Archives for 2020

Hello my darling!
Well, after a busy day yesterday, it will come as no surprise that I took the day off to recover.
Had a wonderful night sleep last night, the best I’ve had in a long time. Other than doing a little rearranging of where the leftovers needed to be stored and putting a few dishes back in the cupboards where they belong, I spent the day relaxing, watching some TV and generally vegging out. Much needed! Love you!

Hi Sweetie!
Well, I think we’re almost ready for your Celebration of Life tomorrow. We FINALLY managed to move that old wreck of a Winnebago out of the front yard late yesterday, at least getting it out of the line sight anyway, behind that big bush where we had parked the small horse trailer last year. Today I made deviled eggs, baked cookies, put together the cold cut trays, swept out the pool and cleaned the pool filters again, found Jeff’s electric weed whacker (stored in his bedroom for some incomprehensible reason) and trimmed around the pool and our trailer and a bit around the house just to tidy it up. I even managed to pressure wash around the pool again, though in no time at all Lola and spread her muddy footprints around again, so it will need to be done tomorrow. Audrey flew in this morning, she’s staying through next Wednesday, though they’ve actually extended Spring break by a week because of the Corona virus that’s got everyone going nuts. You can’t buy hand sanitizer, alcohol or, for some odd reason, toilet paper. Glenn said Publix was very low on bread when he stopped in today, and unfortunately I still need some, so I’m thinking an early trip to Publix for whatever else I need will be in order tomorrow morning. I think everything else is covered. I’ll put a tarp over that old hot tub, just to get it out of sight. I also went through all our boxes of pictures yesterday and made out some albums for people to look at, and selected a couple of DVD’s to play on the living room TV during the day. I picked the Darrow you did at the Dubose Center, and two Galileo’s I can’t decide between. One was our World Premiere at Theatre-Round-The-Corner in Huntsville, which I like because it’s a lot of wide shots, but the sound is a little weak though understandable, and the other from Principia College, which has good sound but are mostly close-ups, which also works, though it kind of weakens the flow of movement around the set. I’ll probably use them both during the day, we’ll see how it goes. Anyway, it’s been a busy couple of days, but I’ve tried to pace myself so I don’t get too exhausted, which is why I’m going to bed early tonight. Already had my shower, just going to finish off an episode of SHIELD then head off the bed. Looking forward to tomorrow, and being with so many friends and family. BTW, they postponed the Gator Nationals, so my plan to have Jeff out of the house for this has gone out the window. At least he’ll get to go, either later this year or next year. You wouldn’t believe how crazy it’s gotten over this Corona virus! They’ve shut down March Madness, the PGA, delayed the start of the baseball season, all because of a virus that only killed about 40 people, most of whom were in a senior’s home in Washington state. Compare that to the usual 60,000 people who die of the flu every year, and scratch your head. I know I’ve been! Anyway, off to bed! Love you darling!

Hello Darlin’,
Had trouble getting to sleep last night, and just before turning the lights out I heard a lot of whooshing noise and realized that I hadn’t reset the time on the pool, and water was pouring out of the release valve opening because I had broken it and was waiting on a new part for it and forgot about it. Got pretty wet before I was able to stop it, not exactly what I needed at 1:00 in the morning, but hey, what are you going to do? Finally managed to get back to sleep, thank goodness. So this morning, my first excursion was out to Jupiter Hardware to pick up the part I needed as soon as their parts house delivered it, while also dropping off some mail, including a book order, then came back and put in the part and reset the timer. The little walker started on its way around the pool, so I’m hoping the day that it missed won’t be noticeable by the weekend. I drove up to Ranch Feed for horse feed, then over to the Kane center for euchre only to discover they had canceled all the activities because of the corona virus scare, which is really getting out of hand. People are going crazy, there’s no hand sanitizer, alcohol or (for some strange reason) toilet papers left in the stores. The stock market has plummeted over 5000 points in the last week, so our investment portfolio has taken a hit, but I have no doubt it will come bouncing back in the next few months, especially when people realize most of this has been hyped up by an insane media. Seriously, over 60,000 people die in the U.S. every year from the flu, but everyone’s getting excited about the 25 people, average age 80 years old, who have died from the corona virus. Anyway, I went straight to Walmart and did most of the shopping for the Celebration on Saturday, glad I have an extra refrigerator in the old trailer to store some of this stuff. Then at just before 8:00 brother Glenn showed up in his brand new motor home, which he did nothing but complain about all the things that didn’t work in it. We plan on putting him back by the barn where we were last year to get him out of the way and to give him some privacy, not to mention not having him blocking everything in front of the house. It didn’t take long to get him set up, as I managed to persuade him to get a 50 amp splitter, which made it easy to get him electricity, but he was railing that having to pull forward enough to plug in meant he couldn’t get a satellite signal through the trees, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, he brought a lot of stress with him, maybe he’ll be better tomorrow after a good night sleep. And maybe I can help him solve some of his electrical problems, I suspect that there may just be some switches he’s not familiar with, he’s just freaking out because it’s different from his last motor home. Sigh. Took my shower early, watched a couple of SHIELDS, now I’m off to bed, with a good book, as soon as Lola gets back from her walkabout. Love you, darling! Good night!

Hey Babe,
Another day of cleaning up the house, did my best to try to get through all the layers of dust in the living room and gunk in the kitchen, managed to at least make it reasonable. Can’t really do much more until I have Jeff around to tell me where he wants to move some stuff. Good news is he was able to finish putting the motor in his van and actually got it running by the end of the day. It seemed to overheat a bit, was leaking water, but I think he got it solved, though it was after dark, so I guess we’ll find out for sure tomorrow morning. It was way late before we got the horses done, though part of that is because with daylight savings, everything seems to be happening later. Not sure I like it, actually! Though I’m sure I’ll feel differently when I’m in a horse camp rather than sitting in his back yard. Anyway, I’m off to shower and bed. Good night, my love!

Hi Honey,
Spent pretty much the whole day cleaning Jeff’s house, starting with the guest bedroom and bathroom, the billiard area, and the main windows in the house. Still have a lot of dusting and wiping to do, not to mention trying to get the furniture clean enough to sit on. I may just cover them up with sheets or something, since they look pretty worn and I’m not sure I can make them look any better. I also dragged through the boxes that we stored in his closet to look for some pictures, need to organize them into some picture albums so folks can see some snapshots of our life if they’re interested. I might even set up a slideshow on my computer of all the digital photos we took over the years if I have time. It seems the airlines are cancelling a lot of flights now with the corona virus, my friend Sue from Pittsford is coming, but they changed here flight so now I don’t know when she’s coming in. Donna from Cleveland is coming in, too, hope her flight stays the same. Most everyone else is driving, I believe. Martin and his family are coming from Atlanta, Michele from Tennessee is stopping by on her way down to the Keys, La Chrissney and her family are coming down, too. Lots of folks traveling a long way to celebrate your life, sweetie! Anyway, that was really the extent of my day, already took my shower and I’m tired, so I’m heading off the bed now, I’m sure I’ll fall asleep reading like I always do. Love you darling! Good night!

Hey Sweetheart,
Spring/pre-party cleaning day! Spent most of the day doing a really thorough cleaning of the trailer, though I didn’t get it all quite done, with just a few spots to finish off later. I figured I better get this done early because I figure I’ll be doing a lot of cleaning of Jeff’s house in advance of the Celebration next Saturday, especially since I’ll have guests staying in at least one of the bedrooms. I might have to give up the master bedroom, because Jeff isn’t sure whether he wants to go to the Gators now, because he’s worried about the Corona virus (which is only on the West coast at this point, but watching the network news has him all concerned.) We’ll work it out, regardless. Anyway, I also brushed down the sides of the pool, that looks better now, and the little walking vacuum worked well most of the day, though I did clean the filters once to make sure it was getting all the sand out. I’m sorry to say that after everything I said about Lola last night, she wasn’t the best, getting into the garbage, even though it was up on the dining room bench seat, and scratching at the door, making some holes in the screen, dang it. I finally got up and opened the door, leaving it open so she could come and go as she pleases, so of course I heard the door flapping several times during the night, Sigh… Oh, well, she seems pretty quiet tonight, we’ll see what happens when I go to bed. I got an email from the GoDogGo people, they want to send me a new unit and have me send the current unit back because they want to find out why it quit working. I’m hoping I’ll have the new unit before the Celebration, Lola would certainly be able to keep everyone entertained! Well, she’ll do that anyway, ball-throwing machine or not! So I’ve taken my shower, and now I’m off the bed, so good night, darling! Love you!

Hi Babe,
Another busy day cleaning, mostly around the pool again. I finished off pressure washing the couple of sections that I didn’t get to yesterday, and did a few more plastic chairs that I found laying around the yard. Lola didn’t help much, she kept insisting I toss her floppy frisbee, and sometimes she would walk right through the mud and sand and onto the deck, so there were brown footprints everywhere that I had to keep rinsing down. That’s obviously going to be an ongoing thing! I rinsed the filters at least four times today, trying to get the little vacuum walker to work better, and it finally did start working like it was supposed to, so the pool is looking pretty good right now. I even bought a thermometer for it the other day, and it’s up to 79 degrees! I’m sure that will sound great to my northern guests, but I also know that for my Florida and Texas folks, they won’t go near it unless it’s another 5 or 6 degrees higher. I also helped Jeff a little on his motor rebuild, that’s coming along, slow but sure, fingers crossed it gets done in time. Brother Glenn, his wife Dena, and Audrey are coming too, though Audrey is flying in on Friday while Glenn and Dena are coming in a new motor home that just picked up. I’m hoping he’ll put it back where we were last year, out of the way, but he’s more likely to park it right in front of the house like he usually does. Anyway, progress was made today, at least the outside is looking a bit better, I haven’t tackled inside the house yet. I have to mention that ever since I took Lola’s bed out of the back seat of the truck so I could haul passengers, and put it back in the utility room, Lola’s been sleeping in here with me, and she’s been very, very good. She seldom gets restless these days. I don’t know if it’s because I’m doing my best to see that she gets at least some exercise, or if she just loves that bed! Sometimes in the morning I find her in your recliner, though, so I’m not sure. All I know is, she hasn’t interfered with my sleep, and she seems quite content to sleep through the night. I’m glad, she’s good company, and obviously, I’ve been spending a lot of time with her, she goes with me practically everywhere these days. Anyway, after the usual chores, dinner and TV, I’m off to bed, having showered earlier to get off the grease from working on Jeff’s van. Good night, babe! Love you!

Hello Darlin’,
Got a lot done today. Started out with some long phone calls, including one that will hopefully lead to a plenary session at a big conference in Atlanta in October, courtesy of someone from the financial world that has helped us out a couple of times before, and another about next year’s OTL with the head of that. There is some conflict within the group as to whether they should skip a year and focus on other things, but it seems such a waste to stop the momentum we built up this year. Attendance numbers were better than they had been in a long time, and the enthusiasm and compliments that have been coming in are great. Anyway, that led to a pretty long discussion, too. Finally, I put on my bathing suit and headed out to the pool, not to relax but to start pressure washing the concrete. Lots of mold and dirt had built up, and even though Jeff sprayed it all with chlorine a few days ago (isn’t that bad for the environment?), it didn’t really get it clean, so I spent four solid hours doing the deck and the furniture, and still didn’t get one side of it done. I plan on finishing it off tomorrow, and then hopefully getting out the weed whacker and cleaning up some of the long weeds and grass around the various objects that are laying around. Even Karen was railing at Jeff last night about moving that big ugly Skeetermobile that’s such an eyesore, I’m still hoping we can get that moved before the weekend, even if we have to get some bodies, put it in neutral and push the dang thing out of there! Unfortunately there won’t be time for the grass to grow in it’s place, but at least that hulking rust bucket won’t be there, fingers crossed! The pool area is looking a lot better, but there are a still some junk items I have to persuade Jeff to hide or throw away. Not sure what to do about the old hot tub, though Karen suggested covering it up with a tarp, which I may end up doing. Anyway, I did take one break late in the day and jumped in, then floated around for 10-15 minutes just to rest my back. The water is almost up to 80 degrees, it’s been quite warm again for the last few days. I took one of the big pork chops Jeff grilled last night, and some of his mashed potatoes and reheated them for dinner, and added a nice salad to it. Of course, a little dish of ice cream later, too! Settled in for a few more SHIELDS, but I’m going to bed earlier tonight, as I’m tired, and I have another physically challenging day tomorrow! So good night, my love!