Still not finished

Here is the photo of the deck before we started painting. It features the new and improved benches which I LOVE.  

And, here it is looking finished but, sadly, if you look really closely, you will see that it still needs one more coat....

It has just been too busy or too hot or too wet or we have been gone and that last coat will hopefully -  maybe - get put on at the end of this week???? In the meantime, the deck decorations stay lined up against the house.

We did give it the "old college try" early in the week with deck painting. We worked Monday evening until we ran out of the expensive grit-filled deck paint. Tuesday morning, instead of doing my usual yard work at the cool of the day, I used some of the older deck stain that is in the same color on some of the out of the way spots. Later that day, while Steve was at the temple, I went to Home Depot to get another gallon of the fancy stuff  ($50 per gallon!) and we spent Wednesday evening painting until it got too dark leaving just the second coat for the flat, walking part of the deck to be done at another time. 

We came in Monday evening with some time before bed so we watched "The Net". Yes, the old 1995 Sandra Bullock one that both Steve and I had seen before. Almost 30 years old and it still holds up. And, it is still paints a picture that is as terrifying as ever of the hazards of the internet.  Between that movie and the frustration with not finishing the deck, I didn't sleep very well that night.

Aside from deck painting (or not painting) the rest of the week went quite calmly and smoothly. I finished a "chapter" in my Billion Graves efforts. Section 11 photos have now been compared with the cemetery spreadsheet and chart of the same section and about twenty individuals were identified as not having a marker. So, I wrote what information I did have on them - name and death date and age at death - on an erasable white board and set it down on the plot where they were buried and took a picture.  I am now working on section 14 doing the same thing with the photos I have already taken and entered into Billion Graves.  It is a slow-going job - I usually do about four photos per night after I have written in my journal - but slow and steady wins the race, right? 

I ended up teaching the 10-11 year old Afghanistan girl's class at the Welcome Center Thursday night. They usually have mother/daughter team teaching them but the daughter was racing in a two-person canoe in the MR340 and the mother wanted to cheer her on. I looked up MR340 and it is a race on the Missouri River for the 340 miles between Kansas City and St. Louis. The race takes at least two days. Wow!  So, the I had the three attending girls draw a picture and write a few words of commendation for the daughter and then we played Spot-It. 

I have picked two gallon bags of green and yellow beans so far and more are coming. We have beautiful cucumbers this year - long and green instead of fat and curly.  The yellow squash has slow and steady output but the zucchini has produced only one fruit so far. The blackberries are all but finished. I am hoping to complete weeding the pumpkin patch this week as the plants are beginning to spread. As I dig up volunteer violets and other unwanted growth out in the pumpkins in the mornings, the bees are buzzing all around me - queueing up for a turn in the many blossoms.  The bottle gourds have produced three gourds so far but they are climbing all over the fence and have multiple blossoms so I have great expectations. 

Steve and I spent the weekend in Greenwood with Juli and Alex. We arrived Friday evening and left for St. Louis mid-afternoon Sunday. Alex was in a full-of-energy phase so he joined Juli, Steve and me at the temple on Saturday.  And, rather than go up to his room to crash after we returned home, he and Steve went out to the garage and puttered around with a plasma torch to lengthen a trailer!!!  We really didn't do much aside from the temple. Juli and I always make a Costco run to fill up our gas tank and to pick up food for dinner - usually a rotisserie chicken. Steve stayed with Alex through the night on Saturday so Juli could get a full night's sleep in her office. Alex caught Covid on the 4th of July and it has been a rough month. One of his regular aids is Type 1 diabetic so he has been staying away and the other aid has had his hours cut due to bureaucratic  red tape so Juli has been carrying the ball for much of the time. We hit some dead-stop traffic just outside of Effingham that delayed our trip back home by an hour but otherwise, it was a great trip. We brought Sally along and she is such a good little road-trip doggie. Below is a photo of her at one of our stops and I close with a picture of the four of us after the temple.

 

A Quiet Week

 I have no photos to blog about. It was a very average week with lessons and yardwork. We had torrential rain on Tuesday that dumped over SIX inches in some places. Steve and I were out driving in it since I had dropped him off at the temple that morning and went to teach piano lessons to Quinn and Larkin. I picked him up and, on our drive home, the rain just came down in sheets. Visibility on I-64 was like driving in a thick fog. Water was puddling on the road.  Google Maps suggested going home via Big Bend but, almost as soon as we exited and started down that road, we could see that water was quite high over the road up ahead so we made a U-turn and got back on the interstate until Kingshighway. I understand that parts of I-70 and I-44 were actually closed for a while! 

Our deck-painting project is just about done. We applied the rest of the primer last Monday and started the painting last night. We ran out of light (and energy) last night and hopefully, we can complete everything tomorrow. I will take a picture at that time. 

Everything in the garden is growing beautifully - blackberries, green beans, squash, tomatoes. My morning yardwork (when it is not raining) is mostly weed pulling because those also grow beautifully. 

We were invited to lunch after our Saturday baptistry shift to the apartment of Elder and Sister Davis. He brought up lots of frozen elk meat and we enjoyed a delicious meal of venison (that was not gamey at all). I brought a chocolate peanut butter pie that is decadent. 

Steve and I watched The Wonderful World of the Brother's Grimm, a movie made in the early 60's, filmed in the Cinerama format. By today's standards, it is rather cheesy but nevertheless, it was nostalgic to watch because I saw it when I was a little girl in the theater and we bought a souvineer booklet that I still have.

I finished the book Emily loaned me The Bird and the Sword. So good!  I have decided to not continue watching Wheel of Time. It is really quite different from the books and it is rather violent which I don't need in my life.

We have been on a Mexcian food kick these last three days - I made cassava flour tortillas (GF) for burritos on Friday. They turned out very delicious and soft. We bought dinner from Taco Stash House on Saturday - recently opened up by a member of our ward and tonight, we're having red enchiladas. 

On Thursday, I got a haircut by another ward member. I teach her oldest girl in Primary. Aldi had strawberries on "sale" (meaning they were the cheapest we have seen this year at $1.50 per pound) and we froze five pounds. Our new air pump worked fantastic and we had a fun bike ride on Wednesday evening, enjoying the cooler than usual temperatures. The Ward Choir sang a very nice arrangement of Come Come Ye Saints this morning and I think I have told about all the news of this week....

Three birthdays

We celebrated three birthdays this week!  Elise had her actual birthday on Tuesday, July 9th and on Thursday, we celebrated Lucy's April birthday belatedly with a trip to the Science Center.  We enjoyed several exhibits, visited the gift shop and ended with the movie Cities of the Future in the IMAX theater. Before taking her home, we had lunch at Culvers. It was a great time!

We called Elise on her birthday and, on Friday, we drove to Columbia and took her to dinner at Cheddars. Steven and Tamara were out of town so we didn't stop by to see them but we did go by Elizabeth Crippen's home to give a belated birthday gift (July 7th) to her. And, Steve and I attended a lovely wedding reception for Leslie Barner that evening. I have known the Barner family through music lessons for almost ten years and I am still teaching Ethan cello lessons via FaceTime every week.  It was fun to visit with so many Columbia church friends in the Barner's beautiful back yard and we would have stayed longer had we not needed to get back to St. Louis and to bed since the next morning, bright and early, was an assignment in the temple baptistry. 

We had quite a bit of rain on both Monday and Tuesday, enough to remind us how badly we need a new roof (water trickles down one of the roof pipes into our basement) and we had a second roofer give us an estimate on Wednesday and we have decided to go with his company. They hope to start this coming week. Hooray for insurance! The wetness of the deck kept us from painting primer on it until last evening. We had a half of a gallon of oil-based primer and an almost full quart of water-based primer and all of it was applied last night. We need about another quart more of the water-based stuff to finish the job. (but I think I will get a gallon). Steve used the roller and got about 3/4 of the deck floor covered and I used a brush and went around the sides and tricky spots.  In spite of being in a heat advisory, we will try to finish tomorrow evening after the sun has gone behind the buildings. We are shaded by the big old oak tree and, yes, it was warm last night but it was still tolerable. 

I picked up two movies from the public library and we watched one of them, Dick Tracy, Thursday night. It was only a second watch for both of us, the first time being when it was released in 1990. We both enjoyed it. I loved the stylized way it was filmed and I liked the Stephen Sondheim element.  I also finished the first season of Wheel of Time this past week and I have started a wonderful new book called The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon.

I wish I had more photos to share - Just two from the Science Center and one of Steve and me on our bikes Thursday evening. We have not been riding lately, mostly due to our bike tires. They are supposed to be kept at 50 psi and the Slime brand tire pump has not been working for months and hand pumping is just exhausting. But, we hand pumped anyway, had a wonderful ride and we went right out the next day and bought a different brand of air pump. It comes highly recommended by our neighbor, Sergio, it is actually cheaper than the Slime brand, and we have high hopes for more regular rides going forward.

 

4th of July

 July 1st began with me driving two Afghanistan families to the St. Louis Science Center. Since Steve and I will be going to the Science Center with Lucy this coming week, I opted to find a shady parking spot and work on my Primary lesson and scripture studies while waiting for the time to drive everyone home (in two shifts, as usual. Is it time to buy a minivan yet?......nope)

Speaking of minivans, I went with Emily back across the river on a rainy Wednesday morning to retrieve her car with a brand new alternator and battery (lifetime warranties). 

2024 was the year of a Lord of the Rings movie marathon on the 4th of July. We actually started Wednesday night to make sure we got all the extended versions in and we did - finishing at 8:30 Thursday night. I watched but I also multi-tasked: updating the blog with news of our trip to Arizona and doing fabric crafts. I finished a small t-shirt quilt for a friend's birthday and cut out at least fifteen zippered bags. I also attended the ward picnic at noon, bringing Sam and her dog Blue, but we had to leave early because poor Blue got overheated. It was quite humid but not too miserably hot for humans but definitely bad for big bulldogs. 

Friday Steve took Fred to the grocery store while I taught lessons in the morning and we did sealings at the temple in the afternoon. That evening, we watched the documentary on Jim Hensen called Idea Man. Earlier in the week, we watched Ad Astra. 

Saturday I had a Primary teacher meeting/breakfast and then I spent a few hours running errands while Steve made a batch of granola at home. We finished up the day by having some friends from church, Kaleb and Sarah Rasmussen, over for dinner. He is the Elder's Quorum president (Steve is his 1st counselor) and she is the choir accompanist and in the Primary presidency so we see quite a bit of each other. They are younger than Kirsti so they feel like another set of children. 

It has been a nice week. The rain was SO welcome but eventually, we need a string of dry days (and some relatively committment-free days) so we can tackle the deck project - first priming and then painting.  I don't think that will happen this coming week.....

Back home and back to normal

 Beckie is our hero as she stayed at the house and took care of Sally while we were gone.  It was incredibly hot and dry during our absence and she kept my plants alive with constant watering. Thanks to Beckie! I continued her efforts and watered and watered until we finally got some rain.

Elise drove into town on the 27th to help Emily celebrate her birthday but she didn't come as far as our place. We went to the Southerlands on Friday, the 28th and brought a gluten-free chocolate cake and we had pizza with her and the kids. Joe was out of town. Noah now has a job at Oberweis Creamery so I took some photos of him in his uniform as he demonstrated his bass playing skills. After our cake, we all went to Oberwies for ice cream - Noah served us.

We saw Emily and kids again on Sunday. First, though, Steve and I attended a 77th birthday celebration for Ed Van Vooren, our neighbor who owns the house that is being remodeled to the east of us. Emily picked me up at about 4:30 and I drove with her and Noah, Lucy, Quinn and Larkin to Mt. Vernon, Illinois where she had a photo shoot at Blackberry Hollow, a lovely you-pick farm that features blackberries and flowers. While Emily was taking pictures, the kids and I took a walk along a mowed path through fields of wildflowers. Then we hung out on swings around a large firepit and at the barn that sold jams and flower seeds. On our way back to St. Louis, Emily inadvertently took a wrong exit which delayed us about fifteen minutes. But, I believe it was a good thing because, once we returned to I-64, the van started acting up - all the warning lights showing up on the dashboard.  We pulled off at a rest stop that was the very next exit and there the van completely died. Had we not made that detour, we would likely have broken down in scary East St. Louis. While Emily called for roadside assistance, I called Steve and he drove the thirty five minutes in the Kia to meet us. After supervising the tow truck, we all crammed into the Soul and drove back to our house. Emily and the kids then took our Element to Ballwin and Steve and I finally got to bed at about 1:00 am. What a day! 

Two other bits of news - we finally have our missionary nametags and our handyman finally finished our deck.  Notice that he expanded the seating. Steve and I now get to prime and paint it - once it stops raining and it dries out....

hanging out at the rest stop....

The drive back home

Wednesday morning we began our drive eastward. Four Corners was on our way so we stopped and visited four states at once. I remember going there as a girl when our family was driving up to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference. The rest of the day led us through southern Colorado on state highway 160 which was such a beautiful route. We ate lunch in Durango along the banks of the Animas River. Towards the late afternoon, we encountered rain that stayed with us until after dinner in Pueblo. Our stay that night was in Eads, Colorado - a tiny farm town in the middle of nowhere in eastern Colorado. Thursday we visited Monument Rocks in western Kansas - literally on our way from state roads up to I-70 - and then through never-ending Kansas. Dinner was in Topeka and on to Columbia where we slept at Steven and Tamara's. We pulled into St Louis late Friday morning. What a trip!

Photos: Four Corners - including the photo taken when I was a girl and that I re-created; picnic lunch on the Animas River (that last photo is when Steven fell in!); the beauties of southern Colorado; Monument Rocks; all the baby hats I made during the journey