We can see the end in sight!!!!

We are finished with painting. HALLELUJAH!  And, I saved the worst until last..  Painting the soffits.  The horrible under-belly of the house, right up beneath the roof.  James did the really high soffits but I did the garage and back deck area - places that only needed a "small" ladder.  I broke it down into three mornings of work.  Happily, I didn't get vertigo as I had to reach around all four sides and deal with those poking down nails.  

James is 99% done with his part of the painting.  We sent him a list of remaining projects and hopefully, he can get them completed within a couple of weeks.  I sent an introductory email to a real estate agent in St. Louis today....eeee....exciting.

Our yard is mostly done - now it is just maintenance.  The newly planted grass is coming up.  I acquired three huge hostas from a friend and I was able to split them into NINE plants.  Below are before/after....

We still need to spread mulch around the flower beds in front and around some of the trees in back and Steve bought twelve bags on sale at Walmart yesterday for that purpose.  

Remember mama robin and the fledged baby robins?  Well, mama wanted to have a second family and she started to build ANOTHER nest right above our front door. Throughout Wednesday, just in one day, Steve and I removed four beginning nests!!!  I went right out to the hardware store and bought Birds Off - strips of clear plastic spikes to put on areas you do not want birdnests and, so far, they have worked.  

Speaking of Wednesday, Steve had a CT of his lungs and then he saw two pulmonology doctors after that.  When they learned that we had lived in Arizona for two years, light bulbs went off in their heads because Phoenix has its own set of fungi and bacteria and so they want to do a bronchoscopy on June 10th to rule out anything related to that.  Not sure if this fungi can cause kidney issues but I guess we'll see.  It might mean a different treatment.  In the meantime, he is still not eating calcium and he is still drinking 80 ounces of water every day.  And, he continues to shed pounds.  He was at 193 this morning.  

Our weather these past few days has been gorgeous - low temperatures and low humidity.  Perfect for grilling.  And, our friend, Elizabeth, invited us over last night for just that. She cooked each of us a ribeye steak along with grilled baby potatoes and a Caeser salad.  YUM!  I brought some fresh cherries and a yummy chocolate chip date cake.  Dates are somewhat of an acquired taste and I knew I was going out on a limb with this recipe I had never tried but, it was in a Betty Crocker cookbook and I had dates from Christmas that I needed to use so I went for it.  And, it was really tasty with the dates hardly a factor at all.

Movie update:  I haven't done one of these lately.  We watched "Secret Life of Pets" and the sequel this past week.  Very entertaining.  I made Steve watch our DVD of "The Last Holiday" which I have loved for a while.  He actually enjoyed it and appreciated the message of the film (which is a BIG factor in his movie watching).  I also watched "Honeyland" that I checked out from the public library that happily has opened with a drive-through service.  I enjoyed the film - it was fascinating and very well done.  

Steve update

Yikes! I just realized I have not updated on Steve's health.  It is believed that he has kidney sarcoidosis.  You will have to look it up because it is kind of an unusual condition and it usually affects the lungs.  And, after a chest x-ray, he probably has it there, too.  He will see an orthopedic doctor and a pulmonologist this coming week.  He is on Prednisone for treatment which has it's own issues.  One is it causes high blood sugars and Steve's are through the roof.  Sometimes, when he takes a measurement, the glucometer just says "high" meaning it is so high, it can't register!!!  He is reporting all of his sugars, his blood pressures, and his decreasing weight to the doctor every day or so.  Aside from having to urinate hourly (due to the 80 ml. of water he drinks every day AND the high blood sugars), Steve is still feeling fine.  He can't eat any dairy now because of the high calcium.  But, his last blood work showed that his potassium and calcium levels are lowering.  Yay. 

Fighting the birds and the bees, the wasps and the moles

The front door is painted and re-installed with a new door knob.  Steve and I originally put the door back up but the new draft guard on the bottom prevented us from being able to completely close the door!  So James raised the door a bit and now it closes, it swings all the way open (whereas previously, it didn't.  Thanks, settling house).  It is so nice!

The entryway is now completely painted.  Claudine finished the second coat Monday morning.

The baby birds fledged on Wednesday.  They grow FAST!  I painted primer on the cedar shakes on Monday and Tuesday and they were still in the nest - although the three birds looked pretty crowded , especially when mama joined them!  So, Thursday, I took down the next and cleaned up the ledge and painted it Friday.

You have to look very closely to see the beaks of the baby birds in the first photo and, the second photo shows the removed next and one little brother or sister bird who never made it out of the shell.




Speaking of painting, I have done all the white exterior painting.






First I brushed primer on many of the white areas and then exterior white on all the windows, garage trim, on the soffit under-hangs, and around all the doors and on the cedar shake facade in the front.  I also touched up the green shutters.  Steve has painted his portion of the west and north side (he is the roller-guy).  James has done all of his part on the west and south side.  The south side was really in bad shape!  The wood gable above was peeling and chipped off.  The trim around the back door was rotting so he completely removed that and put up new.  And the siding was rotting down at the bottom.  After James repaired that, we believe he enclosed a bee hive because now we see bees hovering around the bottom of the siding.  Oops!  And, speaking of flying, stinging insects - the cedar shakes are perfect hiding places for wasp nests (both the paper and the mud kind) and Steve had to go to the store to buy wasp poison before finishing his part of the east side painting.   Up next week is doing the rest of the gray painting - James on the west and north side; Steve on the south and west side; me cutting in  around all the windows and doors on all the sides.  And we will be doing this with a full week forecast of scattered thunderstorms!  But, this is Missouri where, even though the meteorologists try to give an accurate prediction, most of the time, they are wrong.  So, we have hope that, throughout the week, we will be able to finish up the exterior painting.  I would post before/after pictures but we are duplicating exactly what was already up so I would be difficult to tell. But, the rotting siding will be gone - hooray!!!

We celebrated Steven's birthday last Sunday evening.  We had a family Zoom call in the afternoon and my poor 64.5 year old brain forgot how old he was and I said he was 39.  That explains his birthday cake...

Beckie drove to Columbia yesterday for a visit and it was the first time we had seen her since Christmas!  The day was perfect with a nice breeze so we sat in the backyard, cooked brats over a fire, and just talked and talked.  We also celebrated her belated birthday (March 28) with a cake...

(not shown - all the mole runs throughout the yard.  Each patch of bare dirt in the lawn is where a mole has left his mark.  While Trissy was alive, we didn't see so much activity.  I believe she was a deterrent.)

Steve and I have made SO many trips to hardware stores in the past few months.  This past week was no exception.  First it was to get more exterior paint.  Then it was for more straw to spread over grass seed that had to be re-planted in areas where heavy rain had washed everything away.  It was to buy two new exterior lights because how could we re-install the old, tarnished, grungy lights back on to our freshly painted walls?  Only, we forgot we had a third outdoor light in back so, away to the hardware store again! This remodeling  has been quite the journey!  I worry that it is just a dress-rehearsal for what we will buy in St. Louis.  I also know I have learned a LOT about houses and I will know what to look for when we do finally get to start looking.  I will be happy to finally move into a single level living home with not so much square footage to clean and yard to maintain but I will miss our home of twenty-four years...

Making our way through May

We had a nice start to the week with a fire in the backyard pit and a meal of roasted bratwurst with side salads, chips, and s'mores for dessert.  The missionaries cannot have dinners in people's homes but they can be with people outside (doing outdoor projects, etc.) so we invited the two sets of missionaries assigned to our ward to join us for dinner - along with Steven and Tamara.  The night was perfect, the fire was lovely (kept going by a very enthusiastic Elder Hawkins! - we actually had to have him hold back or he would have burned all of our wood), and the food was great.  Elder Hawkins is in the tan hoodie, Elder Pottle in the red hat, Sister Park with the longer hair and Sister Hinerman with the peach skirt.

Remember the robin that kept trying to build a nest above our front door?  Well, after we screened off that area, she built her nest above our family room window

and look what is inside!

I hope they grow up quickly and fly away because exterior painting has begun!  James started the first of last week and Steve and I will start this coming week.  James is tackling the high areas and we are doing the lower non-ladder-requiring areas.  You can already see a difference between the old and new...

I washed the shutters and took one down to the hardware store to match the color in order to repaint the front door that had so many chinks in it caused by cello cases through the years.  

 My plan was to remove the front door and paint both sides yesterday - Saturday - and have it up and hung by the time we went to bed.  Twas not meant to be.  First of all, Steve and I could not get the doorknob removed.  Thankfully, James was going to be in our part of town so he came over and managed to get it off and pronounced it so old that we really should get a new one.  So, that item went on a Menard's list.  Then, I washed the interior part of the door to get ready to paint it and look what started to happen....



Yep - the paint just started to peel off like old skin after a sunburn.  Only, it didn't completely peel off and what remained was hard to remove.  I looked up how to remove old latex paint and found ammonia - so, that went on to my Menards list.  But, since Steve had the car right then, I couldn't go shopping so I turned the door over and started painting the exterior side.  It ultimately took three coats and the rest of the day.



I tried the ammonia this morning - thinking it would be a quick fix - and it DID remove the remaining yellow latex paint (however not as easily as I had hoped) but it also removed the paint layer underneath wherever the ammonia touched!  What seemed like a simple project to do today just got more complicated so I have shelved it and will think about it tomorrow - when I can consult with James....

Another complication was that when James took out our old kitchen countertop and installed the new one, look what was wrong... 



Yeah, a back splash where it shouldn't be.  When we ordered this countertop, it was at the beginning of the stay-at-home orders and Home Depot could not send anyone to the house to do the measuring.  So, they had to depend upon amateurs to give them the information.  The measurements ARE actually correct but somehow the word "peninsula" never came up.  So, James took the new countertop off, put most of the old one back in along with the sink so we can have a functioning kitchen while he tries to iron out the problem with the Home Depot employee who wrote up the order (this happened on Thursday - she was off until Saturday - ugh) and while we wait for a new section to be made.  I do love how the new countertop is going to look, though.  Here it is while it was still up...

One positive home improvement note - Claudine Barner, mother to one of my cello students and someone who has a LOT of energy, has told me at least three times that she would be happy to finish painting our entryway that required climbing on a very tall ladder.  After I transcribed four solos from violin to cello (treble to bass clef) this week, I made her an offer - my time on Finale for her painting and she accepted.  She and her husband, John, came over yesterday afternoon and got the first coat on.  They will return tomorrow to paint coat number two and for Ethan to have a cello lesson.  Thus saving a bit of money we would have paid James.

  Of course, we continue to spend money on home items not planned for - like a new garbage disposal to replace the one that was probably original to the house.  And, to pay for a right front tire plus front struts and a right front wheel bearing after Steve accidently ran into a curb yesterday while running some errands.  The car won't be ready until late Monday or maybe not until Tuesday and it is going to be a pricy fix!  Sigh.  But, I really can't put Steve in the doghouse because it could have just as easily happened to me.  And, he outdid himself with a late Mother's Day gift last night:  THREE cards (he couldn't choose which one so he got all three), a lovely miniature potted yellow rose, a bag of Lindor truffles and a pount box of Russel Stover chocolates.  My hero.

Another hero is Steven who first met Steve at Plaza Tire and brought him home and who, later in the day, took me to Menards to buy my doorknob and ammonia.  So, weighing the week, I still think we came out on the positive side.

Mother's Day 2020

Today, for Mother's Day, I get to have Steve back home.  He had an out-patient kidney biopsy scheduled Thursday morning at University Hospital.  I dropped him off at 7:30 am (no family / visitors allowed in the building) expecting to pick him up sometime early afternoon after he recovered from a 9:30 procedure.  Well, routine pre-op blood work showed dangerously high calcium levels (yes - calcium, NOT potassium) and he had to be admitted  so they could hook him up to an IV of fluid and give him some lasix (a diuretic) and they wanted to keep him overnight!  Calcium levels on Friday were such that he had the procedure but again, he had to stay in the hospital Friday night.  Same with Saturday.  And, until about two hours ago, we thought he would be staying today!!!  Happily, I get to leave in a minute to bring him home.  We will not have the biopsy results until tomorrow and, for the unforeseen future, he can have no dairy in his diet.  

The first part of the week was fairly normal.  James has been working here all week - except Wednesday when it was very rainy.  He power washed the house, he worked on our gutters which were not draining properly due to the foundation settling, and he has been repairing our house siding to get ready for painting.  My projects this week were to buy exterior paint and I started washing windows.  I naively thought I could wash all of them yesterday but they turned out to be more involved so I will have to finish this coming week.  Our house windows are old - double hung - made of wood - the storm window tabs are mostly broken off so installing/removing them requires two needle-nose plyers and patience, and the screens do not come out that I can tell.  Bottom line - they do not clean easily.  One has to contort the arms to reach behind to get to all the glass.  And, for all those reasons, I have never really washed the windows in this house the entire twenty-four years  we've lived here!!!   Until yesterday.  And, it was as tedious and frustrating as I knew it would be.  But, when we sell this house, it will be with clean windows, by golly.

After Steve got stuck in the hospital, I just sort of threw routine out the window.  I watched movies and I finished tackling a big pile of Days For Girls sewing.  I didn't actually sew, I just re-assembled a box of cut fabric rectangles that had been prepared to make shields - but had been done wrong.  There were about 250 of these assembled "kits" waiting to be sewn and I discovered the hard way that they were not right.  I sewed about 20 of them a month ago and it was "oops - time to pick out the stitching and try again".  It took a few days and a few movies but all the kits are now properly put together and whoever ends up sewing them will have no problems.   The movies were "The Sound of Music" which Steve and I both watched early in the week, and, on my own, I saw "Sense and Sensibility" (the BBC version), both "Emma" movies (BBC and Gweneth Paltrow), and "Crazy Rich Asians".   

Last night, my friend Elizabeth came over for dinner.  We trade off going to each other's homes for dinner each month and it was our turn.  She had never had pork steak so that was on the menu.  She also had some damaged fuel canisters that are used with faux fire places that she needed to burn off and we have a fire pit so that was on the agenda as well as eating.  Wet conditions and rain had postponed this get-together a couple of times already so, even though Steve, the grill-meister,  was not going to be present, I decided to forge on and have our meal last night as planned.  Happily, I managed to not char the pork, and, it was a lovely night to burn old fuel canisters, even if it was surprisingly chilly.

When we re-planted our front strip to grass last fall, I transplanted these azaleas closer to the house and, happily, they lived and they are blooming.

Finally, my dessert from last week that was to die for.  Gluten-free Krusteas chocolate cake mix with a chocolate pudding filling between the layers and my mothers chocolate fudge icing.  The peppermint was leftover from Christmas.

Happy May!

Steve and Elise and I celebrated the new month with a cookout (bacon wrapped sirloins) and a little bonfire (toasted marshmallows).  The weather was absolutely perfect and there were no mosquitos!

The week began with FaceTime piano lessons with Noah, Lucy, and Quinn.  They are doing so well!  Emily says that they welcome the break from schoolwork to play the piano.  Noah has just taken off with his playing.  I also heard him play his cello and he is great on it, too.  I guess I will have to say "Thank you, coronavirus for making my grandkids so bored that they resort to practicing!"

Some GREAT news is that James has resumed work on the house.  He has been tackling our gutters (which, due to the settling, drain the wrong way) and our deck.  Hooray for moving forward.  Maybe we can list the house by the end of this month???????

I worked at Music Suite two days.  Here I am at work.

Steve and I watched three movies together throughout the week:  "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind", "The Farewell", and "Incredibles 2".  Of course, we had seen Incredibles twice before but it was a first time for the other two where it was interesting to see how different cultures live their lives.  It was shocking to realize that death by famine is still going on!  And, I hope I never have to attend a wedding event in China....SOOO LONG!!!  Oh, and I watched two movies on my own - "JoJo Rabbit" (funny, sad. JoJo and Yorkie are the cutest little boys EVER) and "Tall Girl" (oh, how I remember those days being the tallest girl around!)

I managed to fill my week with various activities:

 -sewing curtains for the downstairs bathroom and a slipcover for the rocking chair cushion so it now matches the piano bench cushion.

-washing door and window trim (all done in semi-gloss white) and touching up the dings in the paint

-working on an oil painting (my first since returning from Arizona)

-riding bikes with Steve every evening

-short stops at Dollar Tree, WalMart, and the post office one morning

Gas prices are AMAZING right now.  As are airline ticket prices.  Yesterday, I booked a trip for late September / early October to Utah and got two round trip tickets for just $411!!!