Friday, September 19, 2008

Catching up again

OK, so it has been awhile since I wrote, again I am just going to list what has been going on the last couple of weeks.
  • Shonda and I attended Jenn's baby shower, on the 7th. She got lots of nice things, and I found out that you are not supposed to cover babies with blankets when you put them to bed, it is easier for them to suffocate. I made a comment that it is a miracle we “ the gandmother generation” made it to adulthood. I mean we didn't use seatbelts, or car seats, bike helmets, had drawstrings on our hoods, lead paint, no bottled water....
  • A friend of Charlie's, the one he went to Oregon with a couple of years ago, called him a couple of days before his appointment and wanted to know if he wanted to go to Phoenix to do some work,. Charlie told him he could because he had surgery scheduled. He had his doctor's appointment on Tuesday, the 9th. There was a misunderstanding somewhere, because it was just a consultation and not surgery. The Dr. suggested that he wear a brace at night, that it works better wearing at night than during the day. He has to go back on November 3. So he and a couple of other men left for Phoenix on the 12th at 8 AM.
WARNING Complain mode- I had a miserable weekend:
  • It started raining about 8:30 PM, Friday night and rained all night, the roof started leaking (are you ready for this) over the toilet, not into the toilet, on the seat. The kitchen sky lights have leaked before, but this weekend it started running along the ceiling to the wall, and running down behind the cupboard, water running on to the microwave, I had buckets and bowls setting on the floor, on the the bathroom,stool and on the cupboard. I rained all day. I emptied the rain gage at about 5 PM, we had 3.5 inches of rain.
  • I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, because my CPAP had quit, because I had no power. GREAT.
OK done complaining - it could have been worse at least I wasn't in a hurricane or have several inches of water on the floor.
  • Shonda and I went to see a movie Sunday, There was nothing elsed to do. We saw The Women, it was pretty good, but the critics didn't like it, I think probably because they are all men. We thought it was funny. I started working on my macrame chair, not very hard, a little tricky getting the first cords started, and the pattern on the back is a little difficult to count and doesn't look like much of a pattern at first.
  • I emptied the rain gauge at 6:00 PM there was another 5 inches.
  • When I called consumers abouut the power their projected reconnect time was Tuesday evening at 6 PM.
  • N0w for some better news, I had a Doctors appointment Monday morning, and a I have lost 10 pounds (since April) not a lot but it is a start, and I do feel better, with more energy, and more rested. I even took the dog for a walk when I got home tonight (Tuesday). Only 15 minutes, but it is better than nothing, but it was all I my back could manage.
  • The power came back on by 5:30 Monday. At least I didn't loose any of the food in the freezer like the last time we were without power.
Springport's homecoming is tonight (Friday) I don't know if I will go to the game, but I am going to the parade to campaign for the library millage for more information on that if you are interested see the library website

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Labor Day Week-end continued

After thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided I needed to add a couple of things about this camping trip that we will probably remember for years to come.
  • Charlie standing on the floating dock and Tom pulling him in.
  • Kathy using the paddles on the inflatable boat to maneuver the dock around the pond.
  • The frog that tried to eat a snake. I didn't see it and we have no pictures you will have to ask, Charlie or Michelle.
  • Tom floating around on the pond for a long time using the inflatable sides of a kiddie pool (the bottom had a big hole so they cut the sides off).
  • Little Benjamin toddling around falling down then having to crawl to something to pull himself up because he hasn't figured out how to stand up without some support.
  • Benjamin being so overly tired and overly stimulated, and not wanting to go to sleep getting so upset he was sobbing, and then throwing up all over daddy Ben. Papa (Tom) was the only who could finally calm him down.
Actually we might not have remembered them for years, but we will now that I have put it in writing and posted on the web for all the world to see.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Labor Day Week-end

We used the camper for the first time this past week-end. We camped at my sister's property in Olivet. I know that sounds a little strange, but it is about 12 acres back off the road, they have built a pavilion, and although you can see a couple of back yards it feels more isolated.

This is a panoramic view of the campers taken from the hill near the pavilion

We saw several deer and 3 or 4 wild turkeys, although no rabbits or raccoons.
They have a pond with lots of little blue gill and bass, and some that are getting to be decent size. We even saw a blue heron fly into the pond, but it didn't stay more than a few seconds, too many dogs and kids.

Friday and Saturday was just family, including some of the dogs. My great nephew will be 11 months old next week and is toddling around and has a fascination for anything on wheels that makes noise. He particular likes tires, and they have to watch him like a hawk, because as most babies, he wants to see what they taste like.

My brother brought his dog Otis, who is about 14 years old and has arthritis in his hips and cannot hear very well. One day I watched him take a few steps, stop and do this have crouch lunge thing for a second or two, take a couple more steps and lunge again. I made the comment that it looked like he was doing exercises. (see the picture to the right).

Every camping trip or family vacation has to have something special to remember, this one was no exception. Sunday night, a lot of friends and extended family came for dinner. there was probably 30 people. There were a lot of people there who were dog people so they petted and played with both his dog and ours.

At some point in the afternoon Otis came up missing and without a huge announcement half of the people were looking for the dog. In the pond, in the "tall weed" in the briars, in the woods, and down the road. For about 15 minutes.

Then somebody notices that my brother-in-law's propane camp stove is in flames. He had left it on to burn off some of the grease and in the process of looking for the dog, forgot about it and the grease caught fire.

About 8 of us were trying to decided how to put out the fire before it burnt the pavilion down. We did get it turned off, but the grease was still burning. I had said don't use water it will just make the grease fire worse, they didn't listen, flames shot to within inches of the rafters. Somebody tried opening the lid that gave it more oxygen, same effect. They tried beating with a dry towel (yeah like that's going to work). My niece got a fire extinguisher from a camper, (out of date and no pressure) finally Charlie yelled but a wet towel over it. duh!!!! Sorry, don't have any pictures of the fire. (sorry no picture of the fire we were too busy trying to put it out)

OK, back to looking for the dog. Which we found about 20 yards from the campfire ring, lying in the weeds in the shade of a big tree. See the large tree behind
Charlie to the left of where he is setting, that's about where we found Otis.

Like I said every trip has to have something to remember.