"What a hassle!" ... BUT God is Faithful !!!

To borrow a line from a friend (that will always cause both of us to remember the exact situation) - "What a hassle!"

A Simple Delivery ...
It seemed like a simple thing. I was to have a new refrigerator and a new stove delivered today. The new dishwasher and hood for the stove will have to be delivered separately, since they require "installation" into the house. Okay. I can handle that.

The mix-up ...
They were scheduled "between noon and 5pm." You know the drill. So, I called around 11 to see if they could tell me where I fell on the delivery schedule. I was told I was last of five deliveries, so I could expect it to be between 4 & 5pm. Okay. Great. I could run another errand I needed to do while I was off.

I won't go into the saga of what should have taken about an hour total, from the time I left home until I returned, turning into over 2 hours at the service center and the expected $40 bill being $140. I'll just leave that one for another day.

At any rate, it's still just after 1:30 and as I leave I decided to check my home recorder for messages. At 12:20 there's a message from the delivery guy that they are just leaving the store and heading to my house. What happened to being scheduled last? To expect them between 4 & 5pm? At about 12:50 there is another message that they were at my house and no one was there, so I needed to call the store and reschedule.

You betcha, I'm calling the store!!

Person at store: "Oh, sorry, who told you that? They should not had done that."

Okay, "Thanks!" Next time remind me not to believe what I am told by your employees...

She made a quick phone call to the delivery guys & back to me. They would come back by after the one they were working, and they were almost finished there. "So, are they calling me again before they come?" "No, they're almost done. They will be back to your house shortly."

I quickly pull all the food out of the refrigerator. (The freezer food had already been moved to my upright freezer in the garage.) Some could go in ice chests, but not all of it.

An hour later, they call to say they are on their way and will be there in about 20 minutes.

Discovery 1
The first "discovery" was when they pulled the old stove out. It was not plugged into an outlet - it was hardwired into a 6' cable coming out of the wall!

Of course, the "delivery" guys couldn't remove the wires from the old stove and put them in the new one. A call back to the store - and the wait on the subsequent return call to find out the answer - revealed that the "installers" who were coming out later in the week couldn't do that either. I would need to call an electrician to install my stove!

While I was waiting on the call back from the store to determine what could be done with the stove, they started unloading the refrigerator.

Enter Hero # 1
Just as the "lovely" discovery was made, the friend who was coming to take my old refrigerator and stove away to be used by others arrived. "Hold on a minute." He started investigating the situation and determined that it simply needed the "strands" disconnected and then connected correctly to the new stove, and started working to disassemble it. In the process, we decided it really would be better if the stove had the normal electrical cable attached to an outlet rather than running into this same problem the next time. So, he left for Ace Hardware to get a circuit box.

Back to the refrigerator ...
The delivery guys have realized that they can't wheel the refrigerator through the door from the garage into the hall without moving a shelf unit that blocked the approach by about an inch. There was disagreement between them about which would be easier - take the doors off the refrigerator or unload and move the shelves and take the entry door off it's hinges. The second opinion was held by the guy who seemed to be "in charge" - though not the one I would have assigned to be! Hence it won out. They started rearranging my garage and removing my door.

Once the refrigerator was in the kitchen, it soon became apparent that it was not going to simply "slip" into place. The bottom edge of the shelf unit I had measured so carefully, wasn't exactly straight. In the middle, it failed to clear by about 1/8". Seriously! Of course, I had measured the outer edges - on both sides! Then it turned out there was also an opening for access to the ice maker on the top. (I've never seen one of those before - even when looking at and measuring this model in the store.) It also extended up about 1/8-1/4". So, the refrigerator is not going to slide under the built in cabinet.

Enter Hero #2
I have a friend who is an incredibly gifted handy-man that I knew had recently encountered a similar problem when installing a new microwave in his kitchen. I called him to see if he could help me out. Not only was he willing, he had time to come this evening and take care of it - and show me some of his new fancy (actually, very cool!) tools.

Back to the stove ...
Jess was back from the hardware store, had the wiring installed in the stove (hmmm, you would have thought the guys who delivered the cable with the stove would have done that!), the receptacle attached to the 6' wire that was coming out of the wall, and we were ready for power. First good sign: no casualties when I flipped the breaker back on. :) And there was power to the stove. It took a little bit to get all 12' of wiring bundled up small enough that the stove would slide back and the drawer on the bottom close. Having a "long & lanky" son helped - AJ had to crawl behind and bundle up the wiring cables and then be lifted out over the stove!

Yea!! The new stove is functional.

As for that refrigerator...
Tim and his wife, Theresa, who is almost always beside him in his many "charity" efforts like tonight's, came by after work. Even with her making a run back to their house to pick up one tool they failed to get loaded, he had the lip and sides of the flange on that cabinet trimmed and my refrigerator sitting in it's rightful place in less than an hour and a half - cleanup included. Wow! Tim, you're the man!!

So, a mere 5.5 hours after I was told the delivery men "would be there shortly," I had stove and refrigerator installed and operational. (At least I got the food back in the refrigerator after only about 3.5 - 4 hrs).

BUT God is Faithful!!

In spite of all the hassles, God has Jess arrive just as the stove is sitting there, with the delivery guys waiting for me to tell them to leave it or take it back. And Tim answered his phone rather than it rolling to voicemail as is often the case, and was not only willing to help but could do so this evening. God really does know what we have need of, even before we ask.

But, for the record, I am asking ahead of time for a quick, simple, no surprise delivery and installation of the dishwasher and stove hood on Friday afternoon. Prayers of agreement welcomed!!

working on the "to do" list

Wow how time flies. I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted here. Guess I've been focusing on Facebook & other things. So, let me catch up a little.

I finally got the new roof on my house the first week of February. For those not from Kansas, waiting from September to February may seem like a long time. Last year was "a bad roof year" here. That means lots of hail damage. Not only did it get both of my roofs (the one on the house I was trying to sell and on my current home), it got lots of others as well.

For those of you who do live in Wichita, if you haven't had your roof checked you might want to do so. Often people do not realize they've had hail damage until the roof begins leaking. Better to get it replaced before that happens. Since I had a notice put in the homeowners association newsletter, at least four others have had their's checked and had enough damage for the insurance company to replace it.

Now that I have that done, I can start hanging pictures. Since they had indicated I needed to take them down while they were banging on the roof (which is, of course, by design connected to the walls :-), I used that as my excuse for not starting to get them hung. Now that excuse is gone.

My other two major jobs inside the house here were to re-caulk all the bathrooms and kitchen and to put knobs on all my cabinets and drawers. Today I "bit the bullet" on the caulking job. It's something I just never have been good at -- so I have NOT been looking forward to doing it. (Yes, you can translate that as "dreading it!")

Today, as I was about to start, I sent a reply txt to a friend and added a request for prayer because I was about to start the caulking job. I added, "Need Daddy God to show me how 2 do this right." As I was finishing up all the clean up tonight, I realized that He had! This is the first time that I have ever had it turn out looking "neat" (like it's supposed to!). And I did approach it a different way.

God is so good! And those of us who do not have a husband to pawn these tasks off on :-) or a father to teach us how to do them (which my dad couldn't have done, even if he were still alive), we learn how to turn both to Father ("Abba" really translates "Daddy") God & to our husband, Jesus.

I frequently talk with one or the other when I need to figure out how to do something around the house or yard - or even when I really need another hand. That may sound strange to some of you. But there have been MANY times over the years when I was struggling with something because I couldn't hold it and fix it or whatever (you know, those times when married couples call their spouse for an extra hand) and I would stop and ask my husband, Jesus, to give me a hand or send an angel or whatever. Then I would try "one more time" and "suddenly" be able to accomplish the task. He is a faithful Husband as well as faithful Savior and Lord.

Okay ... I've probably "wierded some of you out." Oh, well. That's my life. :-)

So, that leaves me two major jobs inside: hanging pictures and putting knobs on all the cabinets and drawers. For those who have not seen my house, realize that between the three bathrooms, utility room and kitchen that adds up to 45 cabinet knobs and knobs or handles for 22 drawers, some of which are long enough to need two. So that is not a quick or trivial task. It's likely the pictures will be hung first. :-)

And with the promise of spring there is the yard work. I thought moving to a patio home would get me out of that. My recommendation: be sure to read the fine print in the HOA covenants! [Okay, I did know this before I bought.] We are responsible for our beds and landscaping. The HOA dues only pays for the lawn care & snow removal. And my yard desparately needs relandscaping. So, I will be "starting" that this spring. It will likely take 2-3 years. One thing I want to do is put more lighting between the wall and the street - but will likely not get that done this year.

Ok. The clock says 11:30pm, but in a couple of hours we will "spring forward" and miss an hour's sleep. So I better get this posted and get off to bed.

finally finished unpacking

I finished unpacking (well, almost) today, just one day before the 1 year mark of purchasing this house (1/3) and just days before the 1 year mark of moving (1/10).

What I haven't unboxed are all the pictures we had hanging on the walls at the other home. The one disadvantage to fewer, larger rooms is less wall space. But, I can live with that! :-) So, that's the last thing to sort out - how many pictures to put up, where, and what to do with all the others.

And then there are the boxes of things that just seem to stay in boxes forever. We won't talk about those. :-)

more wisteria

I spent another 9+ hours today cutting down wisteria - and even had a neighbor helping me for about 3 of that, so that's 12+ hours of labor. I'm still not "quite" done. I hope the remaining section takes no more than a couple of hours. THEN, we can start working on the wisteria on the other side of the fence (in my neighbor's yard). MOST of what I cut down along the fence on my side "came over" the top of the fence from her side - and was 5-6 ft or more in places on my side! And she even had it cut back once this year!

The long term goal is to cut it completely down on both sides. I have cut mine back "severely" - meaning there is just a "stump" left. However, it will come back if that isn't dug out. Because I do not have another 2-3 days to work on hers, we are going to just trim it this fall -- and try to find time to cut it back to stumps in the spring before it starts really growing. Then we will need to find someone who can dig those out or grind them down like you do a tree trunk. I have a tree that needs to be removed, so hopefully I can find someone to do both jobs. I have a total of nine wisteria bushes. I'm not sure how many she has, but probably the same - since it is along the same fence and she also has them on her patio as I do.

Since I am getting this cut down, I now need to decide what I do want to do as far as landscaping my yard here. That's my next spring / early summer project. :-)

I have really enjoyed getting to know this neighbor. I found a lot out about her today as we were working together. I knew she was widowed fairly recently. Her husband passed away suddenly (in front of my house!) about two and a half years ago. He had been an administrator (vice principal) and she had been a teacher in the public school system.

The best part is that she is a very committed Christian, so we enjoyed sharing some of our "God is so good" stories today.

Guess we'll have time for a few more before we get all of this mess hacked down!


One note on a different subject. The closing on my other house is set for Tuesday (10/7) at 11:00. PTL! It's been nine months today since I closed on my new home.

roofs & wisteria

Today the adjuster came to look at the roof on my new home. It, too, was viewed as needing a full replacement. PTL for fair adjusters for both houses. That was an answer to prayer!

The new roof should be on the place I am selling Thursday. I am still waiting on a definitive closing date & time - but it will be no later than next Tuesday (10/7). Hallelujah! (I have asked to do it Friday or Monday, since I am off those days. We'll see if they oblige.)

I'm not sure when the contractor will be able to do the roof on my new home. Since it is not leaking and I am not needing to close on it, I've told him it isn't urgent. He bumped someone else to get the other one done for me. I've let him know that I can be bumped for him to get someone else who is urgent. It may be late October or early November. That's okay.


As for that wisteria ... who planted that stuff?!

It must be payback for my having planted that 6'-high juniper hedge at the other house and left it for the new owner to deal with there. :-)

The previous owners had planted it around three of the beams on the edge of the patio. They had put support beams up around the edge of the patio to support some 2x8s that are across the top, stood veritically, presumably just for the wisteria to have a place to grow & cover. Well, cover would be okay, if it didn't overtake the whole patio in the process! It is coming down! In addition, it is planted along both sides of the wood fence between my home & one of my neighbor's homes -- and on her back patio as well. Fortunately, she dislikes it as much as I do.

Saturday, I spent 9.5 hours working on cutting it down from the patio! Actually, that was about 2 hours spent cutting it down -- and 7.5 hours spent cutting it up! Given I have no pickup truck, the only want to get rid of it is bag it and leave it on the curb. That means cutting it up in small enough pieces to be able to bag it without all the limbs & branches poking through the bags and causing them to rip. What fun! (NOT!)

I still have one "beam's worth" to cut down on the back patio. But by cut down, I mean all the way to a stump, which I intend to have removed. Then, for this year, I am just going to cut it back along the fence line. I will deal with cutting it out next year.

I had told the lady next door (an older woman who is a widow) that I would trim hers as well - thinking it would be no big deal! (Wrong!!) I talked with her again today. She is able and willing to help cut and bag it - so we are going to work on it together. (You know I am a softie for helping "little ole ladies." Guess I just can't help it - and don't want to try to help it.) Next year, I will try to get it cut down there on both sides. She wants it out, too!

Finally selling the other house this fall means that next year I can focus on relandscaping here. It desparately needs it!

a new roof -- wait, make that two!

As it turns out, my "new" home was not the only one on which the roof had sustained hail damage. Before I heard back from the roofer and turned in the insurance claim on this one, I was notified by my realtor that the inspection at the house for sale indicated it also had hail damage on that roof. That was last Thursday evening.

Last Friday morning, I had the roofer go check that one out instead of this one & I put in the claim to the insurance company. The adjuster was there Tuesday morning. It took until late Wednesday to get the assessment from the insurance company - which had the replacement cost about $1000 below the cost estimated by the roofer. Finally got them "talking" late yesteray and this morning we came to agreed upon amount. (The adjuster apparently had not measured correctly.) The roofer should have it replaced no later than next Thursday.

I didn't put in the claim for this one until I knew I had that one worked -- for a couple of reasons. (1) I wanted my insurance folks & the roofer focused on getting that one worked. (2) One at a time is enough with which to deal! So, I called today to start the process for getting this one replaced. The adjuster is to be here Monday morning and the roofer will be here at the same time -- so we don't have the 2-3 day "back and forth" issue we had with the other one.

I still don't have a closing date on the other house. The contract calls for "on or before" 10/7. I'm hoping for next Friday, 10/3. We'll see.

I'm still on 3-day work weeks. No indication yet when Boeing will resolve the strike. Once they do, we will likely still have some "lag time" before returning to a full work week. The strike started at 12:01am on Monday, 9/8. We are hoping that it only goes a month. (Typically, they will go at least 29 days due to contract issues between Boeing & their customers. There's a clause that if there is a strike lasting more than 28 days, the delivery dates to the customer slide without penalty. So, if they go out for more than a day or two, Boeing doesn't want them back until at least day 29.) However, they still are not even back at the negotiating table, so there is no predicting how this will go.

I was so happy with getting a lot done at my new place the first weekend that I had Friday & Monday off. I spent BOTH days last weekend and most of today dealing with issues with the other house. I am HOPING to get some trimming done at my new place tomorrow. They planted wisteria EVERYWHERE here - and it "takes over." I am planning to trim as much as I can with my electric hedge trimmer, clippers & shears tomorrow. I'm thinking I may (later) borrow a chainsaw to finish the job off and cut them all the way back. Or have a tree removal company come take them out completely!

This week was week five of the ten-week class I am taking at WSU. It has been very interesting. However, there's quite a bit of reading & other assignments in preparation for each week, so that has taken time as well. And I've had some things I've done and a couple more that I need to get done for the Home Owners Association here, for which I am secretary.

So, no danger of my getting into any trouble ... I don't have time for it!

catching up

Can it really be nearly a month since I posted? Needless to say, I've been busy.

Here are some updates:

- Dean was released from the rehab hospital on Friday and is at home. He still has a long way to go, but he's also come a LONG way already. His attitude is wonderful! Everyone who visits comments on how positive he has remained through all the challenges. We've had two "work days" (really "work evenings") over there to get things ready for him. The first one was focused on things that had to be done to accomodate him coming home - repairing the brick walkway (taking up a whole section & re-laying it), pouring a concrete pad by the front gate, making and installing a rail up the inside stairs, putting bars & other things in the bathroom, etc. - the second one centered on getting the yard in shape. We have someone mowing for them, but there's all the weeding & trimming that has to be done as well.

- My friend's brother finally got tired of his battle for life. He made the comment about being tired of fighting to his sister and a friend one evening - and slipped away before the following morning. His funeral was this past Tuesday.

- My house on Stoneborough Court still has not sold. Today is the last day of the 6-month contract I had signed with the realtor I was using. She has decided to close her real estate business down the end of the month, so it made the conversation about choosing to list with someone else easier. The new listing should be posted tomorrow. Their average time on market is 34 days. This is one time I am hoping to be "less than average"! I've spent time & money sprucing the yard up. Okay, really, mostly "maintenance." I went and got the weeding back under control. I paid to have the 6' high juniper hedges trimmed and the same gal took care of limbing the trees that needed it as well. (Some were hitting on the roof.) Last weekend, I finally took the time to plant some annuals in the bare beds. (Is it spring yet?)

- I'm still working on the unpacking & settling in. Got one project done this weekend & a start on the next piece of it. Three more large boxes out of the way in one of the storage areas. :-)

And ... I'm ready for a (true) vacation!
(No, I don't have anything planned.)

oh the yardwork!

I moved to a patio home to get out of yardwork ... but, so far, it hasn't worked!

For starters, the one I bought leaves "the beds" to you. That really means, they mow the grass & everything else is yours. Once I have time to rework the beds (which won't be until next year at least and may take 2-3 years to do), that won't be so bad. In the meantime, I spent one Saturday trimming trees that hadn't been trimmed in years and another one weeding.

Then there's the matter of the house on Stoneborough that still hasn't sold. I have been extremely blessed by my next door neighbor there, who had mowed for me (and probably more likely for Mom!) the past 2-3 years had continued to do so for me until it sold. When I went by today to check and see how bad the other "yard maintenance" issues had become, he saw me there and came over to tell me he really doesn't have time to do that for me anymore. So, now I have to see about getting that place mowed as well as getting over to weed the beds and trim the 150'+ of 6' high juniper hedges and also trim some limbs off the trees that are overhanging the house. The worst part at this point is trying to figure out what to do with all the trimmings. I used to cut them up small enough to bag them so the trash service would pick them up. (That takes 2-3 times as long as the trimming!) But now, I have no trash service there. So, it is either bag them and haul them home to be picked up here -- or find someone with a truck who is willing to let me borrow it to haul them to the dump (during hours when it is open).

I am really ready for that house to sell!!!!

the weekend & Monday

The 4-hour "treatment" at Beau Monde on Friday was wonderful! The problem is you don't know what you are missing until you've experienced it once -- then you know! I'm not sure whether to thank the friends who gave me the package as a gift again -- or blame them for introducing me to how "the other half" lives!

Saturday, I ended up starting to do some of the yard work needed at my new home on Glenmoor. I spent 6.5 hours triming trees & one section of hedge that had overgrown a corner to the point you couldn't mow around it. Well, really it was a little over 2 hours trimming - and the rest cutting up the limbs & pieces into sizes I could bag or bundle in a way that the trash service will pick them up. What fun! I had thought I could do all of that and the weeding "in a couple of hours" and then go do a little at the house on Stoneborough. So much for my time estimates! I was "one tired pup" (as a friend of mine says).

On Sunday, we had a fellowship dinner after church. I've been going to the church in Ark City for almost a year now and this is the first one I have been able to attend for one reason or another. This one was a cookout. It was good to get to visit a little with some of them.

Then I came back to Wichita and went by to visit my friend's brother. He had been having a rough day. He can't keep anything down, which means he continues to lose weight and get weaker.

Today, I attended the funeral for the little boy I wrote about yesterday. It was a very sad situation. The great-uncle (mother's uncle) who did the service really did an excellent job of speaking about what his short life had meant, the people it had impacted, and our Hope for the future. The whole service was very well done. It focused on worship and hope.

things to do ...

The furniture I purchased in Kansas City in late May was delivered today. I finally have the TV in the living room up high enough to see it from the kitchen (over the kitchen bar & living room built-in bookcases). I also purchased a couple of small side tables for chairs in the living room and a "butler" for the kitchen. The butler has "some assembly required" so it is still in the box. I will try to get it put together this weekend, if I can do it without having to get someone to help.

I look at my "to do" list and wonder what to tackle first. I need to:

• put together the kitchen butler;
• do some yardwork in the beds at my new home, including some weeding and creating a bed between the front wall and where I had the sidewalk poured (the other landscaping will have to wait until next year);
• do some yardwork at the house on Stoneborough, including weeding and trimming those 6' high junipers (again!);
• trim trees both at the house on Stoneborough and at the new one on Glenmoor;
• finish unpacking & straightening all the storage areas at the new home, including the garage;
• put knobs or handles on all the cabinets & drawers (in the kitchen, all three bathrooms, and the utility room for a total of 54 knobs & 15 drawer handles); and
• stain or paint several pieces of furniture.

The weather will have to cooperate for the yardwork. It's either been thunderstorms or wind advisory conditions for the past week or more. We've had 3 or 4 hailstorms since Memorial Day weekend. The last couple of days, there has been severe damage from the wind - gusting at times between 80 and 120 mph in places. (Seriously.) The "straight line wind" took the roof all of some houses and other buildings and even topppled two 75' grain elevators this past week.

Brief bunny trail: I will always remember the first time I saw a straight line wind. I had never even heard the term that I could recall. I watched it coming towards our house on Stoneborough Court late one Saturday afternoon. I had been working in the yard and was just to the point of putting things away when the wind picked up suddenly and viciously. I could see the storm in the distance, but it was different than anything I could ever remember seeing. I quickly put things away, including moving the grill into the garage, and headed in the house just as it was approaching. There was no rain; just a ferocious wind & lots of dust. From inside I watched various neighbors' lawn furniture and a kids swimming pool go flying down the street. I was glad I had pulled the grill around and put it up. The only sight I could remember seeing that looked similar was when the dust storms would roll in off the desert ahead of the rain in Phoenix.

So, we'll see how the weekend shapes up and what I really do. I am also still going to the hospital daily to see my friend's brother ... and staying in touch with Dean's wife to keep the blog on his condition updated.

I do have a little "fun" planned for the weekend as well. I have an appointment tomorrow (Friday) at Beau Monde - a spa. Friends gave me a gift package there LAST year for my birthday and I have never slowed down long enough to use it. After finally scheduling it and then rescheduling it twice, I am going tomorrow. It's a 4-hour treatment, including a massage, facial, manicure & pedicure. Then on Sunday, we are having a baby dedication and a fellowship lunch afterwards to celebrate it. (Hopefully, the weather will cooperate since it is to be outdoors.)

it's a new month

May 2008 did come to a close. And finally some GOOD news...

• My friend's brother was moved from MICU to a regular room yesterday.
• Dean was moved to a rehab facility today.
• And I got an email this morning sent by a long-time friend late yesterday announcing the birth of his son earlier in the day. Yea! Something to CELEBRATE!!

I even got another "chunk" of the unpacking done this past Saturday. I got the china & crystal unpacked and put in the hutch. I also got the pink dishes (some depressionware and some other) that my "other" mother gave me last spring (before she passed away last November) unpacked and in a curio cabinet.

With the boxes that had been sitting in the dining room unpacked, I also moved the stack of all the boxes that had been unpacked & broken down out of the dining room to the garage & a storage area. So, the living room / dining room combination is looking pretty "homey." I am not hanging pictures yet. I want to replace the dining room furniture, but that will not happen until the other house sells. And I don't want to start hanging pictures until I know I have furniture where I want it.

Now, it's time to start unpacking and organizing the storage closets. Or time to do a little landscape work in the yard. Both of those will likely wait until I catch back up on the yardwork at the other house.

The month has started well. Hopefully, it will end even better -- with the sale of my other house!

starting to settle in

I am starting to "settle in" to my new home.

I still have unpacking to do. The most visible of that is that I have not yet unpacked the "good" dishes that go in the china hutch. That is partly because I was hoping to buy a new dining room suit (table, chairs & hutch) soon and was postponing this to not have to pull them all out again to get rid of the old hutch -- and them put them all back up in the new one. However, I have not found anything yet that I want to purchase. In addition, I had told myself I would not purchase anything that major until after the other house sold, and it has not yet. So, I will likely go ahead and unpack them. (Maybe that will be the catalyst for the house to sell!)

Once the dishes are put away, then it will be time to focus on all the boxes and piles in the various storage areas. THAT could take a while. But, for the first time I can ever recall, I have space enough to get things organized. Having said that, I now have no real excuse if I do not do so! But those who know me best, know I much prefer things that way.

The curved sidewalk from my driveway to the walkway that runs for the street to my front door is to be repoured next week. I then need to landscape between it and "the wall." I think I will probably put in a crepe myrtle (here they only grow to be a large shrub, not a full-sized tree as they do further south) in the larger "loop" and a smaller shrub, maybe a peony, in the smaller one. I am not sure what else I will put in. Knowing me, a mixture of different types of bulbs. Further relandscaping of the yard (inside courtyard) will likely wait until next year. I am determined to finish the unpacking & straightening this spring & summer. Plus some painting of furniture and other "fix up" projects in the house.

But this house has definitely become "home" and it is fun to have people over. I went to dinner tonight with some friends who had helped me move. They came over afterwards to see what it looked like decorated in something other than "classical boxes." Her mom had dinner with us, so she came by as well. It is always interesting to see the reaction when someone comes for the first time and they start walking through it, because it is so much bigger than it looks from the outside.

I have had conversations with a couple of different folks this past week who know how I grew up and how I lived until I came here. The line from the old commercial that said "You've come a long way, baby!" could not be more true. God has blessed "the work of my hands" and prospered me. I am very grateful and appreciative of all that He has done in my life -- in every area of my life. He is a Wonderful, Loving, Faithful God!

first HOA meeting & my new walkway

Well, I am now the secretary of the HOA (home owners association) for Country Club Courts. I think I also let myself get volunteered to help on the Finance Committee as I was leaving. After the "lively" discussion about this year's budget and the possible need to raise the HOA quarterly dues, I should probably have ducked quicker! :-) In fact, after much discussion about whether the grass in the courtyard should be mowed by push mower and whether or not to trim the wisteria, the Finance Committee took an action to go back and get additional bids on the trimming work and relook at the budget proposal and recommendation for raising the dues (or the amount by which they wanted to raise them). You do need to realize that the wisteria to be trimmed is along both sides of a 1400' x 7' concrete wall on the exterior of the subdivision. That's a LOT of wisteria!! And, apparently, it has not been trimmed in 4-5 years. (It is also in most of our yards, along the section of wooden fence that is on one side of each home. We are, of course, responsible for taking care of that.) The guy who still wanted the oversized riding mowers to eat up the grass in the 15' square courtyards got ignored! And we voted down the idea of putting in locking mailboxes throughout the complex because some people had mail stolen once. (Though they were given permission to put a locking insert in their current mailbox. All the mailboxes have to remain the same. We don't want to marr the aesthetics with dissimilar mailboxes! It was also suggested that they could get a P.O. Box, if they were really concerned.)

So, now you know what elderly, retired people care about. :-) And the half-dozen "youngsters" like myself who live here get to care about it with them.

None the less, I enjoyed my first HOA meeting. They have a covered dish dinner before it and about half of those who attended came for that. There were 35 voting members, including 9 proxies (so 9 less actually present). But there were probably about 35-40 there, since couples only get one vote but most do come together. Since there are only 42 homes, that's a pretty good turnout. At least we were well past quorum. It was a good way to begin to get to know some of my neighbors.

The other news is that they did pour my walkway on Monday. They got it poured and it was set up before the rain started that lasted most of the rest of the week. However, the owner had a cold even worse than mine the day he came to bid it for me. So, he "trusted" his workers to do my curved walkway while they were doing the other two straight ones and a driveway in the area. That was not a good idea. It's curved all right! But the idea was that it formed an S type curve of consistently 42" width. Well, it measures from 32" in places to nearly 40" in others. :-( They will be breaking that one up & hauling it off and he will be making sure it gets dug and the forms set correctly! In the end, that, too, may be a blessing. They also managed to puncture a line on my sprinkler system, which was turned on Saturday. Oops! So ... they are to come break up what they poured & put the new forms down and allow me time to get the sprinkler guy back to run the new line underneath before they pour the concrete.

Life is never dull!

making progress

With most of a day at home today, I made some visibile progress on unpacking. I unloaded the 27 boxes of books that have been stacked in my back hallway! Along with having finally unpacked some of the decorative items for the living room last weekend, it's starting to feel more "homey" here. :-) Still plenty to do, but it's taking shape.

I am getting a sidewalk poured on Monday. They dug it out today. It will go from my driveway to the walkway that runs from the street to the front door. I am surprised that more people have not done that. Four of us here got a bit of a "package deal" from a business to have them all done at the same time. That's the reason I am going ahead with it now. Other "improvements" will wait for the house on Stoneborough to sell.

The implication is that I am beginning to get to know some of my neighbors. Of course, I know the gal who lives beside me to the south. She was the one who told me about the house being available. Since she was on the "nominating committee" for the home owners association, I am "running" for secretary. :-) Elections are next Monday night (4/14) at the annual meeting. The current president called me yesterday to see if I could go ahead and take minutes at this meeting since the current secretary is having health issues and not able to serve. I decided to get involved just to meet some of the folks. Of course, I am one of the "young" ones here. (It's been quite a while since THAT'S been the case for me anywhere!)

catching up ...

You know you are really tired when you are too tired to take a vacation!

A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to go with her to her cabin in the Branson area this weekend. Now that I am back to actually getting Fridays off (working “just” a 4x10 work week), she was taking Good Friday off as well and the plan was to drive over Thursday evening/night and come back this (Sunday) afternoon. A “get away” sounded great. Except that I was passing the point of “being tired” and nearing the point of exhaustion. After last weekend being more “full” than anticipated, I realized that as appealing as the idea of “getting away” for a few days was, the thought of the 5-6 hour drive to get there – and another one to get back – was just NOT appealing at all. What I needed and wanted more was some rest and some “down” time with the Lord. Fortunately, she understood.

So, I “took the weekend off” – well mostly. I “slept in” on Friday. I then ran errands and (finally!) did my taxes. On Saturday, other than doing laundry and a little “picking up” around the house, I took the day off. I curled up in my favorite chair and read and spent time with the Lord regaining focus. (If you want to see part of that, check out my “Who is Laurie?” post on my Life’s Simple Truths blogsite.) I never even left the house yesterday. I believe that is the first time that has happened since I have been in my new home.

Today, of course, I drove to Ark City for church. Afterwards, having no one with whom to celebrate a meal on this Resurrection Sunday, I decided to treat myself to something nice. I ended up at Red Lobster for their lobster fest. (Floridians, don’t make fun of me. It’s the only seafood restaurant in town.) I almost passed up my planned treat of some sort of lobster because they actually had Gulf Coast Snapper as one of the “fresh” fish of the day. (Floridians, hold down the laughter! It WAS fresh SOME day. And it is unusual for them to have it on the menu. You can’t just take it for granted here that snapper is readily available!) But, given that the lobster fest ends in a week, I stuck with my original plan – and splurged. I got the patter with TWO lobster tails – one Rock and one Maine. It’s not as good as a Florida lobster with the crabmeat stuffing (nor were the two tails as large as one Florida lobster would have been) … but for a Kansas meal, it was pretty good! And, since I was in the mood to celebrate and splurge, I topped it off with some key lime pie. I enjoyed it – thought of my Florida friends & relatives – and missed Mom who always liked going to Red Lobster as well. It’s hard to believe it was a year ago this weekend that I was returning from her funeral in Tallahassee and trying to regain focus on work.

Next weekend I will be “back on the trail.” It will be our fourth and final (for this round) prayer journey. I did not post about the third one, two weeks ago. It was to the SE quadrant and was very good. This one will be to the SW quadrant. We are starting in Dodge City, going from there to Garden City, and then, I believe, following the river up to the border of Colorado. It’s about 170 miles from where I live to Dodge City, then another 50 or so to Garden City. I am not sure of the route we will take from there to the border, but that’s probably another 60-70 miles. Add it up, and that’s nearly 300 by the time we reach “the end of the line” – and get to turn around and drive back. NOW you know why the 300 miles over to Branson (actually south of Branson) this weekend didn’t sound appealing.

Between the four prayer journeys and the conference in Ark City last weekend, my weekends have been full. Weekend after next (the first weekend in April), we will be having the InSync2 conference here in Wichita. It is just Sunday evening & Monday morning, so that won’t take the whole weekend – really just Sunday & Monday (setting up & tearing down before and after the two sessions). I am looking forward to it.

The following weekend, I am supposed to go to the St. Louis area for a wedding. I haven’t made reservations yet, because I am not yet sure if I will make it. Unless I get more rest, eight hours of drive time each way just isn’t sounding like something I will do, unless someone wants to go with me.

The next weekend was SUPPOSED to be my open house party for my new place. Not so! With all the going, the unpacking has not happened. However, with coming to the end of the series of weekends away AND the end of the class I have been taking, maybe by mid-April I can refocus on the unpacking and settling in and make some headway on it.

Even without being settled, I LOVE my new place. This is one time that I can say God truly gave me the desire of my heart. I had seen these patio homes when they were being built 8-10 years ago. I realized when I was packing to move I still had the brochure I picked up when Mom & I looked at the model home. THAT’S how much I liked them. She liked them too, they just didn’t seem “doable” for us at the time. After I moved, I began regretting that I had not bought one then and moved her here. I finally realized (just in the last week or so), that if I had done that, we would not have been able to take the wonderful trips we took together. Nor would I have been able to easily run home each day at noon to get her lunch and check on her. Or to pick her up and get her to doctor appointments as easily as I could where we were. All in all, I realized that 5316 Stoneborough Court was the place for “us.” This is now the place for “me.” But I do have a wonderful guest “suite” … so do come visit!

As for my house on Stoneborough Court, no, it has not sold yet. Contrary to all you hear on the national news, the market here is good. In fact, there have been articles in the papers and items on the local news about how our good economy & housing market defy the national trends. Hopefully, with the weather warming some, people will be out looking. I stopped by to check it this afternoon and one of my neighbors there told me that he had seen several people stop recently and walk around the outside looking at it. Hopefully, that is good news and it will sell soon.

Well … I want to get back into some more reading and quiet time before the evening is over and this is too long already. I’ll post more after next weekend’s trip.

Blessings!

the good life ...

Ah! Finally!

Tonight, for the first time, I could sit at the bar in my new home on a chair high enough to comfortably eat (meaning I finally got new barstools) my wonderful dinner (ok, cereal) and listen (well, sort of) to my class lecture playing on my laptop on the counter beside me (meaning my wireless connection is actually functional).

What a life!

Oops … should have had a fire going (meaning should have gone over and flipped the switch to turn it on). Next time.

Life is good … :-)