Sigh..

Well, it is cold again here.  Hence the sigh.  I want to wash windows and pull weeds and do other things outside.  Unfortunately, my body does not cooperate with doing those types of things outside no matter how many layers I put on!  I know Spring is coming.  But this has been one of the longest and coldest, nastiest Winters around here in a long time.

And when talking about it, pretty much the only good thing that's said is that it might cut down the bug population this Summer!

Anyway, I hope everyone is well.  Golfer and I are doing okay and looking forward to warmer days.

Stay safe!

Signs of Spring!

If you look closely at the trees around here you can see some tiny buds starting to show.  I noticed some of the neighbors have daffodils that are having green leaves coming up.  Today was the last day of the garden center sale so I went and bought three pots of pansies.  We are soooooo ready for warmer weather to stick around.  It's about 70 today and sunny.  There's a "chance of wintry mix" on Wednesday.  But one must remain optimistic!

Stay safe!

Winding Down

The 2014 Winter Olympics are almost over.  This has been a strange event.  I did not expect to see palm trees in Russia.  And there's something wrong with watching snow sports with the athletes in shirt sleeves!  

I had issues with timing.  The events I wanted to watch were almost always shown too late at night.  Of course, I could have watched them during the afternoon broadcasts, but I was usually busy doing other things.  But I saw most of what I wanted to see and also discovered a couple new events that I really enjoyed.

What's not to like about Snow Board Cross!?!?  Four to six boarders racing down the course at the same time, wiping out and falling down and sliding all over the place!  YAY!  And there was Ski Cross!  Also with multiple skiers racing down and wiping out!  I don't want to see anyone get hurt, but I love watching them sliding over the finish lines on their butts!

And all that brings to mind when Golfer and I lived in South Carolina and went to Roller Derby!  Also a good one to watch.  And many years ago, when we lived in Maryland we went to "big time wrasslin' matches".  Now keep in mind that I grew up watching my Grama and Granpa watch wrestling and boxing on TV and scream at the participants.  Of course, they also yelled at the court show participants and game show participants, but that's another story.

We also went to base hockey games while stationed in Germany.  Another good opportunity to get excited and holler.

Ladies' figure skating is usually quiet and serene.  Until it gets to where they are unhappy with the judges. That is also another story.  I don't think I saw any of the male skating this time.  I heard the announcer tell that for the next Winter Olympics the skaters will be allowed to use modern, popular music and they were hoping no one would choose to skate to Bieber.  We'll see.

I enjoyed Matt and Al on the Today Show going down the luge again.  They said this was the last time for that!  Good thing.

Stay safe!

Well. . . . . Almost

A couple months ago Golfer got us tickets for a Frankie Valli concert at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk for last night.  Golfer also made reservations at Freemason Abbey, a restaurant we really like.  We don't go there often because it involves a long drive.  We were really looking forward to it all.

So we survived the Friday evening traffic (never good) and the tunnel congestion (also never good) and were sitting there with some wine, just de-stressing, waiting for our dinners.  We were also checking our phones and I was looking at email when an urgent one came in about the concert.  It was postponed until April!  Seems Frankie's air transportation could not get him here in time due to the storms that passed through earlier.  He couldn't get out of New York.  :(

So we enjoyed our dinners and came home.  Watched a movie and I fell asleep and missed part of it.  Oh, well.

About the storm... it hit our area a little after noon with wind and sheets of rain.  We did not have any damage here, but other areas close to us were not so lucky.  There are a lot of people doing clean-up today.  As for us, today is a little cooler, but sunny.  Golfer is getting to play golf.  I am relaxing and doing some things around the house.  Things like catching up on some blog posts that have been rolling around in my head.

Stay safe!

New Floors

A friend just reminded me that I never posted anything on our floors getting finished.  Oops!

That's Angus!

Neil returned about a week after the initial installation and finished.  He installed the floor boards and molding.  Then he helped move things back in place, cleaned up, and helped Golfer carry the almost full box of left-over flooring upstairs.  Golfer will get it into the attic soon.

The floors are lovely and we really like them.  Here are some pictures.

And this is Cecil helping me unpack the breakables in the dining room!

Stay safe!

Hallelujah!!

And the sun came out and the rain and snow stopped and we rejoiced!

And please do not think that I am being sacrilegious.

It did indeed get up to the low 60's here today.  Golfer went to the driving range and plans to play golf tomorrow.  I went outside and worked on our curb appeal.  Cleaned leaves out of the little shrubs and raked the leaves out of the mulched areas in the front.  I had two large bags  when I got done.  I was careful and hopefully did not over-do anything.  But, Boy! it felt good to get out there.  I will probably work on the back yard a little at a time and get the mulched areas cleaned up.

The garden center called today to tell us our new mulch would be arriving on Friday.  I said that was nice but our yard was too wet.  The discussion went sort of like this:  She said, "it won't matter if it's wet, it won't hurt the mulch".  I said, "but your guys are going to have to get the mulch from the front driveway to the back yard and I don't want any more ruts in the yard.  We still have the one your guys made on another visit.  And when I ordered the mulch I said we wanted it late March or early April".  And then she said, "Oh".  And we left it that she would be calling us closer to April.  And by then we will have all the areas cleaned up and ready!

In other news, we had the dryer vent and duct work checked today.  It was all good except for a huge gob of matted lint and fuzz in the vent up on the roof.  And once they cleaned that out, the dryer works better.

Stay safe!

Happy Anniversary, Beatles!

In honor of the anniversary of the Beatles coming to America and becoming so popular, I would like to present "The Grubs"!  One of the original tribute groups for the Beatles!

Actually, they are Golfer and some friends performing at a program at the Grange Hall many years ago.  (We won't count how many years.) 

Stay safe!

UPDATE! (and not about lack of running water or flushing toilets in Sochi)

So as I previously posted, the work on replacing the floors in our living room and dining room started on Monday.  The salesman and the installer are both very nice, competent men.  Golfer had done a rough measure of the rooms before we went to look the first time.  The salesman then came to the house and measured, and rechecked, before he ordered the flooring.  On Monday morning the installer measured and checked the supplies before he ever started.  Guess what???!!??  We ran out of the wood flooring!  There was some discussion and re-figuring.  The order was right, with plenty to spare to allow for fitting boards and normal loss for making things fit.  The only logical explanation is that a box or two were short a couple boards.  Of course, the distributor doesn't have any locally.  More has to be ordered from the factory in Kentucky.  Everyone felt bad and apologized.  The installer was great though, after he told us the bad news, he finished working with what he had left and there are only about two rows that need to be finished.  And those are behind the entertainment center.  He finished all the molding except for that wall and he did all the thresholds.

We've been able to move most of the things back into place. Actually Golfer is the one who's been moving things. I've been busy cleaning and unpacking things that were on display in the dining room.  Little antique things in the side-by-side and things that sit on the china cabinet.  We moved all the dishes and glassware back.  It's nice to be able to walk through the kitchen and also to get to the stove and pantry!

All in all, it's not so bad.  We really like the new floor.  This has been a case of "if we had known then what we know now".  The old flooring had only been down a couple years.  It was very nice, good quality laminate.  It just turned out to be something we did not care for.  So now we're happier with the new wood floor.

However, there is an annoying downside to all this.  We wanted to donate the laminate and under-padding to Habitat's ReStore.  We have donated other things to them in the past.  The first call I made about the floor I got a bit**y woman who said they would only take it if it was new and boxed.  I called again later to discuss that and got a different person.  No problem, she said, just bundle as much as we could.  So Golfer went out to the porch where our installer had stacked it all and put as much as would fit into the boxes left from the new flooring.  Pick-up was Friday.  Two people came in a big truck; a man and a woman.  The man was happy about the flooring and wanted to take all of it.  The woman said no way, they wouldn't take any that was sitting there stacked neatly and not in boxes.  She told me to get some big tote bags and put the boards in them and then call them to come again.  WTH!!???!!  Where would you even go to buy a tote bag that big?  Not that I was even considering that!  But they took what was boxed and we still have a stack of floor boards on the porch. Golfer and I agree we won't be donating to ReStore again.  This is sad.  They have ads on TV, Radio and print ads saying they want donations.  And then make it so hard for anyone to donate anything.  They are now on "our list".  You know what I mean - that list were you take names and keep info!  And aren't afraid to use it!  Harumph!  They WILL be getting an email from us.

Stay safe!

Updates

So here we are.  Third day of February.  The last two weeks have had snow "events" and cold weather.  Today it is raining and the snow is gone.  A front came through and made it colder again after being in 60's yesterday.  That's the weather update.

CutieGirl fell a couple days ago and landed on her little face.  Actually she launched herself off the couch (at home).  Large bump on her little head and some bruising.  There was an instant trip to the doctor and she checked out okay.  Golfer and I watched her for a couple hours this morning and she was very good.  And very cute!  (see picture on previous post)  That's the baby update.

Everyone is happy to report (except the children) that schools are back in session here and in Georgia.

Healthwise, I think most of us are okay.  I am still dealing with issues, but have decided to just get on with things and do what I can.  I WILL NOT BE A WHINER!  Golfer's brother is scheduled for knee replacement surgery later this month and we wish him well.

Our new floor installation started today.  It turned out to be one hard-working man instead of at least two as scheduled.  But it's going okay.  He is particular and wants it to be just what we want.  So the job will take at least three days we think.  The dining room is about done.  He just has to install the molding in there and move things back in place.  He'll start the living room tomorrow.  FYI, we're donating the old flooring which is in great condition, to ReStore, the Habitat resale store.

Last evening we watched the Super Bowl.  I watch it for the commercials.  If it hadn't been for them we would have watched something else or gone to bed early!  But my picks for best commercials are the Volkswagen one with the engineers getting their wings and rainbows  :)  and the Budweiser one with the puppy and Clydesdale, and the Muppets one.  To be perfectly honest, I did not care for some of the commercials.  There were a few that I still haven't figured out what they were promoting!  And if I have to spend a lot of time figuring out a company's commercial, I'm probably not going to buy the product.  There were way too many "feelings" in some of them.  Humor sells, people.  Just my opinion.

We saw a good movie the other day - "Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit" with Chris Pine.  Excellent movie!  I need to find out if they plan more!

I'm still working my way through my new books from Christmas.  Just finished Clive Cussler's Mirage.  Very good!  Just started Patricia Cornwell's Dust.   Pretty good so far.

So that's about all the updates from here.  Time to go feed the furry kids.  They have been "in seclusion" all day to make sure they stayed out of the way.  They are now exploring all the neat and wonderful things the man left in the hallway!

Stay safe!

No better way to sit around waiting for workmen than holding a sleepy baby!