is part of the treasure trove, Mom and Dad had it for years sitting in the living room. It held plants for the longest time.  Since I have so many books.......

I was also gifted with books and some china. 

Thanks Carlah Dee Dah.....
 

Senior Ciizen Goals

 

 

I have been contemplating the vagaries of aging.  One thing my parents always discussed about their aging and/or dying friends was the comment "He was just a bright as a penny right up to the last minute!"  or something to that effect.  Being clear headed was a valued attribute.  Now a days I find myself wondering if I should start making lists for myself; name, address, phone number. We don't have any history of Alzheimer's in my family so that may not become a problem. However I have noticed an increasing disconnect with the media, for instance,  last night I was watching one of those fashion shows who dish the dresses at the Emmy's.  I

recognized only two people on the panel; one man was on Project Runway and one of the women was a winner of Shear Genius, the other two ladies, no clue.

 

The show covered the gowns, jewelery,hair and make up of many of televisions Emmy nominees.  Guess what?  No idea.  If there were any stars from HGTV, Cooking channel and the odd reality TV show I would have been all over it. 

 

I have been noticing that the only celebrities I recognize at the check out stand by way the magazines are nearly dead ones!

I have NO idea who cheated on who.  Nuthin'.

 

Therefore I would like to Propose that there be a special setting on the cable box for Enhanced Subtitles.  These enhanced subtitles will list the famous persons name, the things they are famous for and to whom they are related.  I would find this highly informative if I ever want to be able to participate in a conversation requiring awareness regarding celebrities.   OR someone could combine THE HISTORY CHANNEL with any Celebrity New Show with enhanced subtitles. 

 

Or I could just stick to reading my very sparkly e-reader.  You know someone in telecommunications needs to figure out how to send out emergency notifications over the G4 networks or what ever number we are up to. Oh, wait!  We have Twiddle, no Twitter.

 



I hab a code in by dose......'choo!

Spent most of the day consuming OJ and tissues.   The usual.  I like to blame the virus of the world. O goodie an immune challenge.
I shall snivel now.

LAST DAY OF BIG DIG.

Done!  New concrete curing, dirt placed back on lawn, hope it kills all of the non-grass species.  Please no more broken ANY thing.

Our neighbor has new shingles on his roof and a new rain gutter over the porch.  Very nice. I must contemplate a new name, perhaps using the Acronym GOW.  C'mon lets here some suggestions. 

DAY TWO big dig

More digging,  everything seems to be hooked up.  Everything flushing nicely.

Putting the dirt back where he found it.

Buttoned up for the day, most holes filled, tomorrow, cement the sidewalk and fix the road.  I pray earnestly that nothing breaks for at least ten years.  Thank you.

Day one of The Big Dig

Husband warned me that I might want to park in back when I came home today.

The plumbers/diggers came today to excavate a deepish hole to locate water and sewer hookup.  That is some nice looking dirt, not a rock to be had.  Since half the lawn is dug up and the other half is buried under some fine dirt, we may consider a little sprinkle of grass seed.

 

Had to go to court today

I had to appear in court today as a witness.   We had dutifully sent off copies of records to the lawyers and all however they released all of the physicians from the case so they were forced to drag in custodians of the records to swear they were the real deal.

Raise yer  right hand....

Do you so swear?

Yes, sir.

Be seated.

Lawyer introduced me, presented the copies of the medical records and asked me if they were the records of name, date of birth etc.

Yes.

Please examine them.

I fluffled through them and commented that I saw records from another hospital mixed in with the Coquille records.

Then an argument developed between the three lawyers and the judge.

Consensus reached, the Court will accept the records from CVH with the records from SCH redacted.

That means they took out the wrong hospitals copies and gave them to the court.

You may be excused. 

Thank you!  (Big cheesy smile)

Um, hospitals do not ordinarily release OTHER Hospitals medical records because they are the property of the other hospital y'see.
Learnt that in HIM101.  Yeppers.

FIRST ANNUAL BLOCK PARTY

Today was the First Annual Block Party.   Which implies there will be one next year. Yeah!  Invite brother from Elkton to pick and grin.   Lets have T-shirts!  Lets have silly contests. Lets do Iron Chef Coquille.  Lets invite all of our friends.  The weather was perfect.   The pickled green tomatoes went over well.  People really liked the crab potato salad.

Didn't have to drag much home.   About 20 to 25 people showed up.  The local constabulary dropped off some traffic cones and yellow barrier tape. 

We met lots of neighbors and chatted, it was nice.  

Look back up at the first picture, the "Grapes of Wrath" house is the red one on the right, chatted with the owner.  Asked him what led him to purchase that property.  He said had been looking for a fixer upper and was attracted by the lot thinking of demolishing the house and putting in a modular home.  The more he looked at it, the more he saw worth saving. They have shingles going up on the roof and it is vastly improved.

Oh and we met Miss Chicken. She is very social, loves hot dog buns and vodka tonic. She even took a little nap by my chair but left when the kids began playing on the water slide and playing hop scotch in the street.

 

Interesting week, crab, halibut and all

Well,well, well!  Look it's Mom's old Sears Catalog oak table that Dad purchased at an auction in the 70's and which she refinished using Homer Formby's refinishing products.  She put new seat covers on the chairs and had Clair Harden  carve a new crossbar foot piece.  The table and chairs have served well as nearly to ceiling vertical filing space for various empty boxes, food stuff and other items. The rebuild of the store room has allowed for most of those goods to be stored in there.  Hazzah!  Played lots of Pinochle and Scrabble games at that table. 

I had commented to my neighbor across the street that with all the neighborly sprucing up we should probably have a block party. It went from there, if you are in the neighborhood, drop in noon to five tomorrow, there will be burgers, bring a side.

I am making three kinds of potato salad; crab, halibut and plain.
We had an HIM student from Bend here this week for directed practice. Her whole family came with, rented a beach house in Coos Bay, she came to work every day and her family took the boat and brought back large amounts of fresh crab and a halibut. She brought in a dozen or so cooked crab, we cried thank you! and I brought home two and I picked out the meat. The halibut was cooked also and I will break up the steaks into one of the other salads.  Should be good weather.  I will take pictures of the "Grapes of Wrath" house. The owner has had a crew putting on a new roof. 
Will report later tomorrow.

I must live in intersting times.

Finally have the last bit shoehorned into the storage wall.   The book case that husband purchased fit perfectly in the corner. We did some re-arranging to make things fit in, have most of the dining room cleaned out.  Will take a picture of that event.   Ooh look an empty spot!!

We have HOT water, the family plumber came by and installed a made-in-America hot water heater and is energy efficient! 

Also had a short term crisis, the heat pump was not pumping heat this morning until husband took a closer look at the electric panel and flipped a circuit.  Heat!!  Warm those toes right up.
 

Got the storage units banged together

That was interesting, fills the space nicely,can now drag more goods up from the basement.  Yay!  And yes I washed my clothes in cold water this morning...at least I have water with which to wash. 

oh dear ....

Sigh.....got up yesterday, washed face.   Hmmmmm not very hot water.   As water progressively cooled, decided we must need a new hot water heater.  So I researched the tank less electric water heaters.   Wow, can start at 288 all the way up to 888 at Home Despot.  So called the family plumber to get his opinion.  He had replaced our old one about ten years ago.   He said he could do it but would require two 40 amp lines, which would require an electrician for the electric and cost about 500 bucks in labor.  I have had enough trades in the house this year so I asked him to squeeze us in. He said maybe Friday, probably Saturday. Going retro. Hah!

Ah me which brings us to a financial decision.  Do we go ahead with the refi or not?  The refi was only for an extra 20k 30 year fixed at 3.5%.  AND including the points, taxes and insurance only drops the house payment to a hair under 700 a month.  

 Have spent over 20K not including sewer project AND hot water heater.  Casual chit chat between husband, appraiser and contractor are throwing around figures for between 5k to 30 k for replacement windows etc.  Also need to have termite treatment which we have not yet scheduled. I am praying that the bill for fixed sewer problem will be under 5K or we will be living on a very skinny string.  The bank is going to offer to put X amount of dollars in escrow to pay the contractor when the job is finished.
I can only see that the loan balance will balloon well beyond what we agreed to in the first place. So at this point we are thinking that we will decline the refi and fix what we can.  After all we still need the loan interest for a tax deduction. Wish the repairs were deductible but I am thinking that Turbo Tax doesn't offer this amount the choices.  And we can always buy a yurt and put it in the backyard.

Sewer and Storage

Brand new state of the art plastic sewer pipes installed today. The plumber hauled off the old cast iron which had a lovely green patina.  He sent a camera out through the outside pipe, it dips, it sways, has been visited by roots of some sort of hardy vegetation, would not surprise me to find out the roots are closely related to blackberries. Ah well, that is for another day.  Now expecting heart palpitations over the bill.  Yikes.

I ordered three of these storage units, each shelf holds one hundred pounds. While digging out a small part of the dining room vertical storage I located several extra jars of ...... green. tomato. pickles.
I made them last year.  I think.  Note to self, start inventory system.

Okay I can hold a little longer now.  These shelves will do nicely.

Dang one side looks a little wonky.  Why I oughta POUND you...

I now pronounce you pickles...

Done!  Today got off work about 3 pm.  Put pickles in two batches (wouldn't fit one pot) heated slowly and cooked them for 35 minutes.   I got 13 pints of pickles, 2 pints of pickle juice and a spare bottle filled right up.  Got everything cleaned and am now relaxing to the gentle ping of sealing lids.  Plan to make burgers Tuesday and yummy!  I can now relax,  I have my fix of pickles for a couple of years. 

Back of the house now patched and painted.    Jerry will be back Tuesday, he has 4 hours or so of finish the project stuff.  Yay!

Blinding,get out your shades.

After warning the neighbors and tarping one pickup, the guys sprayed the front of the house. If you will notice the ugly red door has been painted to match the house.  They will attempt to get the back done today but if the wind comes up they will have to stop spraying.  They will go home this evening and come back this coming Thursday to finish off the bits and pieces.  Thanks Jerry, John and Donald of Honey Do Contracting.

Sandwiches today are Italian Meatball subs and tuna salad croissant.