Hello new air conditioner!

Whooeee, it was HOT earlier in the week and life was pretty miserable without an air conditioner.  We mentioned our plight to Fred, the neighbor with whom we walk every morning, and he told us he had a room unit we could borrow until we got our problem fixed.  It was large and heavy (you should have seen us wheeling it down the sidewalk) and the hose was kind of persnickety until we found the right kind of tape to keep it in place but it was a God-send!  

We put it in our TV room and that became our sanctuary for the next two days.  

On Wednesday, we had a new air conditioner AND heater installed.  Both were ancient and the AC would work more efficiently with a new heater.  Plus, you might recall the week we went without heat last November while we waited for THAT repair.  SO, out with the old....

and in with the new....

Orchestra started up on Tuesday evening.  It was wonderful to be playing again.  

Steve and I visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens on Friday afternoon.  They currently have an origami art display.....large, painted metal structures made to look like origami that are situated throughout the gardens.....and they were beautiful.  

Steven came in to town on Saturday and after we went to the temple, we hopped on the Metrolink and went to a Cardinals game.  It happened to be the 10th anniversary of the year that the team won the World Series so there was a pre-game ceremony that brought the players together again for recognition and a photo at home plate.  They also gave out free bobble heads of David Freese, a home town boy who was the most valuable player in the play offs and the series.  The early part of the game was score-less (and kind of boring) but the Cardinals managed to pull off a win in the last innings, including a home run.

The rest of the week was busy with the usual activities - shopping, cleaning, yard work, practicing, two cello lessons.  I managed to watch a movie Thursday night while Steve had church duties - "Adrift".  Good.  Intense.  

This afternoon and evening will also be intense - At 3:00, I have a performance with the quartet at a small college in Hillsboro (36 miles south of here).  It is the saxophone quintet.  Then, Steve and I will drive to Columbia to listen to Elise perform with the Baptist choir at 6:30 and we will return home right after.  Hooray for Beckie for watching the dogs.  

 

RIP air conditioner

 Well, the inevitable happened - our failing air conditioner finally stopped working.  Oh, the motor still goes and goes but we have no cool air.  And, of course, it went down on a weekend.....a rather warm September weekend.  I have the three house fans blowing and the attic fan going full blast and so at least the air is moving around in the house.  It also cools off very nicely at night so a comfortable sleep is attainable.  I am calling the HVAC company tomorrow....

The week started with Labor Day and a backyard pancake breakfast with our next-door neighbors, Sergio, Enedina and their three children; Edwin (18), Sergio Jr. (14), and Giselle (10).  Both Sergio and Enedina work at the same restaurant so getting them off together is practically impossible.  Happily, they both had Labor Day off.  They are a lovely family and a great example of hard workers.  After lunch and a nap, Steve and I drove to Ballwin to join the Southerlands at their neighborhood pool for one last swim of the summer.  Then we returned to their house for a cookout.  Beckie and Micah joined us for that. 

 I managed to sneak in quick piano lessons with the three oldest (poor Quinn was under the impression that he had only one song to practice so I needed to fix that!).  Our friend,  Elizabeth Crippen, joined us for the cookout because she and Steve and I had an appointment at the temple the next morning at 11:00 so she stayed with us overnight so she wouldn't have to wake up so early and drive all the way from Columbia on Tuesday.  After our temple visit, we grabbed lunch at a nearby McAlisters Deli, took care of my St. Louis Civic Orchestra mail duties (collect from P.O. Box and deliver to the treasurer), and we were back home by about 2:30.  Elizabeth left for home shortly thereafter.  Beckie came for dinner (wow, two nights in a row) and then we three (Steve, Beckie, and I) piled ourselves, our overnight luggage, and the doggies into her car and we also drove to Columbia.  We took the dogs to Melanie to watch and then we went to Steven and Tamara's because Wednesday was.......Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony day!  Waaaay back when Derek Jeter retired, Steve, Beckie, Steven, and Elise all agreed that we needed to drive to Cooperstown for his induction ceremony year.  Only, that year was 2020 when no one was having any kind of ceremonies.  Fast forward to this year and initially, the ceremony was just going to be virtual...until about six weeks ago when they decided to allow the public to attend.  By then, however, there was no way that our family could muster the funds, the time off, the rental car, the hotel to drive to the real thing.  So, we all gathered in Steven's basement and watched the ceremony on television.  Elise and Steven took the day off.  Beckie, who works remotely, was able to log in and work for most of the day.  I even managed to go down to Ethan Barner's home to give him an in-person cello lesson.  But, the main event was the ceremony.  And, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it even though I am not the baseball buff like most of the family.  We ate ballpark type food for lunch and Elise baked a batch of gluten free sugar cookies and decorated them appropriately. 

 

Thursday and Friday we played catch-up (grocery shopping, cleaning, yard work, and two random Zoom meetings Thursday night) since we were completely out of our routine for the first three days of the week.  These last few days have been a bonus for seeing our children.  Elise came into town Thursday night to dog-sit for Kyle and Micah over the weekend.  Beckie and the boys caught the train to Chicago Friday morning to attend a friend's wedding and they will arrive home this evening.  So, Elise has joined us for dinner Friday and Saturday and hopefully tonight as we will be eating out on our shady deck which is much cooler than the house right now.

Saturday morning, after two mulch site runs, Steve and I finished filling in the back gate driveway (see last blog).  We also took a longer-than-usual bike ride to explore some of the bike trails around our part of town.  Saint Louis Greenway extends all around the city and eventually we hope to try out many of the routes when the weather becomes more favorable.  I glazed my fired pottery in the afternoon and then went to a quartet rehearsal.  We have joined forces with a local saxophonist (Elke) on a quintet and the performance is a week from today (Sunday).  It is kind of an ugly musical work, very contemporary, and quite challenging for the saxophonist so I will be glad to be over it.  Our rehearsal location on Saturday was at Elke's husband's saxophone shop called SaxQuest located in the heart of the Cherokee Street Antique district and it was an amazing venue.  Her husband buys, restores, repairs everything saxophone.  The building itself is over a hundred years old.  All the display cabinets are beautiful antiques.  And he has a museum upstairs filled with more saxophones than I have ever seen.  He has one gorgeous cabinet filled with original instruments made by Adolph Sax himself!  Incredible.  I am sorry I didn't take a photo!  But, I will go back soon and drag Beckie with me since she used to play the also saxophone.

So, that about wraps up the week.  

Larkin and mulch, mums, Menards, Manifest

Steve and I had a great visit with Julina and Alex in Indiana.  We left for home Monday morning and arrived in the early afternoon - in time for lunch and a nap.  That evening, we headed out to Ballwin to help Larkin celebrate her 5th birthday!  All things pink and kitty and little animals.  

Steve NEVER wears sunglasses but a week ago, he had a blood vessel in his eye burst and his left eye looked demonic.  Thankfully, it is not a thing to worry about and gradually, the blood in his eye has been dissipating. 

The week was one with cooler temperatures - lovely hints of autumn - and quite a bit of rain.  About the only yard work that happened was buying chrysanthemums and getting them into the ground or pots and starting the mulch driveway to the back gate.  We are just trying to reduce the amount of lawn that needs to be mowed and this seemed like a good way, especially since the mulch is free from the mulch site at Carondelet Park.  We flip the back seats up in our Element and take shovels, buckets, assorted sizes of tubs and a huge flexible lawn bag and we load everything up with this mulch.  Below reflects two trips worth.  We think we will need to take at least two more, maybe three.  Happily, the park is only about a mile away....

Tuesday afternoon, Steve and I visited Menards and bought three assemble-yourself shelf units.  Two are quite heavy duty and we moved all our food storage onto them.  The third was not as large or strong and it holds all my craft tubs.  I took one of the original food storage shelves and repurposed it in the toy area to hold puzzles and games.  The second original shelf is now in the guest bathroom holding towels, etc.  We also moved our freezer closer to the stairs.  I relocated the laundry shelf to the space where the freezer was.  Having all our food storage up off the floor really added some space to our basement and we are very happy with the results:

I can't remember if I posted "after" photos of the guest room now that it has four walls,  Where you see the ironing board, I hope to have a twin bed someday.  And, Beckie is re-donating an old chest of drawers that we will also position on the wall opposite the bed.

I got to see Larkin and Emily a second time this week!  Emily needed to take photos of the staff of a dentist office close to our house Thursday morning.  Of course with Joe was at work and the other three kids at school (Larkin attends an afternoon preschool Monday through Thursday), she needed grandma to hang out with Larkin for about thirty minutes just before 8:00 am.  We spent our time in the Southerland van mostly waiting in the McDonald's drive through for breakfast but we had a nice visit all the same.  Larkin LOVES her preschool and she loved the strawberry-banana smoothie and pull-apart donut.  Emily and I spent a little too long chatting after her photo session and her battery had run down (I guess not all cars automatically turn off the headlights when the ignition is turned off) so we had to put our heads together along with Google and jump start the van before we could say goodbye.  Yay for Emily who did most of the work!

Friday mid-day Steve and I hosted lunch for five missionaries and Sam Carpintero, a newly baptized young woman.  We then headed to the temple so Sam could do some temple baptisms.  Elder Williams, who helped teach Sam and who has since been transferred to another part of St. Louis, joined us.  It was a lovely afternoon.

back row:  Elders Ross, Christiansen, Williams, Steve

middle row"  Sister McDonald, Sam

front row:  Sisters Fortner and Brown, me 

Yesterday was rainy all day so we didn't get more mulch as we had hoped nor did we get to take an extended bike ride.  Instead, Steve cleaned and I ran to the store.  Then I puttered in the kitchen baking a gluten free lemon zucchini cake, gluten free peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, fixing marinated carrots, getting beans sorted and ready to soak, and making a jello salad for Sunday.  And, we watched some of season 3 of Manifest now that it is on Netflix.  On Friday evening, we watched the 1989 version of Henry V.  All our other evenings were full of birthday, or hosting Beckie for dinner, or rehearsing with my quartet.  So ends another good week here in Saint Louis....

 

Please, summer, be finished

By the end of August, we are all SO ready for the heat to be over.  Especially August 2021 where Saint Louis was actually hotter than Phoenix!  (considering heat index).  It was a miserable week to be sure.  Currently, Steve and I are in Greenwood visiting Julina and we left Friday morning at 5:00 to make our drive more comfortable (remember, we have no AC in the Element).  That strategy worked beautifully and we were actually able to drive 3/4 of the way with windows up and just outside air coming in through the vent.  That was nice because not only is driving on an interstate with windows down quite windy, it is also VERY noisy.

  

So, here we are at Julina's place.  We had no main objectives in coming - just wanted to see the newly remodeled kitchen and laundry room (which is lovely) and to keep Julina and Alex company for a few days.  Steve and I have taken on the roll that my mom and dad used to have when they came to visit us - we do projects while we visit.  I sewed some flannel coverings for Alex's nasal cannula and tubing to make them more comfortable against his skin.  I mended clothes.  Both Steve and I cleaned areas and items that the regular cleaning folks do not do.  We also had lunch with Shiloh on Saturday.  Today, Steve will stay home with Alex and watch church virtually while Julina and I will go to our meetings in person.  (look closely at the second photo and you will see Linus and Sally in the dog yard.  They actually barked at me as I was taking pictures.  Makes me wonder how well Linus can see these days)

Our week started with me taking a drive down to House Springs to pick up more dog food and heartworm medicine.  On Tuesday, Sally got to visit the groomers (Linus will be next month).  I spent a very warm morning helping Micah and Kyle with their yard as they prepare to put it on the market.  Back when we were getting the Parker house ready to sell, I dug up peonies and shared them with Kyle and Micah.  So, my primary objective on Tuesday was to dig up the plants and put them into our new back yard.  Eventually, when Kyle and Micah get a new home, I will split them and share back. 

Here are two photos of Sally's new look

 

Tuesday evening was St. Louis Civic Orchestra auditions at a church in Creve Coeur.  I had to be there to move the fourteen auditionees in and out and I also had to audition myself.  The audition music was tough but I just kept telling myself  "what are they going to do?  Not let me in and then they would have to find a new administrator"  So, even though I practiced, I didn't worry too much about the outcome.  The auditions were held in a deliciously air conditioned multi-purpose room.  I, on the other hand, had to sit in a very warm foyer for two hours.  Ugh.  

Wednesday we braved the heat and bought groceries in two shifts, breaking up the chore by having lunch with Beckie.  We braved the heat a third time in the evening by driving to the stake center for our temple recommend interviews.  

Thursday morning, we took the car down the street to Bates St. Auto for an oil change.  Melanie had to drive a friend to the Saint Louis train station quite early that morning so she spend the rest of the day with us.  She had never been to IKEA so she and I went there later in the morning.  I needed a plant pot and she ended up buying a couple of plants for her house.  That afternoon, while Melanie rested downstairs, Steve and I packed for Indiana and we three had an early dinner of grilled chicken before attending the 6:00 temple session.  

Aside from Jeopardy re-runs, Steve and I didn't watch anything together this week.  I, on the other hand, watched three movies:  "Far From The Madding Crowd" (2015 version), "Yours, Mine, and Ours" (2005 version), and "Quartet".  The first was Wednesday evening while Steve was at youth activities and the other two have been while here in Greenwood while doing sewing or when I couldn't sleep.

And you know the rest of the story....

Summer winding down

Monday, we had a brief visit from these folks....Neal and Claire Lambson.  We met them while we were on our mission in Phoenix.  They were serving in the Tucson mission and because Steve and he were both vehicle coordinators, it is how we learned about them and found out Steve's long lost connection to the Arizona Lambsons.  Neal and Claire were on their way Monday to Charleston, West Virginia to start their fourth mission!  We had hoped they would stay for dinner and the night but as they were driving to St. Louis Monday morning, they got a call from their mission president requesting that they arrive by Tuesday evening so they could be present at Zone Conferences Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  So, Neal cancelled their hotel reservation for Lexington on Tuesday night and they had to leave only a few hours after arriving to get further down the road that night.  They didn't even get to stay for a meal.  But, we did have a nice visit while they were here.  

Tuesday was the final Grandparent Day Camp for the summer of 2021.  The morning activity was to create animals from construction paper, pipe cleaners, and toilet paper or paper towel tubes.  Sorry I didn't get a photo.  Noah and I also finished the puzzle he started last week.  Quinn played with Legos.  Larkin and Lucy played with the tub of assorted horses.  We watched "Groundhog Day" for the afternoon movie.  Larkin tired of it fairly quickly so she and Steve watched a Peanuts movie in the next room.

As I mentioned last week, Emily and Joe are redoing their living room - Emily painted primer on Tuesday while we had the kids.  On Wednesday, I drove over to help her with window and door trim while she painted the color coat on the walls.  I didn't paint inside the door jam as that would have required the door to be open to the heat and bugs.  That part will have to wait for cooler temperatures.

Aside from the armoire which has yet to be sold, this is how the room now looks with their new sectional seating and the area rug.  It is so much brighter than the 80's décor previously there.  

Thursday was just a day to stay home and do assorted chores:  me cleaning, Steve mowing.  We fed the missionaries dinner and then both Steve and I went to the church for the evening.  Steve had temple recommend interviews - and we both needed to have our temple recommends renewed.  So, I came along and practiced the cello in a classroom while I waited for my interview turn.  Even though I am the St. Louis Civic Orchestra administrator (a.k.a. personnel manager), I have actually never played with this group since I joined during the Covid lockdown.  Thus, I have to go through the audition process this coming Tuesday.  I can't imagine that I won't pass  - this is just a formality - but the music excerpts are HARD.  They are cello orchestral excerpts that are used in professional orchestra auditions.  Hence, I have been practicing....

Friday was Carondelet String quartet rehearsal in the morning and the temple in the afternoon.  Saturday morning, I planted some iris rhizomes I had ordered and Steve and I picked up some free mulch and compost at the Carondelet park mulch site.  That afternoon, I did trimming at pottery.  Elise stopped in for a brief visit after she had been to the temple and we had the Morgan family over for cookies and milk that evening.  

We finished "Kung Fu Panda" on Monday, watched "Up" on Tuesday, and "Gifted" in two sittings Friday and Saturday.  

My sunflowers were slow to blossom but now they are in their full glory.  They are kinda short compared to most of the sunflowers I see growing around town and I am not sure why.  Oh well, they are still pretty.

Like I stated at the top of this blog, summer is winding down - thank goodness.  I am tired of the heat and we have an excessive heat warning for much of this coming week!  Hang in there, little ancient air conditioner!  Tomatoes and zucchini are going full tilt.  It is "constant vigilance" with the zucchini plants to pick the vegetable before it gets too large.  Inevitably,  I miss one or two so I am bringing a chocolate zucchini bundt cake to our dinner invite this evening from two monster fruits that evaded my eye.  School starts for the Southerlands next week so that will change up the music lesson schedule and, since Larkin's preschool class is only Monday through Thursday, she might still come over for Grandma preschool every other Friday.  Beckie has been dealing with a tooth abscess all week, poor girl.  Happily, she finally got on antibiotics on Wednesday but has been fighting pain, swelling, nausea, and fever.  Steve and I brought her some blue jello and a jar of applesauce Friday evening.  I am so glad we live nearby so we could do that for her.  And to live close enough to help Emily paint.  And, happy 1st anniversary this weekend to us moving into this house.....