Category Archives: home improvements

Health, home improvements, letters

Change Of Plans

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So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full). Edit: The letters originally in this box are all transcribed. Many more are added and I’m just starting on those.

When I made my blog post on Friday, I had intended on the post for Monday to be the next in my series on racism, moving on from how to combat racist acts to how to end racism. But that’s not happening due to a change in plans.

You see, on Friday, while working in the storeroom, moving a smallish box of books, I caught my leg on a trunk on the floor and took a tumble forward. I dropped the box of books as I was going down to free up my hands to brace against the fall. I did this on another box of books that was on the floor in front of me.

A fall is never good, but I was glad this was a minor one. It’s the first one in the house, my several others having been outside. I tried to scoot a stick out of the road while walking and went down. I slipped on leaves in the woods and went down. I slipped on a slick driveway and went down. I slipped on an icy driveway at that neighbors and went down hard. That was in February 2018, and I haven’t fully healed from that. Otherwise, the falls outside didn’t do much damage. An hour or so after those others I was back about my tasks. I figured the one in the basement would be the same.

This plastic bin has more incoming letters than outgoing. Most are not from our overseas years. We will have a hard decision of what to do with them.

Alas, I soon after went upstairs to fix lunch and thought to myself, “Why is my knee hurting so much?” Then I remembered: I fell fifteen minutes ago. Ah, well, no big deal. I took an Aleve, ate lunch, then went to the sunroom to read. While there, my knee kept hurting. I looked down at it to check for swelling and saw that my leg was bleeding, down near the ankle. Obviously that came from raking across the trunk as I went down. Naturally it was my leg with the bad knee that I caught on the trunk.

I cleaned and bandaged the wound with a gauze pad and went back to my afternoon activities. Slowly my knee got worse, the pain being in unusual parts of the knee. And my leg started hurting below the knee all the way down from the ankle. Not the abrasion, which I could barely feel, but the shin and calf. It felt muscular, not skeletal. I was certain it wasn’t a break. Muscles and tendons or ligaments had suffered trauma. Just sitting in my reading chair in the living room was painful—as was lying on the floor on my stomach. Another Aleve didn’t do anything.

Slowly it got worse as evening wore on, the main pain being in the lower leg, not the knee. I went to bed a little early but couldn’t sleep. I used a topical muscle rub that may have helped some. But an hour and a half of tossing and turning caused me to move to my reading chair, then out to the sunroom. Eventually I was tired enough to sleep through the pain. But that was at least an hour after I took a hydrocodone pill.

Ah, this one had the Saudi and Kuwaiti year letters besides the 25 or so I started with. I see hours of enjoyable transcribing ahead.

Obviously my normal heavy yardwork on Saturday was out. I took it easy, reading, and transcribing letters. Same for Sunday, with some on-line church and Life Group thrown in. Came Saturday evening and I thought the leg felt better. Come the night and the pain was as bad as Friday night. I finally went to The Dungeon and laid back in the recliner. Finding a comfortable position was still hard, but I think I slept a little better than on Friday.

What does that have to do with my intended blog post? With my leg in more or less constant pain, I didn’t think I would be able to concentrate on the important topic of ending racism. So you have this fluff piece instead. The letter transcription was an enjoyable diversion. I completed the 28 letters I found a few weeks ago in an unexpected place in my mother-in-law’s things, all letters to her from our Kuwait years, all but a couple from Lynda to her mom. While I shouldn’t have, I decided to drag out the larger bin that has letters from Saudi and Kuwait.  Actually, I had to pull three different bins/boxes off the shelf to find the rest of the letters from the Kuwait years. I will consolidate all of them into a single box, properly label it with large, black lettering, and put it where I’ll never have to hunt for it again.

Letter transcribing doesn’t get the weeds pulled, or cut posts for the completion of the fort I’m building with the grandkids, or trim the bushes in the front yard. It doesn’t burn off the pounds I so definitely need to lose. It doesn’t get my novel-in-progress back to where I actually see progress. It provides great satisfaction for me, however. And it stirs the memory, as I read through things I experienced and documented but now don’t actively remember.

As of Sunday evening the text file of letters was up to 49 pages and just under 30,000 words. So far fewer than half the Kuwait letters are transcribed, and the Saudi letters are untouched. This will be a long project, most likely multi-year. What will be produced in the end is not yet clear. But at least I see hours and hours of what I would call oddball satisfaction for the transcriptionist.

home improvements, The Teachings, Writing

The Busyness of the Moment

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We are in the dog days of summer, 2/3 of the way through July. It’s been in the 90s here for the last two weeks, and the 15 day forecast currently shows nothing but 90s. During this time I am busier than ever. Hence, I’m a little late with this blog post. What’s keeping me busy? Consider this.

  • In late June we had the tree guys here to cut back the trees away from the house before we get the new roof. To save a little, and because I try to keep the lots on either side of me neat, I had them just drop the branches to the ground and I would do the cleanup. I’m doing that now, an hour a day first thing in the morning, before the heat ramps up. Very tiring, but it’s a task that shows immediate results. I’m also finding lots of branches long and straight enough to cut to length for the final posts to finish the fort (more on that in another post).
  • Stock trading is busiest on Mondays and Fridays. Today I planned out and entered two trades, both of which filled. Now, fully invested, I get to sit back a little and see what the market does.
  • I’m in the midst of an on-line class/program to learn about advertising on Amazon. It includes six one-hour videos, five one-hour live sessions, a two-hour long webinar, and lots of homework. I’m finding it challenging, though I am learning something. I have three ads up, of three different types. They are for my book Doctor Luke’s Assistant. I’m behind watching the videos and creating ads, but I feel good about where I am. The program runs through next Monday so I have a lot of time to catch up.
  • Our de-cluttering/downsizing effort continues. When I look at the mess in the living room, with piles of greeting cards and letters sent to my mother-in-law over the years (and some sent to us), and in the dining room at the boxes of new greeting cards and note cards covering almost all the dining room table, I despair of ever completing it. The storage room is cleaner and better organized—and a little emptier. But if we can’t find a way to get rid of those brought upstairs, if they just get re-boxed and taken to the basement again, we are barely any better.
  • My hourly work for my former company happens to have ramped up in the last two to three weeks. The income is good, but the time it takes isn’t. I could refuse any or all assignments, but this work may go away almost entirely around October, so I hate to turn the work down right now.
  • Lynda and I have increased our reading time together. In the evening we will read perhaps 20 pages aloud from some book, then two chapters from the Bible. It’s enjoyable time. I plan on choosing some of these books with de-cluttering in mind, books we can read and discard/sell/donate afterwards.
  • I’ve had some things to do for Life Group at church, trying to lead the class into making decisions about meeting times and whether we will begin to meet in person soon, and if so, when and how. This doesn’t take a lot of time, but it’s another stick on the camel’s back.

You can see I haven’t had much time to think about this blog, or about writing. Is this a temporary period of busier than usual busyness? I hope so. Once I get past this brush clearing, get the contractor set up with the new roof and get it done, and once we can get a little breathing space on the de-cluttering, once the ad class is over and I have five to ten ads running, maybe I’ll be able to devote more time to my book and my blog. Hopefully I’ll be able to devote enough time this week to make my Friday post as the net one in my racism series.

Oh, yes, as of yesterday, blackberry picking season is over. That frees up three to four hours a week.

home improvements, miscellaneous, reading

A Day Late and Still Not There

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Yesterday, when I started my day after sleeping in because I had trouble sleeping Sunday night, I opened my computer after devotions and prayer, and realized I hadn’t written my Monday blog post. I quickly logged in here and entered the title I had planned. Then the day got away from me.

So much to do in retirement, so little time. I never got back to my post. But, I had a good day. I finished clearing the tree cuttings away from the house so that the roofers will have a clear pathway when they come. I did my reading in the afternoon and evenings. I worked my stock trading business. I spent several hours on the current decluttering project. Supper was just leftovers so easy to fix.

When I finally dropped into bed about 11:30 p.m., I didn’t have too much trouble falling asleep.

Today, I’ll do it all over again. I’ve already made two stock trades. After breakfast I’ll head outside and continue to move the brush further into the woods and make piles. In the afternoon I’ll read, declutter, and maybe write. My plans are to start some notes, in my journal (which I haven’t written in for over a year, this blog somewhat filling the role of a journal for me), and be ready to start writing tomorrow.

Look for Monday’s promised post on Friday. After that, I hope to be more faithful in my current series of posts.

home improvements, miscellaneous

Some Significant Decluttering

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The storage area for Christmas decorations, opposite The Graveyard, is in slight disarray this time of year.

I’ve written about decluttering before. It’s an on-going process here at Blackberry Oaks (the name I’ve given to our property, a name no one else in the family seems to like or is willing to adopt). Most of what we’ve done is relatively minor stuff: getting rid of a few empty boxes; taking garage sale stuff that didn’t sell to the thrift store; etc.

Last week and into the weekend, however, I did something a little more major. In our basement storeroom is a dark nook, set off from the rest of the storeroom by a 6-foot long job in the concrete wall and two book cases at right angles to it, is an area I have never had a name for, but which I think I’ll dub The Graveyard.

At the front of The Graveyard were two boxes with Christmas wreaths and another box of some candle holders. Behind it was a stack of computer boxes. The Apple boxes I knew had our old C-II from the Kuwait years. The other boxes I wasn’t sure what was in them. Then, there were a couple of large cardboard boxes. One I knew was for our first digital TV, the 32-incher we bought in 2008 and were still using. I guess we kept that thinking that if we ever moved, it might be best to pack the box back up in the original container. Yeah, that’s a good reason to keep the box. It’s out of the way.

Well, as we had our family Christmas over Thanksgiving, our son bought us a new digital TV. It’s a smart TV, 49-inches, yet it takes only a little more footprint and square footage than the old one. The box for this one went to the garage. We’re still trying to learn how to use the smart TV, but that’s a story for another post.

Last week, around Monday, I took a look at The Graveyard and decided we could do without that old TV box. We would be going by the recycling center the next day, so I decided it was time to let go of it. As I pulled it out, I saw that we also had the box from the TV stand for that old TV, a stand that it once again sits on in The Dungeon, waiting to be hooked up. Well, obviously I didn’t need to keep that. Both of those boxes went up to the garage, into the minivan, and, the next day, to the recycling center along with the new TV box and some other stuff.

How freeing that was! Much of our clutter is empty boxes, saved for whatever reason we need them.  But these particular boxes clearly had no future use.

Much better organized. Smaller, all items showing. Now need to get rid of the Apple 2C. Any takers?

But there, in The Graveyard, I also found, not just our old Apple computer, but an equally ancient desktop, perhaps also from Kuwait. I’ve been slowly giving up the old computers for recycling, after having someone get the data off of them. I thought I knew where they all were, so finding this one buried behind unneeded boxes was a surprise. It’s now moved to a place where I stage getting rid of computers. Also back there was a dead printer—dead because whatever computer it was used with is no longer in service. It’s also moved to the electronic recyclables staging area.

Once these things were removed, I was able to organize the few things left to be where I can see them. I gathered all the loose wreaths and hung them.  Also, I was able to move the free-standing bookcases back a little further into The Graveyard to make that space smaller and make the main part of the storeroom bigger. You can see what the result was.

Decluttering is far from over, In fact, in some ways it’s seems we’ve just begun the task. But this feels good. Real good. Next will be the remaining old computers and other electronics. Then, what’s next? Maybe some real stuff will depart this household.

Bible study, Health, home improvements, Writing

A Busy Day With A Twist

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Writing the Leader’s Guide for this has taken more time than writing the book, and it’s just as long.

Here it is Friday evening, and I’m just now getting to my post for today. I have three book reviews backed up, but I haven’t felt like writing those posts yet. They take a little more time to write, and with other things going on I didn’t feel like taking that time.

Today was very busy. I started at the computer, with my end-of-week stock trading tasks. At the same time I was putting finishing touches on the leader’s guide for Acts Of Faith. There may be one chapter that I need to do just a little more work on, but, except for that chapter, I believe I’m done. Over the weekend I’ll re-read it, add that little bit of stuff, and it will be done.

After that I went outside to continue clearing downed tree trunks away from the lot south of us. Midway through my first saw cut my left baby toe started hurting, suddenly and badly. I thought I must have done something to break my toe. I couldn’t work without pain, so I sat down on the tree trunk and pulled my shoe off to find a nail through it. It wasn’t stuck in my toe, but I couldn’t tell if it had punctured it or not.

I had wanted to work about an hour and a half, but I decided to cut it off at an hour. I got a lot done after the nail incident. I knew, however, I needed to get inside and find out what I’d done to my toe. I soaked my feet in Epsom salts, then looked at it and had my wife look also. Neither of us could find a puncture mark. Still, I contacted my doctor about it. My last tetanus shot was eight years ago. I heard back from the nurse and she said yes, I needed to get the shot.

We had to go pick up our newer van from the body shop, and I had to go by Lowe’s to return a light and pick up the right one. After that I went by the pharmacy and got the shot. They say it’s going to hurt for up to three days, but so far no pain. Nor does my toe hurt. I think that the nail, while it punctured my sneaker, didn’t puncture the skin.

So now it’s evening. We’re done with supper and watching a little tv. I’m about to get us some dessert (probably some fruit). I hope to read a little later.

One thing I learned recently, that just really came to my consciousness today, was that writing the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith has been significantly more time consuming than writing the Bible study was. It’s also almost as long as the Bible study, both in words and page length. I don’t know how long it will now take me to get it to market, but I hope in a week for the e-book. I hadn’t planned on issuing it as a print book, but perhaps I will. I’ll have to think about that.

Bible study, C.S. Lewis, home improvements, Writing

A Blustery, Productive Day

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Sleet has turned to snow. Not much accumulation expected.

Hello winter, on Veterans Day. At midnight we were 50 degrees. We woke up to 39 degrees and falling. Right now it’s 25. The wind is howling and snow is falling. If it were continuous snow and heavier this would be a blizzard. That’s okay by me. I’ve nowhere to go tonight, no reason to leave the house except for getting something I left in the van last night.

I’ve been productive today. I was up at 6:45 a.m. Before long I was in The Dungeon with coffee. For about two hours I split my time between working on my book in progress and stock trading. Did some general reading as well. I put in four options trades, all rolling out existing positions. Three of the four filled at my limit. I touched-up and expanded another chapter in the Leader’s Guide for Acts Of Faith. That’s only three of 17 chapters that have the expanded information in the Leader’s Guide, but at least it’s a start. I fear, if I continue along this path, I’ll never get it done. There’s always something more I can add.

The cardinal was much prettier from my view. A downy woodpecker is at that feeder now, but I don’t think I’ll be able to capture him.

After breakfast around 9, with a little sleet coming down, the wind whipping the trees, and leaves rapidly leaving their branches, I broke with my routine and came out to the sunroom. While I have two books I’m currently reading for research, I decided to start a new one for pleasure. It’s a book of essays edited by C.S. Lewis. Only one of the essays is by him. One is by Tolkien, the others by other of their friends. I’m going to enjoy this, I think, if I understand it. I managed to get through the 10 page Preface today.

Inside around 10:30, I did a little work to use existing materials to “build-in” the microwave over the oven. This has been open for a while, the wife didn’t like it, but trying to get a suitable build-in kit to fit a 30+ year old opening is difficult. I managed to get the old kit to work, and it looks presentable if not perfect. They I began putting furniture back in place in the living room. It had all been moved last week for carpet shampooing. I finished the cleaning on Saturday, put some furniture back yesterday, and finished the living room today. I hope to get three heavy pieces back in place in the entryway, and that pre-Thanksgiving company work will be done.

Then I began a task for my old company, an engineering review of a submittal for a project in the City of Centerton. I spent over two hours on that, taking a detailed look at the drawings and assembling my comments. I still have the drainage report to review, which I will do either tonight or tomorrow. This works keeps me in coffee money.

Coffee, books, a computer on my lap, snow and wind outside, cool temperatures inside. What more do I need right now?

Speaking of which, after retrieving that item from the van (and foolishly checking the mailbox, forgetting this is a mail holiday), I heated some coffee and came once again to the sun room. The sleet has turned to snow—not much snow, just enough to make it feel like winter. This is an early snow for us, although last year we got our first snow on November 13th or 14th, so about the same.

For the first time I’ve taken my computer to the sun room and am typing this post there. In front of me is the deck, snow and leaves showing, birds coming to the feeders. To my rights I see the tops of pin oaks being whipped by the wind. To my left is my reading table piled with too many books, also with my coffee. The temperature out here is 59 to 60 degrees; just enough to keep the plants comfortable, and about where I like it.

A big gust just blew snow off the roof in a very picturesque way. I need to wrap up this post, get some photos loaded, then get to my research reading. I’ll have over an hour and a half for that before supper. Unless I decide to make that cauliflower/sweet potato dish. I’m thinking about that.

Christmas, family, home improvements

The Holiday Crunch Time Has Begun

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Yesterday we began the big clean-up. Not just of clutter. We’ve actually been doing a relatively good job the last few months of not letting the clutter get away from us. No, this is the Big Clean-up, the kind that requires hours and takes a lot of concentration and effort.

Maybe I should say the Big Preparation, because after the clean-up comes decorating for Christmas. I’m not one to decorate early for Christmas, but this year everyone is coming for Thanksgiving. We want to be decorated for Christmas, so that’s a big amount of work.

Yesterday we began this all. The main concern is the carpet in the public places of the house, which is in much need of shampooing. But first, of course, we had to dust and vacuum. We did the dusting in the main public areas, and vacuumed the dining room, hall bathroom, and main traffic ways between rooms. I then did the shampooing in the rooms that I vacuumed. I figure on doing this in three or four segments, allowing us to move about the house with minimal restrictions while the carpet is drying.

This morning I checked, and the carpet looks good where I worked yesterday. I see one spot I may need to re-do; I’ll have to wait until the sun is more fully on it. But, at first look I’m pleased.

Today, the living room. Tomorrow the entryway. After that, Christmas decorations commence. Writing takes a back seat for a little while.

Bible study, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, family, home improvements, Preserve The Revelation, research, The Teachings, Writing

Weekend Company

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The view from my ladder, five steps up. The limb looks large in this photo, but that’s deceiving. It was only 3 to 4 inches diameter.

After writing about a difficult weekend last weekend, I had a good week. That blah Monday turned out to be restful, and I recovered. It was almost as if my day of rest was Monday instead of Sunday. I hope they all won’t be like that as I teach this lesson series. I teach again this Sunday, so we’ll see how it goes.

I did some good work on the Leader’s Guide for Acts Or Faith. It’s far from finished, but I feel much better about it than I did even five days ago. I took my notes prepared for teaching last Sunday—the Introduction to the book—and worked them into that chapter of the Leader’s Guide. I went on to two more chapters, and am now well-along on Chapter 11.

I attended critique group Wednesday evening. We had five writers present, no visitors. Four of us shared, and we had good discussions. I shared the first four pages of “Tango Delta Foxtrot”, the next short story in my Sharon Williams Fonsesca series. I’m 2,000 words into it, heading to somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000. I hope to work a little on that in the days ahead.

I began a new activity in my daily routine: an hour or so of yard work in the late morning. Perhaps I should say I resumed that activity, for I was doing that last spring. After the late-August storm, I worked on the wood lot north of our house, clearing away the debris left after two large trees fell. Now it looks almost like a wooded, leaf-covered park. I’m now doing the same with the woodlot on the south side. This had two smaller trees down, and much deadfall from normal tree life. This is actually a much bigger job. I’ve spent four mornings on it.

On Wednesday, with all the large limbs removed, I decided to get up on a ladder and cut away a broken limb on a tree close to the house. I’m sure certain family members would be aghast at my leaning a ladder against a tree I was cutting on and then getting five steps up on that ladder. But, it was just a 3 to 4 inch limb, nothing major Having only a small, folding pruning saw that would fit the place where I wanted to cut. I got it done, taking frequent rests. It was a task accomplished that make me feel good about my work.

Speaking of tasks accomplished, on Wednesday I had this comment on my Facebook author’s page.

“Preserve The Revelation” is terrific! Each book in the series stands alone. So many authors constantly “explain” what happened in the previous book or you won’t understand the story, which I find irritating. Watching for #3 publication!”

Good feedback on this. Though fourth in the series chronologically, it is the second published, in March 2017.

It’s great to get positive feedback, especially from one who’s now reading a third book of mine. This spurred me on to work a little on the third book in the series (numbers 1, 2, and 4 currently published; she’s reading #4). For over a week I’ve been reading for research and making good progress, learning a lot. Wednesday, after reading that comment, I spent an hour making an outline of book #3, tentatively titled The Teachings. It stands at just a notebook page in length, but it’s a start.

I don’t intend on writing this book until I finish “TDF”, and perhaps one more short story in the Danny Tompkins series. Perhaps a December start is most likely. Between now and then I’ll search my various paper piles for two or three pages of notes I made earlier this year on the book, each time starting from scratch. I’ll see what my earlier thoughts were and whether I remembered them and worked them into my outline.

Speaking of various paper piles, we have company coming today for an overnight stay, one of Lynda’s cousins and her husband. The clean-up of the house and yard started yesterday, and will consume much of today before they arrive. The paper piles have to go, along with other clutter.

So, I end this. I hope all who read this had a good, productive, satisfying week, and will experience the same in the weekend ahead. See you in my post on Monday.

Bible study, Documenting America, home improvements, miscellaneous

Publishing Another Book Getting Closer

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It doesn’t look like the tree caused damage to the house, but I guess I won’t know until I get it down.

My last blog post discussed what was happening with my book Documenting America: Making The Constitution.  On Monday, after writing my blog post, I made major progress on publishing tasks. I won’t list what I did. Suffice to say by the end of the day I was further along on all three versions (Kindle, Smashwords, and print) than I expected to be.

The Monday evening happened. A short but intense thunderstorm hit, with winds of 70 mph. Power went out at 10:30 p.m. and was off for just short of 48 hours. A large tree blew over from the wooded lot next to us on the north and is resting on the house. a second, larger tree also blew over but rested against another tree that kept it from hitting the house. Neither one seems to have damaged the house, but I’m going to need a professional service to clear the trees away. So, I’m dealing with all of that and have not doing anything more on Documenting America.

It’s hard to see in this photo, but it shows the two leaning trees. Both are pretty big, at least 12 and maybe 16 inches diameter.

What I did instead was more intensive editing of my Bible study, Acts Of Faith. When the power went out, I was through Chapter 5 with the second round of edits and also with the Leader’s Guide. Reading and editing the printed manuscript was something I could do during the day, even without power. So I stretched out on the floor, the notebook between me and the glass doors to the deck, and read and marked with red pen. I set aside work on the Leader’s Guide as I need to have the Bible study published by September 15. The Leader’s Guide can follow it by a month or so.

My first view of it didn’t look so bad. This is looking up from below it. The main problem will be how to control it as you cut it out. That’s why I need a pro.

By the end of yesterday I had edited all but one chapter. I will finish it today and be ready to type. In fact, I may type those edits before I go back to Documenting America. Acts Of Faith is out with two beta readers, one of whom I’m sure will give me comments. I’m going to send one more chapter to my critique group for comments between meetings.

Then I’ll be enmeshed in dealing with trees and insurance and other aspects of Monday’s storm. I’m not sure yet what my new publishing schedule will be.

 

Danny Tompkins Short Stories, home improvements, miscellaneous, Writing

Time for a Pity Party

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I was introduced to the concept of a Pamper Party some years ago, when our daughter was a teenager, and decided to throw herself one. It was interesting to watch her

I was introduced to the concept of a Pamper Party some years ago, when our daughter was a teenager, and decided to throw herself one. it was interesting to watch her going through the activities. She felt good about herself afterwards.

I don’t expect that a Pity Party will produce the same results, but I’m ready to throw one for myself. What’s so bad that I’m ready to hold a pity party? Perhaps nothing, at least nothing of monumental significance. But it seems that too many things are not going right right now. Major projects aren’t getting done. Minor projects aren’t even getting started. And I have no desire to write right now. Haven’t written anything except this blog for over a month.

My latest publication, When Death Changes Life, doesn’t count as writing. That was just boxing up short stories that were already written and re-publishing them as a short book. Since it didn’t include any new writing, it wasn’t writing.

So, what’s so terrible that I need a pity party? I’ll just use the dishwasher as an example. That’s clearly a first world problem, but it’s a problem nevertheless. It started going out some months ago. I didn’t catch it before it started doing damage to the ceiling in the basement. Finally I had our plumber come to verify where the damage was, and he confirmed it was the dishwasher. That was in late August or early September. Back in 2012 we put in a new refrigerator that we got at Lowe’s. I looked, and saw they had a matching dishwasher. But it’s noise level is higher than what’s currently available. I could live with that, but I need buy-in from my wife. So far I don’t have it. So we need to go to Lowe’s to see what’s available. Or, any other place that sells dishwashers.

I told Lynda I wanted to get this done this weekend, that I wanted us to go together to Lowe’s either Saturday or Sunday to decide on what to get: the matching one or a quieter one. She said fine. Saturday morning was full of work inside and outside the house. Then came the Wal-Mart run, which I made alone. That brought us to sometime after 4, maybe closer to 5 p.m. I still had to study my lesson for Life Group, and I was dead tired, so I didn’t ask to go to Lowe’s. Sunday was Life Group and church (I went alone), followed by lunch and a quick nap. At lunch we learned that Lynda’s mom was totally out of her insulin. She took the last pen from the box in the fridge and didn’t tell us. Since we don’t normally go looking for her insulin, we didn’t know until she had to take it for her meal and found the problem.

So, I called the pharmacy. It turned out the prescription wasn’t refillable without a doctor’s consent, which of course we wouldn’t get on a Sunday. So I spoke to someone at the pharmacy about an emergency fill, and they said they would. It would be ready by 2:00. I decided to wait until 3:00 to go, after my nap. When I got there it wasn’t ready, them saying they were waiting on the doctor’s authorization. So, I went through the whole emergency thing again, and finally got the prescription. I looked for a new jar-opener pad (ours being close to disintegrated, and me not remembering to get one on my normal Wal-Mart trips) but couldn’t find one. So I bought a package of Reese’s cups and went home.

By then it was 4:00 p.m. I still had supper to fix, and had planned a meal with a lot of fixing. I started that at 4:45 p.m. and was on my feet till 6:45. During that time I washed a boatload of dishes (because, of course, we don’t have a working dishwasher), cleaned some dead stuff out of the fridge, and threw the garbage into the woods. We ate dinner. My new main dish turned out very nice.

By that time, I was more tired than I had been on Saturday. I decided not to bring up a visit to Lowe’s, and my wife didn’t bring it up. So we didn’t go. One of my main goals for the weekend was unfulfilled, and was no closer to fulfillment. The wife has headaches all the time. I’m not sure she will ever want to go, nor will she want to leave the decision up to me.

Well, the pity party should be over, except much more has happened of late.

  • Despite having 26 items for sale, with a new item added, I have zero book sales in October. Zero. Obviously I’m not writing the kind of things people want to buy. I can’t see my way clear to spend the time needed to learn the tasks necessary to place advertisements, so my writing sales seem to be at a standstill.
  • I can’t write with all these things hanging over me.
  • We are no closer to replacing either of our ancient vehicles than we were two months ago when we decided to do so.
  • Once the dishwasher is repaired, I’ll have to see about getting the ceiling in The Dungeon fixed.
  • I found it very difficult to prepare for the Life Group lesson I taught yesterday; hence I don’t believe I taught a good one. I don’t think I teach next week (though who knows, since I never hear from my co-teacher before Friday evening, sometimes not till Saturday evening, when I receive a text “whose week is it to teach).
  • For the last two weekends/weeks I guess I’ve way over eaten. My weight have ballooned, and six months (or more) of weight loss is wiped out. I don’t know if I have the strength to do it again.

Okay, pity party over. I probably shouldn’t have written any of this. I do so knowing almost no one will see it. Or maybe it really will be no one.