Keeping Cool!

As you are no doubt aware, north Texas is in its "head in the oven on high heat" season we have every year. This year, it seems to have arrived a little earlier than most years. The weather forecast is the same each day - temps near 100 with no clouds to break the unrelenting sun bearing down on all who are unfortunate enough to be outdoors. Well, Monday our solar screens arrived! We ordered these screens for all the windows across the front of the house (the house faces west/southwest) as well as around the northwest corner of the house. Here some of the screens are laid out on the grass in preparation for installation.


The screens are simply placed over the exterior of the windows (at least, with the window types we have) and are attached with self-tapping sheet metal screws.

Purely for aesthetics sake, we even ordered screens for these three "windows" which have attic space behind them.

Two men did the job quickly. Our house was the 2nd on their list of installs this day. They had just come from another install of 42 screens on a home! Our job was a breeze compared to that!

Lone Star Solar Screens was the company we chose. We used them ~10 years ago on our previous home as well - and they held up very nicely the first time, so we are a repeat customer...

Here is the finished product. Notice the "grids" put on all the windows which can be seen from the street. They match up exactly where the grids are located on the windows they cover.

Looking at the northwest corner of the house. Behind the fence are two bathroom windows which we also had screened, as they catch the late afternoon sun.

It is hard to describe how much difference these screens make. It may not make a whale of a lot of difference in the A/C bill month to month, but it does make a VAST difference in the comfort of a room protected by these screens. If you have windows which take the brunt of the afternoon sun, we highly recommend them!

Tom

At The Pool

I met Hattie and Charlotte at our neighborhood pool yesterday for the first time since it opened for the summer. Charlotte seemed to like it fine so hope we have lots of fun times ahead!
~Nancy~

We've been a little busy!

I recently gained legal guardianship of my aunt. She had always lived at home until this past March when she was moved to a nursing home in west Texas. Two weeks after moving, the lady who cared for her unexpectedly passed away leaving my aunt in legal limbo. After a family meeting of her 5 nieces and her sister, it was determined Tom and I were in a good position to oversee her care. So, the legal process began. A lawyer was hired and he guided us through the process of obtaining legal guardianship. We decided to take a trip out to visit with her to see how she was doing and where she was living.

I must say, we found her to be in a very nice facility surrounded by very caring people. And, she was doing well, though quite forgetful of present day things. Now, past goings on? She remembered those things very well. We had taken our laptop with us and some of our time spent with her was looking at pictures from the 1950's and 60's that I had scanned in a few years ago. She knew everyone in all the pictures! Didn't miss a one.



A few days before our court date with the judge for the guardianship hearing, my aunt broke her leg about 3 inches below the hip joint. We don't know if she fell and the bone fractured, or if she fell because of the fracture but I guess that doesn't really matter. The end result was our receiving a phone call from a hospital in Lubbock, clearing our calendar, and traveling there to see about her. We got to the hospital just has she was getting to her room from recovery and ended up staying for nine days while she recovered from her fall and surgery to repair the leg.

We had decided that she should move to our area so we could better care for her so the natural transition to the new facility was upon discharge from the hospital. And she traveled in style!


Non-stop all the way!! We followed in our car. Good thing we had a full tank of fuel at the beginning of the trip. The low fuel light came on after we left the new facility and were driving the short distance to our house!

She has since settled into the new routine and is getting much needed physical therapy. You can see she no longer has her glasses. They were lost in the shuffle of ambulances when she was first transported to the local hospital and then on to the one in Lubbock when she broke her leg. New ones are on order but haven't arrived as of yet.

This past Monday morning we joined in with the singing devotional being conducted in the dining room. My aunt really did enjoy the singing. The songs we sang were some of the older songs and everyone knew them and enjoyed them. I think that was the first time I'd ever sung only one verse Just As I Am!

Taking over someone else's business has been a real education! And, I couldn't have done it alone. Thanks, Tom, for all your wonderful help in making phone calls and gathering all the needed information and organizing it in such a way that everything is at our fingertips!
~Nancy~

Happy, Happy Day

After our office computer died and we had the Marathon Comparison Shop Night (see May 20th post), Tom ordered a new computer to be delivered the following Tuesday. Monday morning found us scurrying around clearing our calendar, quickly packing and driving to Lubbock after finding out my 86 year old aunt had fallen and broken her hip. Thanks to a good friend who agreed to come wait for the computer delivery on Tuesday, the new machine was waiting for us upon our return 9 days later.

It wasn't until yesterday that Tom was able to begin the arduous task of setting up the new computer and moving all the backed up files over and getting things "just right". Yea for our back-up hard drive!

Our son and his family came over for supper last night and he helped Tom do some things with the computer. Of course, Little Bit wanted to help but since she is all fingers right now the doors to the office had to be closed. She would pat on the glass and say Da Da Da Da because she could see her daddy.

We have moved my aunt to a facility near where we live. It is both skilled nursing (which she needs now) and long term care so hopefully she won't have to move.
~Nancy~

Wait, Wait, Wait

Nancy and I have been in Lubbock, TX, this week staying with Aunt Sarah while she has been in the hospital. It is very apparent to me that the city of Lubbock has gone "cheap" when it comes to their traffic light system. We've had occasion to be at many different intersections controlled by traffic lights as we come and go from the hospital. NONE we have encountered seem to have any "smarts" built in to them regarding actual traffic demand. If you come up to a red light, you will sit there at that red as the system gives all the other traffic directions their FULL cycle - even when no other traffic is around!

I guess things just naturally move at a little "slower" pace around here compared to the Dallas area, so folks just don't seem to mind too much! Just seems a waste to idle so long at a red light when there isn't a need to do so - particularly when it costs nearly $4 a gallon…

Tom

Sad, Sad Day

The office computer died today. A moment of silence, please........
It was a good machine and lived to a ripe old age of eight years old. Wonder what the equivalent is in human years? Probably 102.

We went looking for a replacement this evening and it didn't take long for us (me) to get overwhelmed trying to comparison shop. Thankfully, it was time for all the stores to close forcing us to go home. Tom is now on the laptop comparing the machines he looked at in the stores. (I'm on his iPad)
~Nancy~

Where Has The Time Gone???

It has been one year and 19 days since we moved into this house. Whew! Trying to find a place for everything and deciding what to keep and what to discard has not been easy... mainly because it is hard to decide what to discard. I'm not exactly a packrat, but I do tend to keep things. Now, it's all getting muddled in my head. I'll think of something and I know where it was in the old house and where it MIGHT be in this house IF I HAVEN'T GOTTEN RID OF IT!
~Nancy~

Perfect Pancakes!

We were out of town last week and this was what we found when we went down for our breakfast at the motel. It is an automatic pancake maker! I loved it! At the push of a button you are rewarded with two pancakes that come out Just Right. The picture on the side of the machine shows you the sequence of development and the little window below the picture shows you exactly how close your two pancakes are to being rolled out the end. One of our sons had mentioned the pancake machine to us but this was the first time we'd seen one. I give it Two Thumbs Up!
~Nancy~

Playing Ball With Poppy

Diversions...

We have four gutter downspouts in the front of our house that "dump" directly into the front flower bed. Even with splash troughs placed beneath where the downspouts end, during heavy rains the water flow would result in a lot of washout in the bed. So, I opted to run some drain pipe underneath the bed itself and have the downspouts feed directly into the pipe. The first order of business was to remove the one curved piece of downspout at the bottom and then dig a trench in which the 4" drain pipe would run out just past the flowerbed into the grass area where a "pop-up" drain would be located at the end of the pipe. Where the pop-up was, I used a post hole digger to cut a deeper spot which would be filled with gravel...

Here is the completed trench, with the downspout adapter in place, ready for the length of drain pipe with pop-up adapter to be put in place. Note the cut-out area just into the lawn grass - which is where the pop-up drain will be.

Here is one downspout diversion completed, and I was smoothing out the dirt back over where the pipe had been run.

A little closer shot of the pop-up adapter at the end of the pipe. As water travels down the pipe during rain, the center section of the green pop-up will be forced up and the water will flow directly into the grass.

Of course, when you've turned the "big 6-0" as I have, you have to pace yourself when doing manual labor!

Here is how the pop-up area looks before putting down the pipe and pop-up adapter. The pop-up device sits in a 90 degree elbow. The bottom of that elbow has a slit opening (approximately 1/4" wide by 1" long) so that when the rain stops, the last bit of water in the pipe itself is allowed to drain out the bottom. With a 4" or so deep hole below this elbow, filled with gravel, that water should be allowed to drain without the dirt/mud clogging it up. At least, that's the theory!

Here's the same hole, with the elbow and pop-up in place where it will reside at the end of the drain pipe.

Making a measurement to cut the drain pipe itself...

Measuring and then cutting the pipe to the desired length...

Assembling the pieces (just dry fit, no glue needed) and dropping them all into their places comes next.

Here's what happens when you get a little too "horsey" with your post hole digger, and there happens to be a sprinkler system pipe and hose right where you are digging! This, of course, was unexpected, and required a "time out" from the job at hand to run get 4 elbow fittings, primer, and PVC glue to fix my boo-boo! This is not the first time I've done this...

Here's the fix all in place, and I hand dug the hole underneath where the broken irrigation pipe was located - so that I could put a liberal pile of gravel underneath the pop-up adapter.

The job (as most jobs seem to these days) took more effort than I had expected, but I did get it all done. Now, maybe it will actually rain again and I can confirm that it works as expected!

Cheers, Tom

The Toy Closet

We have a toy closet. It takes up two-thirds of the closet in the front bedroom. Many of the toys are ones I kept that belonged to our sons when they were growing up. Other toys we've added along the way for our older grandchildren. I think there is plenty to keep all ages busy.

This morning I introduced our youngest grandbaby to The Toy Closet. She is ALMOST walking but manages to get anywhere she wants to go by crawling very skillfully and confidently. Until this morning we've always kept all the doors to the bedrooms and bathrooms closed when she was visiting so she could crawl all over and stay out of harm's way. This morning I left the door to the front bedroom open and let her follow me down the hall and into the room with The Toy Closet. It was fun watching her explore. Before she comes again, I need to rearrange the closet some and move all the toys that are appropriate for her down on her level so she can help herself.

See the brown bear by her right foot. My Aunt Sarah gave that to us several years ago. When you squeeze his paws, feet, and ears, he quotes a Bible verse. Of course, Little Bit didn't know what the bear was saying, but she thought it was funny to have it "talking" to her!
~Nancy~

Friendship

My dad had a great group of friends when he attended Abilene Christian College and they have always continued to keep in touch through the years. They have rejoiced with each other during happy times and also grieved during sad times. This past February 18th, the ones who could make the trip traveled to Fort Worth for a day of visiting.

Lunch at El Fenix is always a good choice!

Looking through yearbooks and old letters.

It had been two years since they were all together and had a great afternoon catching up with each other.

After dessert, Dad got out his fiddle and played a few tunes.

Then Marcene and I joined him for a few verses of "Beautiful Texas".

Chauffeurs for the day! (the daughters)

It was a fun day and ended with everyone hoping to be back next year...

All Aboard!

As mentioned in the preceding post, Mom came up for a visit and spent a week with us. During that time she got to see the newest great grandbaby Teagan, and to see in person how much great grandbaby Charlotte has grown since Christmas. On Friday, 2/25, I drove Mom home to New Braunfels (in her car). In exploring my options for a solo return to Dallas, I checked out the Amtrak train service. There was one train headed back to Dallas (on its way to Chicago!) the following day, Saturday. My sister Louise had previously ridden the Amtrak from Fort Worth to New Braunfels (actually, the nearest "stop" was in San Marcos, very close by) after seeing her daughter Heather through the first week or so of motherhood with Teagan, so that she could visit with our mom.

Given I had plenty of time on Saturday, I opted to make my trip home on the Amtrak's "Texas Eagle". The price was definitely right at $29, which was but pittance compared to bus or airline fare. The drawback, of course, was the time it takes compared to driving one's self or flying. The tracks aren't good enough in most places to allow for faster speeds, so the journey is not the quickest. But, the amenities are nice with very large seats with multiple position settings and feet rests, etc. Each pair of seats had access to power plugs, so many on the train plugged in laptops or other electronic devices to watch movies or whatnot. I overheard one person ask if WiFi access to the internet was available, and the answer was "not yet." So, perhaps that will be an available feature in the near future. Personally, I plugged in my iPhone and watched our progress across the state of Texas using Google Maps and GPS, all the while listening to music from my digital library. The stops made on my segment included: San Marcos, Austin, Taylor, Temple, McGregor, Cleburne, Fort Worth, and finally Dallas.


Here are my brother-in-law, and my brother and sister-in-law seeing me off at the San Marcos station. The train arrived 7 minutes late, at 8:37.

Here is a shot out the window as we crossed Austin's Town Lake. The crossing is just west of where I35 crosses the lake. The Austin train station was just across the lake.

During the stop in Temple, I decided to grab me something to eat from the dining car. Choices for lunch included various sandwich flavors, burgers, pizza, and other items which were "microwave friendly." I don't know if the dinner menu offered actual "prepared" food or not, but for lunch, it was all pre-made. The cheeseburger I opted for was not bad, though not as good as a freshly prepared hamburger...

The train depot in Cleburne...

The Fort Worth skyline...

Travel between Fort Worth and Dallas paralleled I30 to the south. Here is a shot of the Dallas Cowboy's Stadium, between I30 and the train tracks...

As we were about to cross the Trinity River in Dallas, I got a good view of the giant "Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge" being constructed. This giant arch will have all the support suspension cables strung out each direction to support the road bed. (your government tax - and a lot of private - dollars at work...)

After crossing the Trinity, we turned to the south and came across the railroad bridge overlooking Dealy Plaza to the east. The curved road in the left of the picture is where Kennedy's car was located when he was shot...

The Amtrak train pulled into Union Station shortly after passing Dealy Plaza. I hopped off the Amtrak train, then crossed two sets of tracks and waited about 10 minutes for a Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail train to come along. This DART train then carried me to southern Plano to the stop at Hwy 75 and Bush Turnpike - some 6 or so miles from home. Nancy was waiting for me at that station and we toodled on home from there!

The ride was relaxing, and I spent most all my time looking at the countryside out the window and following along with where we were on my phone's GPS. The Amtrak train leg of the trip took about 6 3/4 hours, but the time passed pretty quickly - and I got to enjoy an experience I had never had in my long years on this earth!

Cheers,

Tom

Visiting

We enjoyed having Tom's mom in town last week. We were busy everyday in order to get all our visits in! Tom's sister had driven their mom up on a Friday then flew on home to Colorado the next day. She had been in Texas to celebrate the birth of her granddaughter by helping out the new mom for a few weeks. And, this was the main reason Tom's mom came to visit - meeting her newest Great-granddaughter!

Isn't she a doll? Just look at all that dark hair! Her name is Teagan. I'd never heard of that name before but within the first week of her birth I heard it twice! Where have I been?

We drove over to their house after Sunday lunch and spent the afternoon. Such a good visit! She was very co-operative and dozed off and on and let her great-grandmother cuddle with her for a very long time.

Of course, I had to take my turn... and count all her toes and fingers and tell her what a special little girl she is.
Thanks for having us! We enjoyed meeting your little girl (and visiting with you,too!!)!

Monday evening our son Mark, daughter-in-law Hattie, and their daughter Charlotte came for a venison supper and a few hours of visiting. We'd had Sunday lunch with them before heading over to meet Teagan, but it was at a restaurant and way too quick.

Tuesday we met Tom's cousin, Nancy, for lunch in historic downtown McKinney. Visiting with Nancy is always fun and after lunch we looked over her booths at an antique mall off the square. She and her husband are also in the process of renovating a house in the McKinney historical district that was built in the early 1900's. We drove by for a look see, but only from the car. We didn't get out since the workmen were working on leveling the foundation and we wouldn't have been able to enter the house. Can't wait to see how it turns out. Unfortunately, we didn't think to take any pictures while with Nancy.

Wednesday is Kindermusik day with our granddaughter. Charlotte enjoyed having her great-grandmother come and observe her class!On Thursday, Tom's cousin Dorothy came for an afternoon of visiting and catching up on all the family members. It's always a pleasure to spend time with Dorothy and hear all about her kids and grandkids.

Friday, Tom drove his mom home but detoured in the Georgetown area to have a leisurely lunch with cousin Glenn and his wife Elaine. Glenn always likes to tell us he is Tom's oldest living cousin!

We were so pleased Tom's mom felt like making the trip! What a blessing!
~Nancy~

An Help Meet

God said in Genesis 2:18 - "I will make him an help meet for him" (KJV - the version spoken by Jesus) and so he created woman...

Some jobs just need "an help meet." Two or three weeks ago, Nancy and her sister Marcene went over to Fort Worth to visit with their dad while he entertained several friends of his from his days at Abilene Christian College. They seemed to all have a good time visiting and talking about the college days, and Nancy and Marcene enjoyed listening to it all. Well, when Nancy and Marcene proceeded to return home here to Murphy, they quickly realized that the air conditioner in our Tahoe was not working right - nothing but hot air was coming out of the vents.

Of course, I was given the wonderful news right away that Friday. But, I had other things more pressing that next day, Saturday (what they were, I can't even remember right now...), so come Sunday morning I hadn't yet done any investigating. Fortunately, the weather had turned cloudy and so a bit cooler, so we didn't "miss" the air conditioning that much going to church.

As we got ready to return home following services and Bible class, I spotted something hanging down under the engine compartment of the Tahoe parked there in the church parking lot. A quick kneel down inspection confirmed my suspicions that the belt which drives the air conditioning compressor had broken, and a remnant was all that was left hanging down.

Early Monday morning I got out and put the Tahoe front end on blocks to climb underneath and inspect things more closely. After sizing up the situation, I decided replacing the belt was a job I should be able to tackle without too much grief. So, off to the auto parts store I went for a replacement belt ($13.99). On the Tahoe, the A/C compressor has its own little belt, separate and apart from the long "serpantine" belt which drives all the other components on the engine (power steering pump, alternator, water pump, etc.). Both the long belt and the A/C belt loop around pulleys and idler/tensioner wheels to keep them on track, with good tension so that they stay in their grooves and do their thing. To remove these belts, you just get a wrench on the idler/tensioner wheel and pull against its spring far enough that the belt comes loose enough to remove it from around the various pulleys.

Well, the idler/tensioner wheel for the short A/C compressor belt proved to be in a very tight spot, and the length of its spring-loaded "arm" was very short. Those things combined made it difficult to pull it back against its spring to enable the new belt enough slack to place it through its pulleys. I tried various things before finally coming on a solution that worked - I needed to get "an help meet" involved...

I called out my very capable help meet (Nancy!) to the garage and had her push down on the A/C compressor idler/tensioner arm from the topside of the engine compartment using a 3' long crow bar. With her holding it down as far as it could be pushed down, I crawled underneath and fastened some strong plastic cable ties from over the idler/tensioner arm down and around the steering tie-rod below and then cinched it up to hold it in place. Once done, Nancy could then extract her crow bar and I could easily thread the new belt around the pulleys by hand. Once the belt was in place, I simply had to cut the plastic cable ties and the idler/tensioner wheel sprung up against the belt and securely kept things in place.

Nothing to it - as long as you have a very capable help meet like I have. She has learned a lot of "handy man" things in the past 37+ years. I'm glad I have her!

Tom

Sharing The Love

We have a friend in our Sunday class who works at a retirement village in our area. The building she works in is where the residents actually purchase their apartments. These folks are active retirees, with means, who no longer want the upkeep of a house and all the responsibility that goes along with that upkeep. It seems like a nice place to live!

They have an activities director and are always doing something to promote the social atmosphere of their building. An easy activity for February, of course, was a Valentine's Day get together. Our friend asked our Sunday class to sign individual Valentine cards to all the residents, which we did. We also had all the ladies at the Ladies Class luncheon sign cards so all the residents received two cards.

When we were deciding on decorations for our Ladies Bible class luncheon a few weeks ago, one of the hostesses suggested offering the decorations to our friend to decorate the dining area for their Valentine's Day get together. I stored all the balloon center pieces at our house this past week and yesterday several of the luncheon hostesses and myself along with a couple of others from our Sunday class met at the retirement village and decorated the dining area. We also helped serve the refreshments and distributed the Valentine cards and visited with the residents. It turned out to be a very enjoyable afternoon!

I can't believe the balloons have stayed inflated for over two weeks!

~Nancy~