Sunday, August 18, 2013

Still Here

I have not fallen off the face of the earth!  Not yet, anyway.  It's just been an insanely busy few days.  Nothing in particular, the normal stuff.  Just more of it!
 
Anyway.  Froggy, I'm glad you got the box and that you liked the stuff in it.  I have pictures of all the things I crocheted, but I can not locate them.  I know that Otter and I got them uploaded on my computer, but they are nowhere to be found.  That has happened a couple of times with this laptop, they are out there somewhere and I'll eventually find them.  But the frog cap was the main item I gave you hints about.  The creepy turtle potholder was the "other" thing that I didn't hint about.
 
Bill's hoarding, excuse me collection, of pachinko machines increased by two.  He found one on craigslist that was near San Antonio and his sister picked it up for him.  She was here last week, so she brought it with her.  The other one is one he found on craigslist at a local-ish yard sale.  It's one he looked at months ago, in a neighboring town and the seller made the usual mistake:  rare and worth bunches.  Except that it wasn't either of those things.  What usually happens in that case is that the seller realizes his mistake after he tries to sell it for those bunches and bunches of money and winds up emailing or calling Bill to see if Bill's offer is still valid.  This time, the seller didn't call but he had a yard sale this weekend and listed a pachinko machine.  We went over there this afternoon, it was in a nearby small town, and it was the same person/house/machine.  I think Bill offered him around $30 last time, but of course he didn't take it then because it was worth hundreds (not!).  It came home with us today.  $10.00.  Part of the sudden price decrease was because the guy put it out in the driveway and his wife bumped it with her car when she was backing out of the driveway.  The damage is minimal and also easily fixable.  But even before that, I don't think he was asking very much from the way he talked.
 
After that, we stopped at a local Jack in the Box for lunch.  They are in this area again after a period of many years.  If today's lunch is an example, I expect that they will be gone again soon!  While we were eating, Bill got a call from a lady in Tulsa who saw his website.  She has a pachinko machine that she bought from someone in Indiana who Bill's acquainted with online.  Bill was never very impressed with that guy's machines or services he offers online.  Apparently, the lady bought a machine and a cabinet for bunches of money (like probably over $1,000.00) and it quit working.  She called the guy and he told her to JUST WHACK IT to fix it.  Which is when she looked online and found Bill.  Turned out it had balls jammed and was easily fixable, but whacking it would not have done the job and might have damaged it.  Froggy, I was waiting in the car when I texted you about being bored and not having anything to read.  I normally have a book in reach, but I took the one in last night that I had in the car.  I was so bored that I actually read the maps we have in the car!
 
I managed to finish my new scarf yesterday, I started it last week but then had hardly any time to work on it.  I also put three or four rows on the afghan, I think it's close to 200 rows now and is probably about half done.  I want to get it finished this year, it's a couple of years old already but its big and not a good project to work on when the weather is warm.  Which means that the last two years have not been good afghan weather.
 
I did a lot of crochet yesterday, and as a result I have sore arms today.  But I was thinking that we were going to be working on cutting limbs up and bundling them for trash pick up.  They have to be 4' lengths and tied up in bunches.  I got started on cutting them up this morning and discovered that the limbs are so old they were disintegrating!  So Bill's decided to just burn them in place.  Well, not exactly in place - they are too close to the wooden fence.  We'll move the pile out a bit and then he'll start burning them.  I don't know if he's going to get it all done at once or in small burns, but Bill and fire are not words that go together well!  Otter was also concerned at the thought of her father starting a fire of any kind but she also thinks that it would be good to get marshmallows ready to roast.
 
Otter's got her priorities.

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