I have decided to schedule a Celebration of Linda's Life gathering May 22,2021 at 12:00 PM at the Mohican Lodge in Loudonville, Ohio (This blog has been updated to state the change from the previously stated May 1st Date). I have been wanting to get together with everyone as soon as it is safe. It has been on my mind a lot and I finally accepted that it is going to be months before that happens. I decided getting a date on the calendar would be helpful for those who wish to attend and I will stop laboring over when to do it. I am hopeful that by May 1st it will be safe for gatherings and travel. If not, I'll move the date back as needed. But in the mean time, you can put the date on your calendar. The Celebration will be in the Loudonville area. Details will follow as they are determined.
Rebecca had some time to work on projects so I headed to her house Sunday morning. The first project was finalizing the big screen. I had purchased some stainless steel rings to hold the screen up instead of threading the cable through the grommets. Threading the cable back and forth between the grommets caused wrinkles. The steel rings worked great. That project is now very successfully completed.
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Improving the big screen
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Jill's Halloween Cookies
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Rebecca chose BBQ chicken for supper which sounded good to me. She has a big grill so I made extra chicken. Great leftovers. We invited Jill who is a lot of fun and often brings her famous (Or should I say infamous!) cookies. They are just too good to resist. The evening cooled off nicely so we ate outside. Once it got dark we played Mario Kart on the big screen. Jill claims she never played before but I'm skeptical. She was really good very quickly! But she did bring cookies!
The dogs know I will take them for a walk when I get up. I unlock the door when I wake up and climb back in bed, (I lock it because London can open the door.) London always hear me unlock the door, opens it, and she and Trevi come running into my bedroom, jump up on my bed and give me a very excited "Good Morning, Let's go". They are really funny. What happier way to start the day? This trip, while I walked the dogs, I got to see all the Halloween decorations. Many people really go all out. Of course it occurred to me that this is the land of Hollywood! I've included pictures of just some of the decorations. Every time I took the dogs on a different route I saw more great decorations. I should have gone after dark. Maybe I'll be back before Halloween.
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| There were a lot of dog skeletons |
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| This is an inflated VW Van |
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My Favorite. A tiny Gnome Halloween Scene
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| New trim boards |
After walking the dogs Monday morning I was anxious to finish the new air conditioner installation. I needed to make and install some trim boards. The angle cuts were tricky but fortunately, I remembered to bring Matt's miter box and saw. Because the air conditioner wasn't next to wall studs I had to improvise some supports to hold the trim boards. Involved some guess work. Ended up with a few extra holes but Rebecca will take care of the finish work.
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| The gym |
The next project was to clean up the wiring on the back of the garage. Rebecca, (after of course turning off the power at the circuit breaker), removed an old air conditioner. I suggested she leave the electrical wires clean up to me. I thought the power to the box could be usable at some later date. It was a pretty easy job. First I of course made certain the power to the box was turned off. Then I removed all the outgoing wires but left the incoming wires in tact. The power supply is fine so an outlet could be added if desired at some point.
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| Old air conditioner |
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Old wiring
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Project Completed
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Very old telephone wire box
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While I was behind the garage I noticed a very old telephone line box. Might as well get rid of that also. I still need to patch some places where the old air conditioner was attached but it's not urgent, and who sees the back of the garage anyway! A little stucco, some paint and the back will look pretty good, and be safe!
The temperature climbed to 97 degrees so I decided it was time to quit outside. I went into the air conditioned house and researched Tuesday's projects. Rebecca had purchased a sun sail for shade and also a bike pully system to hoist her bike to the ceiling in the garage. Once again I thought, "This is Linda's job". But I am learning that it really is a good idea to read the directions. So I did and was glad I did. Ready for tomorrow. We relaxed the rest of the afternoon and I made salmon with dill sauce for supper. Always a winner. We were thinking about "Big screen movies". Avatar came to mind. Neither of us had seen it in quite a while. It was great on the big screen!
After walking the dogs Tuesday morning, I went to Jill's house to check out her roof. She said there was a leak and she wasn't comfortable getting up on the roof. I offered to check it out. Fortunately she has a very nice ladder. I discovered at least one place that I was certain was leaking. The caulking around a pipe had cracked and was pretty much wide open. There were a couple other spots that were suspicious so I caulked them also. I feel confident she should remain dry during the coming rainy season. It's fun to do a project where the solution is obvious!
Back to Rebecca's to work on the bike pulley system. Rebecca's garage has a pitched roof so the rafters are at an angle. I was going to cut some wedges so the pulleys would be horizontal once installed, but I held the pulleys against an angled rafter and they seemed to work okay. So I proceeded to install them by working on the 8 foot step ladder. No need to go to the stairs at Swami's for exercise. It took a while, but I installed the system successfully. I told Rebecca to come and check it out. I cranked up the rope and the bike went to the ceiling. It seemed a little hard to pull up but whatever. We were both very happy! That night, as I was falling asleep the thought occurred to me that we never tried to let the bike down. Hmmmm. Plus, why was it so hard to pull it up? My subconscious was trying to tell me something!
The next morning I went out to try letting the bike down. Nothing! I knew what the problem was without looking. The pulleys were at too much of an angle and the rope slipped over the pulleys! Should have followed my first instinct. So I took the pulleys down, cut some wedges to put under the boards holding the pulleys, so the pulleys would pull straight up instead of at an angle. Now the system worked great. Very easy to hoist the bike to the ceiling and let it down. Another project successfully completed. It worked so well that Rebecca is going to get another pulley system to raise her pedal assist bike. (Next trip.)
We worked on the Sun Sail for shade for a while. We decided it was going to take more planning for where to put it and attaching it. Next trip.
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Craig & Letter slot project
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I was looking forward to my stop in San Juan Capistrano at Karen and Craig's. Instead of going for a short hike in the very hot weather, Craig offered to help me make a framework for Rebecca's new letter slot. Sounded great to me. Three days working on a ladder wore me out. The mail slot will go in her front door but needed some wooden spacers to fit properly. Craig has a nice work bench and a vice which helped a lot. He drove me to Home Depot to get the wood we needed and an amazing thing happened. I needed a piece of Poplar that I could cut to 5&1/2 inches wide. They actually had a piece 5&1/2 inches wide, a very good omen. We completed our work just in time for "Docktails". Then we had a very good Chinese food dinner from PF Chang's.
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9 hole golf course (left) & Catalina Island top right
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We got an early start for our hike the next morning because we knew the temperatures were headed into the mid 80's. Craig picked a beautiful trail. The views were amazing and the elevations were quite reasonable. From our starting point we could see Catalina Island, which is 22 miles from the mainland. Catalina is in the hazy area on the right, beyond the brown mountain. The picture below shows the same area, but closer. The green is a 9 hole golf course. That gives you a perspective of how far we could see.
It was about a four mile hike that went along the top of the ridge. We could see the mountains and ocean on the left and valleys and homes on the right. One house in particular stood out. It was huge. It looked like it should be a hotel! I couldn't help wondering, "What were they thinking?"
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Single private home along the trail
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While continuing our walk Craig spotted a road runner! It blends in very well with the terrain. It's the first one I've seen in the wild. I said, "All we need now is Wiley Coyote!"
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Road Runner
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We made it back at 11:30 so beat most of the heat. Karen showed me some more of her art work and we decided to have an art session on my next visit. It was a very good 4 days and I headed back to my place a little tired but happy!
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