Three Weeks of Stuff

Well, Rick has been keeping up with his blogging and I've been falling further and further behind. That's partly due to his staying on top of his - my desire to blog is squashed when he blogs the same event I was going to blog and I read his first. So I'm not going to read his latest blog until I finish mine first, mmk?

First off, the last thing I blogged was my big kiting accident. Well, my head cleared up within a couple days but the backside, not so much. The pain migrated from the tailbone to the left hip, actually the ball-and-socket section. But as of Wednesday I started noticing the pain diminishing and as of yesterday I was pain free! I had to force myself to stop being active long enough to allow it time to heal. Fortunately we had some nice weather that I could lay out in and then we had the Circuit Overseer's visit so I went out in service a couple days this week. I also attended a funeral with my friend around the corner, Mary. It was her mom's funeral, she was 88 I think. Still a hard thing to go through, your mom is your mom. I took pictures for Mary and was talking to some of the funeral folk and may make up a Craigslist ad to do funeral photography! Maybe I'll make up some business cards and give them to the funeral homes even. It doesn't happen very often but sometimes people ask for such a service....

The next event I must be sure to cover is our completion of the bigger half of Kevin's house in preparation of my brother's family's arrival from Utah. They were scheduled to arrive last night and the house still wasn't done. There was paint touch up, cleaning, appliance cleaning and placement and door rehanging to be done. The yard had also been ignored for most of the last month and the grass had gotten back to being about 15" tall. So Wednesday I hit the grass with my riding mower and knocked it down to more like 8". Now it needs to be hit a couple more times and weed whacked around the edges. I may bring my mower back down Monday and run it around again on a lower setting.

Shirley is back from Vegas, living in the little half of the house that Kevin rented so the family is all back together, the boys seem very happy to have their mommy back. Yesterday while we were cleaning and hanging doors she was there playing with them on the carpet. It was quite a din, Kevin says that's pretty normal for their home life! She loves to play with the boys (and they, of course, love to have her play with them!) Earlier yesterday she had the job (she was volunteered by Kevin) of cleaning the bathroom, mainly the toilet and tub. I'll tell you, that toilet was NASTY! But she handled it like a trooper, she had to actually scoop a mess out of it! She used a combination of gloves, then a plastic bag and now it works and looks fabulous!

Walking down the street to work on the house I spotted a guy measuring the house that Rach and Tony are buying - it was the FHA appraiser! Progress! Things are finally moving forward and the closing date is slated for the first week in July!

So Mark's family was scheduled to finally arrive from Utah Friday afternoon sometime. We were all scrambling around to make the house ready. Rick got home and I goaded him into coming down to help (sorry hon). I had cleaned the appliances but they had to be put in their places. Then he volunteered to go to get some supplies from Covington and a few minutes after he left I got a call from him: "They're coming! I just passed them!" They were almost here! I was trying to keep an ear open for the truck but missed, I wanted to get a shot of them pulling up the road with their little caravan. But I did get to be the first one out to greet them. I had made a welcome sign for them that turned out well - moving across state lines, lock, stock and barrel, is a big undertaking and deserves a fanfare! (I wanted a kazoo band, but no one knows how to play the kazoo apparently!)

When they got here just about everyone was home from work already so everyone ended up helping unload the truck. By the time we came home to soak in the hot tub around 9:30 the truck was nearly empty and the house was quickly becoming their home. It was great to see things happen so quickly and efficiently! It's the first time all the kids have their own rooms. There's a nice big kennel in the back yard for their 2 dogs, a yellow lab named Sandy and a white terripoo named Holly. It was so handy to just stick them in there while we unloaded, no fear of them wandering away. This house is I think close to the same size as their Utah house but, with more rooms, the rooms are a bit smaller and their stuff isn't fitting as nicely. It's nice to have a place to immediately move into though, so they don't mind. They didn't have to put their stuff into storage and stay with family for any length of time. And the house came out pretty nice, after painting and new carpet.

So we are happy to say "Welcome DeBellings!"