Month: September 2015

I’m packing and getting the house cleaned up because we are leaving tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. on our long-anticipated bus trip to Nashville. I’m excited about having Dad go along, because I know he will be a lot of help, plus great company, but I’m also nervous, because I don’t really need anyone telling me what I’m doing wrong when I’m in such a stressful situation anyway. Plus then I would start to think that I’d done a bad job on all the trips we’ve taken. Hopefully, though, he won’t find anything really wrong that I do as bus trip leader!  We’ll be staying overnight somewhere in the southern Chicago area tomorrow, then at a La Quinta in Goodlettsville , which is just a bit north of Nashville, for the four nights we are there. Dad and Nathan have arranged some times for us to get together with them.

Anyway, you can always get in touch with us through our cell phones, but don’t expect any posts or answers to emails until next Sunday!

I just finished America, the Beautiful by Dr. Ben Carson. I would highly recommend it. It covers a lot of the history of our country as well as a lot of his very common-sense philosophy. I don’t normally get too excited about politicians, but I was curious about him because he has come from out of nowhere and seems to resist the types of behaviors that everyone else seems drawn to. He is really very brilliant and has some good ideas of what our country could do to work its way out of the mess we are in. And a lot of it starts with Christians refusing to be bullied by the “politically correct.”

We also watched “God’s Not Dead” last night on Netflix. Another hearty recommendation from me on that one, too!

Yesterday was probably the most stressful day yet. I was already feeling harried since my computer had been at the repair shop since last Wednesday and I didn’t know if he was going to be able to fix it. And I have a conference coming up, starting Wednesday at noon, and have to get the whole newsletter written and sent in before that, but with no computer that was impossible. Plus my meeting for the trip to Nashville is tonight and the handouts were on the computer. Then I had a new class that I started yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if the handout was on the computer (turns out I had a hard copy.) Then I arrived to find messages from our attorney for the City saying opposing council was asking for a boatload of written materials, like all the emails that we sent regarding the issue from 2014 – the present, records of all the activities presented by or at the Community Center in 2014 and 2015, etc. They are going to be drowning it paperwork and I don’t see where any of it will advance their case. It is just an annoyance for us to have to comply with their requests.

At least there was also an email saying the computer was done – he didn’t find anything wrong with it, but it works fine again. It was hard to find time to squeeze in to go get it in Cameron, but I did. So I got started on the newsletter and have to finish that today. And I’m ready for tonight’s meeting. And the new class went great.

And I had a great run this a.m. so I’m ready to face a new day!

Also, we met with our tax person yesterday and figured out how to go about selling our rentals and buying new ones in TN without losing anything on taxes for the net gain. We just postpone it forever and when you guys inherit the houses, it is all erased and you start with a current net value, so if you just turn around and sell them, you don’t have any net gain to pay taxes on. Pretty cool arrangement, but it means we will always have properties. If we ever NEED the money, we can sell them knowing we will have to pay taxes. At least by then we will be in a very low tax bracket.

Not much exciting happening, but I thought I’d post just to let you know I’m still here.

We had a pancake breakfast fund raiser this a.m. at the Center. The attendance wasn’t really good. Probably has something to do with the lawsuit and people not wanting to “take sides.” Anyway, we made $175 and only had about $25 in expenses, since we had a lot of stuff left over. So we cleared $150, which will take another $1.50 off everyone’s Christmas party.

I got my new glasses yesterday. I really like them.

Two weeks until Dad and I head for Nashville! This week I drive to Eau Claire Wed – Fri for the Wisconsin Assoc. of Senior Centers annual conference. I’m excited about both. I won’t be at work much. I need to write the whole newsletter on Monday and Tuesday, if I get my computer back. It crashed and has been at the repair shop since Wednesday afternoon. UGH!

Hope you are all enjoying the fall weather!

I pretty much cleaned out the garden today, except for the winter squash and muskmelon, which aren’t ready yet, and the chard, which is still good for picking.

I have to say this is the best crop of potatoes ever. In all my years. Notice the number of really big ones and the size of the really big ones, compared to a one cup measuring cup. And I didn’t have a whole lot of plants. I tend to just plant the little ones from the previous year, and you can see how few of them I end up with. I probably had 30 hills. Some years each hill has one big or medium one, maybe another medium one and 3 or 4 little ones. This year, there were 3 big ones, maybe one or two medium ones and little ones here and there.  All the plants didn’t have really huge ones, but they all had lots. Quite a crop!

Did you know that soap bubbles can get caught in virtually invisible spider webs and hang there for 5 minutes or more without popping? Neither did I. I don’t know if it had something to do with the very high humidity this a.m., but here are some pictures I took.  Keep in mind that these bubbles are stuck where you see them – just hanging there. I never did see the web, but I did observe a fly get caught in it. At first I thought it was some sort of air current that kept them in place for so long.