End of Summer, Sort-Of

I know I said I would try to blog more often.  But it just hasn't happened!

It's been a busy summer.  July was really busy.  We had been looking at options since Bill has not been able to find a job.  There are a few jobs out there, but not really what his degree is for.  He has been looking, but what we discovered is that his degree in Electronics Engineering is not going to amount for much, if there are no jobs in that field.  When he got his degree, electronics was projected to be the up and coming field and the job outlook was very good.  It didn't turn out that way.  Computers were supposed to also be a very good field, and they were for a while.  But then as things evolved, the computers and electronics devices became cheaper to replace than to repair.  Which really limited any employment futures.  We didn't realize that until Bill started putting out feelers to look for another job, which he started doing when we realized that things were going bad as his then-job.

After his job was eliminated, which was a blessing from God considering the really bad situation it had become, he qualified for the buy-out they were offering and we also were able to access the teacher's retirement which he had been part of because he worked for a school district.  We have our own retirement program set up, we had gotten out of the teacher's program several years ago because it was not well administered and it looked for a while like it might actually disappear.  It did not disappear, but our plan was/is much better so we stayed with ours.  What we had put in to the teacher's plan sat there for years and it drew some interest.

We have spent the last several months building up the pachinko repair/restoration business and using the retirement funds as a supplement.  We were thinking he would be able to find a job before this, but as I mentioned - the jobs just are not there.  Unless he wants to work for minimum wage in an electronics assembly job, for literally not enough $ to pay for the gasoline to get there and back.  So, we decided to look at our options.  We talked about selling the house, but we decided we don't want to do that.

What we have done is to refinance our house instead.  We refinanced about 9 years ago, with a 15 year mortgage. The idea was that it would be paid off about the time we hit retirement age. But the payments were pretty high.  We talked to the bank and they said that we would have no problem refinancing, even though Bill has been out of work for 16 months.  He's been able to bring in some $ with the pachinko business, and I am in a job I have held for 23 years.  We have not been late on anything and we have a good credit rating.  So, we decided to go for it.  We had a couple of other things we paid down/off and the upshot is that yes, we have a 30 year mortgage but we have a much lower payment.  Which means that with what Bill is bringing in with the business, he can stay self-employed and continue to concentrate of building our business.  We don't intend to let the mortgage go 30 years, we can (and will) pay extra towards the principal.

This is another instance of what we see very strongly as God's hand.

That's the leap of faith we took.  It's been a series of leaps and we've taken them.

Wow

I have not posted since January!  5 months, nearly.

I forgot my password and had to get blogger to send me a new one.  That's not why I haven't blogged in so long, that just happened today when I tried to sign in.

I am still here, Otter is still here (25 now!), Bill is still here and Maggie Moo the Wonder Beagle is still here.  Otter is still dating J, I think she said they are going on 4 years now?  I'm not sure if it is 3 or 4.  She still works for the same hardware store and has consistently moved up.

Maggie Moo has had a few health issues, but she is 13 now.  She had what was basically a skin tag on her left front "elbow" and the vet was watching it.  He did not want to operate because of her age.  He tried a couple of things including a steroid shot which did shrink it quite a bit.  But then she started licking it again and it started to grow, so he decided to go ahead and remove it.  He tried a different anesthesia that was safer for older dogs and she did great.  She had to wear a Cone of Shame for a few days,which she did not like!  But she's recovered very well and she's also lost some weight.  We had been feeding her Iams brand and we noticed that a) her weight ballooned up, b) she was pooping larger amounts than she was eating and also the vet was concerned that c) her liver enzymes were up.  We took her off the Iams brand, put her back on Pedigree and she's lost several pounds, does not poop mountains anymore and her liven enzymes are dropping a lot although they are not quite back to normal.  But they are getting there.  She's more playful also.

I have toyed with the idea of quitting blogging altogether and I've also thought about just creating a new one.  At this point, I am just going to continue this one although maybe not posting that often.  I'll try not to wait 5 months, though. :)

What have I been doing?  Lots of crochet and quite a bit of crafting.  We've been enlarging the pachinko business and it's going strong.  I've found more time to go to the library, something I try to do on a regular basis.

Normal stuff, in other words.

But I have made a change in a lot of my opinions.  I am still (and will remain) Christian.  But I am trying very hard not to be a judgemental one.  We were sort (ok, not just sort of) of heading in the direction of fundamentalism.  One of the things we were doing was observing Saturday Sabbath.  That's not the only thing but it was one of the bigger changes we made.  Was, not is.  It was something we tried for several years, the fundamental route and not just the Saturdays.  For various reasons, I realized that was one route I did NOT want to go down and so did Otter.  Bill took a little longer, but we all realized that it was a mistake and was potentially a HUGE mistake.  Most of those mistakes have been rectified, and one of them included changing churches.  We are still Southern Baptist, but not fundamental.  The church we belonged to was not officially fundy, but it had a lot of things in common with fundies.  But there were a lot of things that happened, which I have documented, and it started with the minister seeming to "check out" of doing anything beyond practically phoning in the sermons.  That was what got me thinking and since Otter was really unhappy with the church, I started observing things there a lot deeper.

After Otter moved out, I basically just said that I was quitting a lot of things we were doing and the Saturday observance was the first "casualty."  All the Saturday observance was doing was to make me (and Otter) miserable.  It caused more problems than it fixed, and it really did not do much of anything constructive.  A few Saturdays after I quit it, Bill said he realized that I was making sense and he quit observing it as well.

We were already looking for a new church and I really did NOT want to stay Baptist.  We visited a few Methodist churches but we really did not find "the one" so we quit going at all for a while.  We did not quit our faith, just attending the church.  We decided to visit a small-ish Baptist church that is a couple of miles from home and were very pleasantly surprised.  The first thing we noticed is that they observe Advent - something almost no Baptist churches actually do.  There was a Christmas Eve candlelight service.  There are a lot of other rituals and observances that have always been very meaningful to me/us.  We met with the pastor, he came over to our house, and we had a very nice talk with him.  We decided to join and we did, on January 1st of this year.  So yes, we are still Baptist.  But not fundamental and not stuck in what felt like a dead or dying church.

Among other things, while I am still and will always be pro-life, I'm not going to be militant about it.  I believe strongly that life begins at conception.  But it's between each person and God how they feel, and what they do.  I do not have an issue with birth control, at all.  I don't consider abortion to be birth control.  And I do as much as I can to donate to and assist groups such as the local ones that help teen girls who are pregnant.  But I'm not the type to picket the clinics, etc., I never really have been.  But I will continue to pray for all concerned in that situation.

I'm also basically going back to beliefs that I have held for years.  We can all love who we want and it's nobody else's business what anybody does in the privacy of their own lives.  That is something that I never really had an issue with.  I think a lot of the reason I ever changed my mind on that issue to start with is when I lost a very good friend to AIDS.  He was in his early 20's when he died.  It was a few years before I decided that his lifestyle was wrong.  But recently I have realized a few things, and one of those things is that it was his life and he had the right to live it as he wanted.  And that goes for everyone.  I have a very good gay friend and I told him (on inauguration day) that I supported him 100% and I meant that.  He's not the only one I support in that sense.  So, the basic thing I saying (or trying to) is that we all have to live our lives in the way that works for us.  And that I am not here to judge anyone.  What really matters is how we treat each other, that is the basic truth that a lot of people miss.  I missed it for years.  I'm not missing it any longer.

And I am sincerely sorry to anyone who I may have hurt.

Christmas Eve 2016

Yes, I know it's been just over two months.  I'm still here!  There just hasn't been anything spectacular to blog about.

Billyboy is still working on the pachinko machines, our side business is doing very well.  At some point, he will most likely need to get a "regular" job - but that might be problematic in this area and in his area of expertise.  But we are still chugging along, trusting God to get us to where we need to be.

Over the last few months, we've been attending a different church.  We have been unhappy with our church for a very long time, and we have not attended it in over 2 years now.  And in those two years, we have heard from them exactly once - and then only because I made a mistake on a tithe check we mailed them!  We have discussed going back to the Methodist church and attended one for a few weeks before we realized we did not like that particular church that much.  We've visited a few others and one Sunday we decided to visit a Baptist church that we visited years ago.  We were there on a day when another smaller church was visiting with the idea of combining the two churches, and they would be meeting at the sanctuary close to us.  We really enjoyed it and decided to continue to visit.  And then we realized that we were attending a Baptist church but it's actually a lot closer to some of the things that we enjoyed in the Methodist services.  For one thing, they observe Advent.  I don't know of any other Baptist church that does that.  Some of the prayers are occasionally given by women - which never happens in the Baptist church!  We met with the pastor and really liked him.  Tonight, there was a Christmas Eve service - candle light, and with the final observance of Advent - and Communion/Lord's Supper.  We are either joining it tomorrow or next Sunday (New Year's Day.)

Otter is doing very well.  She's gotten a couple of raises at work and her reviews have been very good.  She's basically been told that she's being groomed for management at some point.  She is a very hard worker and has been full-time for a few months.

Maggie is at my feet at the moment - hogging the blanket I have on my legs.  She's been very playful lately, we switched her back to the Pedigree food because the Iams did not seem to be satisfying her, and I think she likes the Pedigree better.

Froggy's middle kid got married in November.  Otter and I were able to go, it was in McKinney Texas which is a really neat little town.  We finally got to meet Froggy's grandbaby, who is absolutely precious, and he was really cute during his parent's wedding.

OK, that's about it.  Sort of caught up but there really has just been "normal life" going on and that is fine with us.  Especially considering that this time last year, we were expecting Bill to be out of a job at any time.  But we didn't anticipate it being like it was, and that is just one more example of God taking care of us.

OK So it's Tuesday

And I don't really have a lot to talk about, but I am going to try to get back into the blogging thing!

I don't want to upset Froggy, after all!  :)

I was looking back over some of the stuff I posted in the past.  This year has not been very busy at all, especially compared to last year.  The last 3 or 4 years, we were dealing with Bill's job/hell-on-Earth situation and then last year had a lot of car/Otter/Otter's roommate/Otter's multiple moves happening.  But this year has been fairly calm.  Which is a Very Good Thing.

The Presidential election is in a very short few weeks.  I will be so glad when it's over!  It's one of the dirtiest I can recall.  I'm not impressed with either of them.  I'm not normally quiet about who I vote for, but this year I may be.  It's just not a good choice, either way!

I like this one:

And this one:

But I think I have a better choice:

Maggie Moo & Babbicat!  (Babbiecat is J's cat).

5.6

When we moved to Oklahoma in 1993, we knew that bad weather was part of the deal.  But we never expected earthquakes!

In November of 2011, there were a few small ones and then one very big one that hit in the middle of the night.  It was interesting, to say the least.  At the time, it was the highest on record for this area.

Until yesterday morning, that is.  We were sitting on the couch enjoying coffee and discussing out plans for the day at about 7:00.  Maggie Moo was acting really weird.  She's an affectionate little fluff most of the time and likes to be with us.  But she was acting like she wanted to glue herself to me, she was leaning on my leg and acted like she was surgically attached to me.  We also noticed at about the same time that the morning bird chorus was suddenly silenced.  At 7:03, we heard a very strange sound almost like a sander or grinder and it was coming from the direction of the outer kitchen wall which is the west side of the house.  We looked at each other, Bill said "what is that?"  Then the couch started shaking and the floor rippled - we figured out that it was an earthquake at that point, obviously.  We got up and went very quickly to the door frame and Maggie Moo went right with us - I called her name but she was going anyway.  We had the tv on and I must have turned it to one of the local stations because the channel changed and the weatherman was on.  He was in the midst of a forecast when he suddenly started saying things along the line of "OK folks, we seem to be having an earthquake."  It seemed to last for a long time, the hardest part of the shaking was probably about a minute but the actual quake was a few minutes long in duration and we felt most of it.  Once we could tell that it was over, the tv was still moving slightly and we could hear what was probably everything in the china cabinet vibrating still.

It took a little while, but the strength was revealed to be a 5.6 which is a pretty big quake.  It was centered in Pawnee, which is about 50 miles west/northwest of Tulsa.  It was shallow, just a few miles deep, which is why we could feel it so strongly.  It was huge and was felt as far as Memphis, Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, parts of north TEXAS.  There was quite a bit of damage at the epicenter, no deaths but one injury and at least one fire caused by either the gas lines being ruptured or the electric lines.

There have been several aftershocks, although we haven't felt any.  According to the news this morning, there were at least ten.  It also appears that it was a previously unknown fault.

Maggie Moo was a goosey girl for a while, but she got back to normal after a couple of hours.  The birds did start singing again, but we didn't hear them for several hours.  There was a weather radar picture released that was taken at the time of the earthquake hit - all the birds took off and there were so many of them and so fast that it appeared on radar!

We didn't have a lot planned for this weekend, I got my flu shot Friday afternoon and I can never tell how much of a reaction I will have.  Otter went with me, we decided to get them at the same time.  She got hers first and then I got mine.  It was 5:39 when I got mine.  About 3 minutes later, I felt cold - not like a severe chill but definitely cold.  By the time we got to the front of the store and got cokes out of the fridge section, I was feeling warm. Not hot flash warm, but warmer than normal.  I dropped her and J off (he was visiting and went along with us) and headed on home.  I felt ok then, but in the 15-ish minutes it took us us to get home I started to crater.  We had Digorno's pizza for dinner, I had a drink and went to bed early. I felt like I had a low grade fever and was slightly achy, I didn't sleep too well and woke up with a headache yesterday morning.  I didn't feel as bad as the night before but I did not feel too good.  Bill had a couple of errands and I decided to ride along with him.  Obviously, that was after the shaky start to the morning!  But mostly I spent the day parked on the couch, with a crochet hook in my hand part of the day and the tv remote as well. I didn't actually nap, but I did rest and stayed on the couch.  I went to bed somewhat early last night and slept better.  I woke up this morning with a slight headache and didn't feel 100% but I was still better.  I've been taking it easy for the most part today, although I did ride along when Bill went to the booth.  It's been a much lighter reaction this year than last year.  I am not complaining at all about that!

OK, Froggy. I blogged.  I told you I would, and I did!  :)

Late August 2016

I can't come up with an interesting title.

I don't mean to neglect this blog.  But there just isn't anything exciting going on.

I'm pretty much over the sinus infection, which is a good thing.  I'm hoping that I have at least 2 1/2 years before the next one - or longer!!!

It's still warm, it is Summer after all.  But it is cooler than it was and the signs are there that Fall is on the way.  I think we are going to start getting our firewood pretty soon.  We didn't get the full amount last Fall that we normally get, but then it was such a mild winter that we hardly used any of what we had on hand.  We're not going to take the chance of a mild winter and not have enough firewood.  Bill is probably going to get the first truck load in the next week or so and then I think probably a couple more loads.

At the moment, there are 7 pachinko machines in the living room.  All of them are restoration jobs for customers.  He has two that he's almost done with, one of them is his machine that is destined for the booth and the other one is a customer's machine.  He's keeping pretty busy with them.

Maggie Moo has been her usual silly beagle self.  I took her out in the back yard this afternoon, she has not had much interest in tracking lately.  Until today.

She was extremely interested in something and she followed her beagle nose all over the side of the back yard close to the shed.  We have not seen raccoons lately or any sign of them, but I'm thinking that they may be back.  I don't think she was tracking a cat's scent.  She had that nose to the ground and she was sniffing deeply.  She went from the back of the yard to the front of the back yard and then to the corner of the house where the fence attaches.

She went to the corner of the house/fence and then along the house back the direction she'd started from but in a different spot.

She was concentrating very intensely.  I can see why beagles are used to hunt with, just from the way she was tracking whatever it was.

Then she went back to the rain barrel.  She had started for it when she was walking towards the front but I called her away and that's when she went on to the front of the back yard.  But on her way back, she zeroed in on something and it was apparently very strong and possibly very fresh.  She stuck her entire head under the stand the rain barrel is on and she did not want to come out.  Whatever has been underneath it was probably pretty recently.  I will not be surprised if it does turn out to be raccoons.

I just hope it's not skunks!

Figured I'd Better

post something here before Froggy gets on me about it!

Beat you to it, Frogs!!

Anyway.

Bill's been busy with pachinko machines and got another one ready today for the booth.  It's in a cabinet, he sold one with a cabinet out of the booth last month.

I've been working on a crochet project which should have been finished a long time ago.  But after I was about a third of the way through, I decided that while it was nice it was not what I wanted for the person it's intended for.  So, I frogged the entire thing out and then started over with a totally different pattern.  I've had a lot of interruptions as well as some tendonitis, so it's taken me weeks when it should have been days.  But it's now through, except for the millions of tails that I have to weave in.  That may take longer than it did to crochet the entire piece!

Maggie Moo may need to go back to the vet about those flappy ears of hers.  She's acting like they may be bothering her again.  I'll talk to the vet tomorrow and see what they suggest.

She was sprawled out like this the other day, seems like she would not have been comfortable but she apparently was because she was snoring.  Loudly!

And that is all I can think of today!

Two in a Row!!!

I know, I'm bad at blogging lately.  I will try to be a little better. Can't have Froggy mad, now can I?

What's new.  Well, I'll have to think about that.

I don't think I mentioned it, but Otter was promoted to full time at her job a few months back.  She's not quite a supervisor, but she is the senior associate in her department and has basically been told that she's in line for moving up at some point in the future.  Moving up basically means that she is being groomed, prepared, watched, etc., because she is managerial material in training.  Hopefully, that sentence makes sense!  She had an excellent review last week and got another raise.  She's a hard worker, and although she hates to admit it - she is very much a Borg Queen in training!

Maggie Moo has been to the vet twice for her ears this summer, she's on the end of a steroid round this week and I'm hopeful that her ears are cleared up this time.  Frasier always groomed her ears and the vet always commented on how sparkling clean they were.  But since he went to the Rainbow Bridge, her ears aren't happy.  She's a happy beagle, just with unhappy ears.  She has not had many walks lately, but that's because a) it's summer and hot and b) it's summer and hot and that means humid.  The heat isn't so much of a problem for me, but the humidity is.  My asthmatic lungs don't deal well with humidity.

Otter went to TNT last month, the cosplay convention in Tulsa.  I'm not posting pictures because her face was visible in all her costumes but she and J had a great time and enjoyed the weekend.

Bill's been busy with pachinko machines.  He sold one out of the booth last month, and has had quite a few restoration jobs.  It's doing very well.  It's not going to be a living wage out of it, but it's a very good supplement.  He has done some job hunting, but there is not much out there at the moment.  He's either extremely overqualified or underqualified.  I think it's time to start thinking of jobs other than in his field of electronics engineering.  When he got his degree, electronics was expected to be a growing field with a bright future.  However, that prediction is not exactly what happened and we have been seeing evidence of that for a few years.  But we aren't worried, God has brought us this far and He's not going to abandon us.

It has just been a somewhat boring summer, and that is actually good.  So, Froggy - two this week!  No complaints will be accepted from you.  :)

Yeah, Yeah. I Know.

Been a while!  As Froggy reminded me.

There just isn't anything spectacular going on.  Normal, quite, calm "real life" and that is about it.  I'm not complaining, it's still a nice and obvious change from what we had been dealing with concerning Bill's last job.

Speaking of Bill, he had his annual skin cancer check last week.  For the first time in more years than I can remember, he did not have any.  He had three or four little spots that could become skin cancer in the future and one of them was probably close, so the doctor froze them all and the big one was frozen twice.  Because of the size, the doctor was afraid it might not all freeze so he wants Bill to go back next week so he can look at it and freeze it again if it needs it.  But that's all, no cutting, no slicing, nothing!  It is such a nice change.  The doctor said that Bill should get two weeks of back rubs, but Bill settled for lunch that day. :)

Beyond that, it's just normal and quiet and I'm not complaining.

7 Days

Since the last time I managed to post anything here.

Froggy, you must be slipping.  You haven't reminded me once.  :)

Last Thursday, there was a really bad storm.  It was pretty much totally unexpected and it was actually starting to become tornadic at one point.

There was almost no warning.  It was lunchtime and I had thought about going out for lunch but decided to stay in and I'm glad I did.  We had rain chances but nothing bad was expected.  The first hint was when my cell phone started making the Alert sound - it is very loud and very shrill.  The entire screen said "TORNADO WARNING. TORNADO IN THE AREA."  It wasn't raining or anything, I turned the radio on and they were doing the normal mid-afternoon show.  I thought that the cell service provider must have had a problem and sent out a bad message by mistake.  And that's when the Tornado Sirens started sounding.  When they go off, it's best to pay attention and take cover.  The boss was in his office but had heard my phone alert so he was coming up the hallway to see what the noise was, when the sirens started.  He ran back towards his office for his phone and I was already in the area we decided is the safest spot - the bathroom which is on a north outside wall but the center of the building is a glassed-in atrium and the glass makes it a very unsafe spot.  Bill called me at that point, he was at home and was watching the noon news.  They were on the storm warning by that point and they were calling out the exact area of Tulsa I work in as being in the firing line of a rotating cloud.  He was telling me what the news said and I was telling the Boss.  Then the cloud started to move more south and not southeast, and the rotation stopped.  At that point, they cancelled the tornado warning but were still putting out a lot of warnings in the direction the cloud was moving because of the fact the cloud had shown rotation already.

The Boss opened the garage door to check the sky and by that time,the cloud was right there.  It was well east of us and we were safe, but it was still pretty scary to look at.  These pictures were taken with my cell phone and make it look a lot lighter than it actually was.

No, these are not "Hey Y'all Redneck Last Word pictures!

After the cloud had moved a little further south, that's when the real storm hit.  The one that was behind the rotation.  The rain was very sudden and very, very heavy.  The wind was even worse.  There were trees ripped out of the ground all over Tulsa and the surrounding areas, trees that were broken into pieces, limbs thrown everywhere.  It was a very, very severe storm.  I've seen rain forced sideways by wind before, but not like this.  Of course, Otter was at J's house and that particular town was right in the direction the cloud and storm were headed next.  They were aware of the weather and stayed inside, ready to take cover.  J's house was ok, but there were two incidents that were confirmed to be the work of a small tornado in the general area.

When I got home, which took a while because of several street lights that were out and also because of debris in the road in some spots, we still had power but we also had limbs down in the back yard.  But  there was one place in particular, a church in south Tulsa that literally had a wall ripped off just because of the wind.  Bill's dad had a tree limb down in their back yard - but they don't have any trees.  It was split off of a neighbor's tree, then the wind carried it over the fence and into their yard.  It was not a small limb, either.  Parts of the Tulsa area and surrounding area just had power restored today, Monday.  Bill cut up the limbs from our tree Saturday and also helped his dad with the one in his yard.  Most of it is now in our woodpile, Bill thinks we got about 1/3 of a rick out of it.

Yesterday, Sunday, Bill mowed the yard.  I was standing beside the rock garden when a grasshopper bounced by me.  And landed right in the center of a zigzag spider's web on the trellis!  I had not even seen the web, it was so well camoflauged in the honeysuckle.  Pretty much as soon as the grasshopper landed, the spider was on it.  She moved like lightning and had the grasshopper wrapped completely in silk in just a couple of seconds.  It was amazing to watch her.  Then she moved it to another spot in the web and then a few hours later when I was walking around the yard with the beagle I checked on the spider and she was happily consuming the grasshopper's innards which were probably liquified by that point.  I hope she stays around.  She's probably not quite quarter sized yet, and they can get much bigger.  She can stay in our trellis and eat all the bugs she wants!

Vacation Recap

I actually had intended to blog more last week when I was off work.  Didn't happen, obviously. :)

Anyway.  It was a good vacation.  Last summer's vacation was dominated by some really bad stuff that was happening at Bill's job and it was really bad.  Last December's vacation wasn't as bad, but Bill was sick for several days and that wasn't fun.  I really, really, REALLY needed a good vacation.

Otter had a car trouble incident that turned out to be somewhat minor.  When I was still driving that car, last summer in fact, there were two times when it wouldn't start.  Bill thought maybe that it wasn't totally in park - or at least the sensor didn't think so.  Bill suggested that I try to move the gear to R and then back to P if it did it again.  It did and I did, the car started fine after that and then we didn't have any more problems with it.  Then it started doing it again after it became Otter's car.  The trick worked for her, then it stopped working and Bill went to where she was a few times - and it worked perfectly as soon as he tried to start it.  He did some researching and thought maybe it was the starter sensor or possibly the starter itself.  Then it was fine again and we all kind of forgot about it.  Last Wednesday, Otter came over and we went to the not exactly next door town to pick up J.  We shopped there, then went into Tulsa and shopped some more, then we eventually wound up back at home.  Otter and J left in her car, and they eventually wound up back at his house.  She was going to leave about 8:30 p.m. to head home and the car would not start.  At all.  She tried Bill's trick and after about half an hour, she called me.  She said she really didn't want to call because she knew the car would be fine as soon as Bill got there.  But this time, it wouldn't start for him either.  He spent about 30 minutes attempting to start it and he took the starter sensor from my car to see if that was the problem.  But the sensor for my car wasn't the same size as her car's sensor.  Since her car was in a safe spot - J's mom's driveway, we wound up leaving it there.  We took her home and looked up Chevy dealers that were within her AAA towing limit.  There was one in the small town the car was in, I picked her up very early (like 6:00 a.m. early) and we went back to the not exactly next door small town.  The car started on the first try, so she drove it to our small town and I followed her.  We went to a local Chevy dealership and they thought it was either the starter or the sensor.  They never could duplicate the problem, but they agreed with Bill that the sensor was the most likely problem because the starter itself looks good.  Which is a good thing, as the starter would be about $900.00 to replace.  The replaced the sensor and Otter's been watching it since then.  So far so good, but she's not going too far from home.

Bill cleaned the carpet in the living room last week, when we moved the loveseat to the opposite side of the living room a few weeks ago it was very obvious that the carpet needed to be cleaned.  The last time we cleaned it was 3 years ago I think.  The area under the loveseat was much lighter than the rest of the carpet.  Now it all matches.  He's going to get the hallway in the next few days.  I would like to do the yarn room again but he just cleaned it in January so it's probably ok for a while.

I did a little shopping in the area but didn't really buy much.  I spent some time crocheting, which was good, and we mostly just goofed off.  It was a pretty good week, actually.

Tuesday. Day 2 of Stay at Home Vacation

Not a staycation!  I dislike that word intently.

Anyway.  Yesterday was a lot of fun, we went to Bill's dad & stepmom's for the 4th.  Bill's niece, her husband and kids were here to visit and it was nice to get to see them.  Otter had to work, but she came over to join everyone when she got off work.  Bill and I both try to stay out of the sun, redhead complexion and sunlight don't mix very well.  He was not really in the sun very long but his face is pretty red.  I was not in it at all, but I was sitting close enough to the pool that the reflected light got me a little pink as well.  Just on my right side.  Bill said I have one raccoon eye (because of my glasses) and I have a patchy sunburn on my right shoulder because of my shirt strap plus my upper right arm.  Not a bad sunburn for either of us and we've been using a lot of aloe vera gel but Bill has to be very careful because he tends to get skin cancers.

We slept in a little bit this morning, we both woke up around 7:00.  After breakfast, Bill got the back yard mowed and I did a little work on the honeysuckle bed/trellis.  Yes, he wore his hat with the flap covering his neck.  And he also hollered at me because I forgot my hat - I'm always getting on him about his, so he wasted no time in returning the favor!  :)

I had to run to wallyworld for carpet cleaner, since we're going to clean the carpet on Thursday.  Possibly Friday.  Anyway, since I was there I went ahead and got the few grocery items I needed.  Walmart is already clearing out the summer stuff - pool toys, sun block, etc., and stocking school supplies.  It's only July 5!  But I did discover half-price chocolate candy, since the holiday was yesterday and the packages were decorated with the American flag.  I grabbed several bags, I don't have a deep freeze any longer but it WILL last us a while.  Yes, Bill.  IT WILL.

Tomorrow is my play day.  The only day I actually planned an activity during my vacation week.  I'm going shopping with Otter!  Bill is going to stay home, he's not into the shopping thing.  I don't think it's going to be an all day event, but we are going to one of the not exactly next door but close (sort of) small towns because they have a couple of antique stores I've been wanting to check out.  We may go to a book store in Tulsa and we may go to a thrift store or two.  We'll figure that out tomorrow.

And now I'm going to go back to my crochet.  Then I might just follow Maggie Moo's example and take a nap!