Month: February 2016

We have officially turned The Garage over to Auto Value. The sign is down and in our garage now. All our things actually fit in the garage at 123 Stout Street and in our basement, but that took a lot of sorting and arranging on Dad’s part. We still have to move a pile of lumber and our travel trailer from the alley in back of The Garage, but other than that, we are finished with that phase of our life. It seems weird, but I’ll admit that we have been so busy that we haven’t had time to enjoy being done with it. I think it will just get wrapped up with moving and all the changes that will entail.

We are down to the final three weeks until Dad leaves. My hope is that he is on his way on Wednesday, March 16. He plans to stop for a day or two at his mom’s on the way, but from my point of view he will simply be gone and I’ll be alone from March 16 through about April 21 – 5 weeks. I’ll have a lot of organizing and packing to do, plus a lot of music things, so the time will go quickly, I’m sure. And I’ll have Sherlock to keep me company, if his health holds.

I am getting one last chance to play for Mr. Jensen’s choir. It has been years, because first he wasn’t a choir director at all, then he worked at Ladysmith for many years. This year he is over in Turtle Lake and he couldn’t find an accompanist musical enough to play for his choir at a special choir clinic festival up at UW-Barron County on Thursday. So I drove over to Turtle Lake Monday and am going over again today to prepare for tomorrow’s event. I must say it is very fun working with him again. His choir sounds awesome!

And, if you think about it, please pray for the sale of our property or the Ladysmith duplex. We really need the money from the sale of one or the other in order to do the remodeling in Bristol without using our emergency fund. We had someone look at the property Monday and we reduced the price on the duplex from $117,000 to $107,000 Monday, as well.

One of the biggest areas of concern was getting a person to serve as property manager for our rentals here in Wisconsin. We had some people in mind, but none had done this before and we just didn’t feel settled enough to make it official with any of them. And Phil, who was our first choice, had turned us down.

But it was on my prayer list every day.

I went to a breakfast last Friday with the gals from the Assembly of God church I’m going to (after I play at my church). The gal across from me, in the course of the conversation, “just happened” to mention that, when she had lived in Hayward before moving to Cameron, she had worked as a property manager. So I went ahead and said we were looking for one and would she consider it? Long story short – we have our property manager and she has experience and has a personality that I feel very comfortable with and was highly recommended by a friend who has known her a long time.

But that isn’t all. Her daughter needs a place to rent and loves this place (210 Knapp). So we have a renter for here as soon as I leave.

A two-for-one answer to prayers. God is so good!

We painted the small half bath by the living room a color called “barn door red.” It was a perfect match to the border we wanted to put over the border that was there. We also got new flooring to replace the badly stained white vinyl. So the room looks a lot different. The really cool thing is that the picture of the blue jays that Krista painted the frame on matches the walls perfectly. I think it looks so much more contemporary this color than it did white! I’m very glad I did it.