Month: November 2012

This week is Thanksgiving week, so Happy Thanksgiving to all.

It has been pretty quiet since my last post. We put 605 miles on the Honda last week, burned 18.6 gallons of gas, about normal for us. I did a Walmart run yesterday; Pam will do grocery shopping today while I do some more work on the tractor. I found another item to repair on the tractor; the exhaust manifold is leaking because of a blown gasket. Not expensive to fix, $12.00 or so for new gaskets and hardware, but it will take a couple hours to do the work. The 64 year old nuts that hold the manifold in place are rusted and corroded; removing them will be a real pain.

My mother is home and doing well. I called her yesterday to see how she is doing, and she says she is feeling better. Her plans are for a Thanksgiving get-together with my siblings and a few family friends, with my mother not doing any of the work. I hope this comes off OK.

Otherwise the week was pretty mundane. We finished the last of the yard work for this fall. All the flower beds have been layered with leaf mulch, hanging baskets have been taken down and emptied, and winter fertilizer applied to the lawn. Space heaters were brought into the house to do some spot warming in the cat room and bathroom. The doors to these are normally closed so they don’t get much circulation from the rest of the house. One more heater is parked near the computer desk. The days Pam works from home  require quite a bit of computer use – she has to search course catalogs from institutions of higher learning – so the computer and the space heater are running several hours each day. The extra warmth feels good. We generally keep the place cool with the thermostat set below 65 degrees.

Life is mostly made up of the regular and mundane. I replaced one of the light fixtures in the garage, went to the opening of a new store in Grand Junction (Tractor Supply Company, or TSC) and learned how to do photo collages in PhotoShop Elements.:

Han and Naja’s wedding photo collage

As with most of my photos, clicking on the photo will open a larger version. In most browsers, clicking on the large photo will zoom in on place where the curser is placed. This can give you some nice close-up views of  photo details.

TSC turns out to have a pretty good pet supply area with much lower prices on one of the dry dog foods Pam buys, Blue Buffalo. Price at TSC is about $7.00 per bag less than at the pet store. I suspect we will be dropping by TSC from time to time.

Pam has started to work on our Christmas card list and getting cards and materials together. Seems the card list gets a little shorter each year as some of the older generation passes on. It’s always a bittersweet task to update the list. Still, we look forward to Christmas communications each year. Most likely we will get our outside decorations up the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Although not extensive, we do drape lights on the garage, fence, and front windows. This year we plan to top a tree from the lot and put it up, fully lit, on the deck. Should be fun! If you missed it last year – I didn’t post it until very late – we did have an electronic greeting card, animated and with music, at http://www.appleattic.net/christmas.html that you may enjoy as we begin the 2012 holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Life has been both ordinary and hectic since my last post. Several events have occurred, some of them not so nice.

My mother, who will turn 83 next month, recently spent several days in the hospital. Her heart is not what it used to be, pumping less blood per cycle than normal, and she had developed liquid around the heart. Fortunately the condition can be treated to a large degree with drugs. She is home now and my brother Jon and sister Sienna are watching her for the next couple days. We hope the drugs do their job!

I missed a couple days of work with stomach flu. Seems I am more susceptible to this in recent years. Pam had me go to the doctor to see if I had an ulcer or other contributing condition, but the doc didn’t find anything. I’m feeling better as I write this, but have not eaten a lot for the last 4 days. Maybe today I’ll manage 3 meals.

Pam observed a birthday. (I am not at liberty to disclose which one it was.) We had planned to take the day off and go over to the lot, but the weather stopped us. Forecast is for 1 – 2 feet of snow above 8,000 foot elevation, and we expect to see some snow  (up to 1/2 inch) accumulate on grassy areas at our place. We decided to stay home instead.

Fall clean-up continued last weekend when I decided to carry out my promise to our snow-bird neighbors, Jim and Jolene, to clean their yard of leaves at least once in the fall. J & J left for their winter home in Arizona a month ago. Here are a couple photos Pam took of me using my lawn-vac to clean up their yard:

Jerry with his lawn-vac at work

Removing leaves from Jim and Jolene’s yard

I line the back of my old Scout with a large sheet of plastic, dump the shredded leaves on the plastic, and drive  to a disposal site near town. I pull the sheet of plastic out to dump the load. Not as convenient as having as a truck, but the [enclosed] Scout keeps the leaves from blowing around as I transport them. It works OK.

The majority of work is done, but there will be some more raking and hauling to be done for both yards before the snow really sets in for the winter.

The other afternoon our oldest cat, Mira, was lounging in the sun and I captured this shot of her:

Oldest cat Mira capturing a few rays

Nothing like a cat sleeping in a sunny spot.

Speaking of cats, we were pleased to learn that Pam’s last foster kittens have all been adopted. Quinn, Quentin, and Quirky had gone through their spay or neuter operations and were adopted within 3 days. We do not know if they went as singles or a combination, but it is nice to know they are out of the shelter and into good homes. That result is what makes fostering worth-while.

We are glad the election is over and even happier the robo calls have stopped. Several people have commented on Colorado’s passage of a recreational marijuana bill. (Dude – we are too freakin’ old to be stoners.  Bummer.)  This poses several problems for the state, one of which is the law does not go into effect until 2014. The bill gives the state 1 year to put in place a regulatory and tax structure, and the tax part has to be voted on again before the bill becomes law. 15 percent is the proposed sales tax. There is a part of the bill that promotes the use of other  hemp-bases products, such as rope. Trivia question: Did you know that early American money was printed on hemp-based paper?

That’s what’s been going on in our part of the world since my last post, pretty much just daily life.

Thanks for looking in!

We recently flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to attend a wedding. The younger son of Pam’s lifelong friends, Mary and Jeff Hayes, was to be  married in an outdoor ceremony. We knew Han and had met his wife-to-be, Naja, a couple years ago during a trip to Wisconsin. While we had some concerns about the weather during this time of year we looked forward to the event.

Rather than driving we arranged to have a neighbor look after the cats and dogs for a couple days and we flew to Minneapolis via Salt Lake City. I normally like to have a window view, but managed only 1 window seat the entire trip. Here is a photo of the Salt Lake taken on the approach into Salt Lake City:

Great Salt Lake with Wasatch Mountain backdrop

The flights, both ways, were OK but crowded. No delays, no real long layovers, everything was on time. Still, one cannot help but feel like a member of the great unwashed masses. Only real problem: My suspenders always set off the security scanner alams and I have to get patted down. I refuse to remove them to go through security. Besides, it gives the TSA agents something to do.

We stayed at the Carleson Courtyard Inn & Suites, as that was the designated base of operations for the entire wedding party and guests. Nice hotel, and the off-season rates were decent. Better than usual accommodation for us, as we had a suite on the first floor which was quite comfortable and convenient.

We arrived on Friday night and found Mary, Jeff, and some of the guests gathered in the hotel’s breakfast room enjoying some adult beverages and talk. We joined right in. Pam knew many of the wedding attendees, having grown up with Mary and Jeff’s brothers and sisters through elementary and high school. I had met many of them on other occasions, including class reunions and other family functions, so didn’t feel like a stranger.

One of the common questions asked by people we had not met before was “How are you connected?” to the bride or groom. The use of the word “connected” seemed to be very appropriate. This gathering felt a lot more like a small community of friends and family coming together rather than just an event. Given the hotel’s breakfast room and menu we ended up eating together and talking to more people than we ever had at a wedding. It was very nice!

Pam had sent some e-mails to her family letting them know we would be in Minneapolis. Her sister Becky and brother Craig were able to make it up for a visit on Saturday morning. This gave us a chance to visit for a couple hours and catch up on family news. Here is a photo of the siblings:

Becky, Craig, and Pam

The wedding was scheduled for 3:00 PM on Saturday. Temperature was supposed to top out at about 40 degrees, 10 degrees below normal for the day. There was a light breeze blowing from time to time which increased the chill factor. After saying goodbye to Becky and Craig, we jumped into our rented car and took off to find the wedding venue. The directions we had were somewhat vague, but we managed to arrive (just) before the ceremony began.

The wedding was held at Gale Wood Farms, a farm donated to the State of Minnesota to run both as a park and working farm. The site chosen for the ceremony overlooked a lake, which offered us a quite nice view of the rolling lands of central Minnesota. Many guests had arrived before us. A few men were dressed in suits, myself included, and some of the ladies were in dresses, but most were bundled up in heavy coats and wearing gloves. The wind stopped, but it was still a chilly day.

Hanny and Naja’s outdoor ceremony

The Episcopalian ceremony went quickly and  the new couple were soon on their way to form the reception line. The reception was held in a (heated) barn-like structure near the site of the ceremony. The heat was appreciated, and we set out to talk with other guests until dinner was served. A few of the guests were from Mary, Jeff, and Pam’s high school class and were good friends. We struck up converations with a few of them:

Jan and Tony Hutchens (left) join up with Tim Turnbull (center) and Pam (right)

Mary and Jeff  made the rounds to all the tables while dinner was being served:

We had an evening of talk and a good meal, then it was back to the hotel. We were tired, but it had been a good day.

The next morning, Sunday, we slept late and had breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast options included:

Fresh fruit * Hard-boiled eggs * Fresh pancakes * Biscuits and gravy * Apple, cranberry, orange  juice * Coffee * Milk * Sausage links or patties * Several flavors of yogurt * Several different pastries *  Cold Cereal * Instant oatmeal, several flavors * Dry cereal * Several flavors of tea bags for hot tea * Fried eggs * Toast * Various garnishments, including grated cheese, for your eggs or whatever *

After breakfast we packed up and checked out. Before we did this, though, I used the hotel’s office station to print our boarding passes for the return flight. The plan for the day was to visit the Mall of America, walk though a nearby IKEA store, then head for the airport. Having the boarding passes in advance would save us some time and hassle in checking in for our flight.

Neither of us had ever been to the Mall of America. The visit gets mixed reviews from us: The center “canival” section was pretty amazing, but the stores were just the same stores you see in most malls. Nothing really unique stood out.

Here are a couple photos:

Entrance to the Mall of America

Carnival in the Mall of America

After a great deal of walking we headed for the car and drove to the IKEA store to check out the “mini-houses.” The “mini-houses” are layouts of small houses, ranging from about 280 square feet to around 385 square feet. We were looking for ideas on how to furnish the inside of a small cabin and came away with several good ideas.  For the first time, we tried the lunch menu in the IKEA cafeteria.

Then it was time for us to return the rental car, check in for our flight, and begin the journey back to Colorado.  Five hours after boarding our plane in Minneapolis we were back in Grand Junction and driving home.

I guess the animals were glad to see us, the dogs more than the cats (who knows what cats think?). We had taken Monday off to do the chores we would normally do on the weekend. It was a little odd to be grocery shopping on a weekday. The foster kittens returned to the shelter on Monday, as well.  Tuesday it was back into the “normal” routine of commuting and work. Our little vacation was over.

 That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!