What we did this week in Arkansas

Monday I enlisted Dan's help to unload my trailer with the left overs of the neighbor's former bathroom and construction waste at the local transfer station.  There was 2200 pounds of stuff from this upgrade project that she is having done on her bathroom. Having help was a big blessing to me.  We even took Alex and Ethan. At home, Miranda was thoughtfully cleaning the house on her way home with her four children, as Dan then left to go to work. And I was able to get a new temporary crown installed; this one fits much better. Sandy and I have been using Monday nights to review the Come Follow Me lesson for the week and have benefited from this weekly study. Besides individual scripture reading, we have been reading the New Testament together each evening.

This was breakfast; Rebecca got us a cute waffle iron and we just had to try it out!

Tuesday I started on Rebecca's house by  prepping the walls for painting and removing the floor on the porch.  Then off to Home Depot to buy materials to complete the work. In the afternoon, Sandy and I attended the viewing of a 70 year old sister that had recently passed away unexpectedly. She was one of several children of Hawaiian parents who married a Navy man who treated her with great respect. She always sat in the back row of church with the traditional flower in her hair.

Wednesday I was back at the rent house. Used three tubes of caulking to seal cracks between walls and molding and other areas.  Just gives it a more finished look.  Also removed three of the cheap looking ceiling fans; they are destined for the Salvation Army. Lesson learned:  with a very popcorn ceilings and poor housekeeping, ceiling fans tend to pull dirt to the ceiling. These fans will be replaced with lights only.

Thursday I was able to get the three bedroom, dining room and kitchen ceilings painted.  Big improvement. Also repaired the floor under the washing machine area.

We had planned to drive to Andy's Friday noon to spend the weekend.  Aaron and Katie both had state finals for their school swim team on Saturday. Andy had mentioned they were short of back up timers, so he signed me up. He is also in charge of the computerized scoring system for these meet. Friday morning we received a text, followed by a phone call.  One of the girls was sick and it was probably not a good idea for Sandy to be in the same house for the weekend.  So that modified our plans some.  I went back to working on the house for most of the day. On one half of this house, which includes the dining room, kitchen and laundry room (about 31 feet long by 8 feet wide), the ceiling is fiber board (not drywall). It was starting to pull away at the seams and reattaching it was not effective.  So I bought some 1x6, ripped them to 3 inches and routed the edges so they could be attached to the ceiling to overlap the seams. I got this project completed in addition to painting the living room and laundry room ceilings painted.  Ceilings are all done! They are literally a pain in my neck. Sandy had her weekly visit from home health. Her favorite nurse came and spent a long time just visiting.

I was up early Saturday to drive to Russellville arriving by 8am.  Lots of fog. Andy and I drove to the pool; he got his equipment set up and I was retrained on the timers responsibilities.  The pool has 8 lanes, each requires two timers with stop watches. Times are recorded and used only if the computer scoring malfunctions. I was paired up with a young lady who just happens to be a member of the church and knows the local Fox family. Interesting that Mountain Home is in this swim team district and yet I was there to support Russellville. Both Katie and Aaron improved times and were pleased with their respective races. The youth stayed to clean up and Andy had to store his equipment.  I went to the car and took a nap. We came home and the two youth showered and changed to drive to Little Rock for a multi stake Super Saturday dance. Andy took me across the street to a neighbor that needs a wheel chair ramp build and installed. We looked at how he can accomplish this and then entered the house to retrieve a recently purchased wheel chair so we could assemble it.  Unfortunately, the owner forgot to silence the alarm. It was very loud. Andy did not have their phone number to alert them, so we took the chair, closed the doors and left - with the alarm still blaring. A few minutes later, back at his house, we heard a siren. Then it went quiet and a minute later a Marshall pulled up into the driveway. I don't know the outcome of that episode, because I needed to head home.  2.5 hours later I was at our house. Sandy had survived the day without incident.

Today was church. Good talks in sacrament on the importance of the temple. One of the speakers, McKenzie, will be sealed in the Kansas City Temple this next Saturday and she shared her preparation for being worthy to do so. And said that although she dated non members, all of them knew her standards because they were interviewed by her dad who went over the For the Strength of Youth guidelines.

Sandy update:  She continues to amaze me! Her strength and fortitude in an otherwise overwhelming situation is nothing short of a miracle. New developments: after being on the Protocel for over four weeks without any measureable improvement, she started losing weight. She has gone back to her previous routine. It was encouraging that when she saw Clifford on Thursday that he had good things to say about her progress inspite of her losing a couple of pounds this week.  Tuesday will be the one year anniversary of her cancer diagnosis. 

We had a lot of rain this month, over 8 inches; the ground is so saturated additional rain only pools on top of the ground or runs off.  Notice our new swamp land.

Things of significance (at least to me) accomplished this week:  I got the new gas gauge installed in the Model A; after 89 years, the cork in the old one was having issues.  Problem now is that the new ring is shiny and the surrounding area is tarnished with age.  Like getting your hair done and not putting on makeup.