Still Cold

Monday

The cold weather continued.  It was clear last night for the eclipse and blood moon, that helped it to get down to 20 degrees last night.  Hopefully that's the coldest it will be this season.

Nice sunny day today which helps with heating the house, otherwise the heat pump runs a lot.  I had the gas logs on for a while this morning also.  Did not do much today hard to believe it was a holiday, they kind of sneak up on us.  So I made a new cable for the network and installed that.

Did a little reading and watched some instructional YouTube on networking again.  Bonnie wanted some things ordered on Amazon so I did that.  Then into the evening switched to the networks for some TV.  They say warmer weather for tomorrow so I am looking forward to that.

Tuesday

Nice sunny day today, it even warmed up to the low 50s.  Bonnie was busy.  She had her scrapbooking and card making class.  Then she was home for a couple hours and went to her Missions Spanish Class up at church.  Me I pretty much watched TV and did my lesson for my group study.  Thats it for today.

Wednesday

Warmed up into the 50s today even though it rained all day well over an inch of rain.  Bonnie had bought a whole ham for $.99.  It was a 13 lb ham.  Today was the day to cut it up so we could get a few meals out of it.  We did two roasts, a big bone for beans and ground the rest for ham salad.  We froze some made some fresh and gave a roast and some ground for Robby and family.

I cut up the ham into the bigger pieces and then Bonnie trimmed it.

Then I used the kitchen aid grinder to grind it up

Finished grind

Then into the Vaccum sealer

So we have enough ham for quite a few meals

Then we were off to church for our group studies.  Boy it started to cool off again.

Thursday

It was in the 20s this morning thankfully the sun was out.  Shortly after I had finished my breakfast Zach from Wayne's showed up and did our annual Termite inspection.  It only took about a half hour and we got the all-clear for another year.  Then the trash had come so I went out and brought the trash tote in.

We were expecting a special visitor today so while we waited Bonnie had me help her hang a few things on the wall.  Shortly after we finished that our visitor showed up.  Dan Driver is a friend our ours Bonnie grew up with him and I met him in college.  He is actually who introduced us to each other, Thank You Dan.

Robby and his family all were over and met him and said hello.  We spent the evening visiting and catching up.

Friday

Still cold today.  Dan and I did intense visiting today catching up on the last couple of years.  Bonnie went grocery shopping and Dan and I for a drive.  We drove by the Space and Rocket Museum.

Then we drove around downtown Huntsville and went by the rehab hospital I had been in.  Then when we got home Bonnie had me smoke and grill some steaks on the grill.  After supper we got back to visiting.

Saturday

Up bright and early this morning at 7:30 to say goodby to our good friend Dan.  We had coffee and breakfast while we got in the last of our visiting.  Then it was time to load up his car and say our goodbyes.

It was great to have him him and our together went way to fast.  So he is headed back to Maryland.  Hopefully the next visit will be soon.

I caught up on some paperwork and scanning.  Then worked on my group study lesson.  Then watched Alabama lose to Baylor on the basketball court.  Then relaxed, napped and watch some recorded programs.  Its been cold but its been a good week.

Well thats a wrap for this week.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Some people try to turn back their odometers, not me, I want people 
to know why I look this way, and some of the roads weren't paved"

Cold Spell

Monday

In the 40s today.  Not much to report.  I untangled the power cords in my network shelve and tried to make it look neat.  Then watched a movie.  Robby came over with the control board out of his dryer that had stopped working.  He had done the research on line and we needed to solder a wire on a relay.  We got that done and put a new end on a cable for the camera I have hooked up, it kept disconnecting.  That was about it for the day.

Tuesday

Another cold morning with the promise of sun this afternoon.  Bonnie decided to make the rounds of the thrift stores and do a little shopping.  Looks like we have a new love seat for up stairs and an ottoman.  I washed dishes while she was gone and watched a movie.

My new network has been working great.  The TV in the living room is much more responsive and is much more enjoyable to use and watch.  We collected the trash and took it out to the curb, boy does it feel cold and damp.  We had a simple supper of fruit and chicken, an interesting combo but it was good.  Then a quiet evening with the news and some shows, and a quick nap.

Wednesday

Finally a nice sunny day and the temperature warmed up nicely.  I worked a little on the network but other than that it was another lazy day.  I did change a battery on one of the Arlo cameras but that only takes a couple minutes.

We headed to church for the first night of our new groups.  I am in a class on Prayer and Bonnie is in a woman's class on Defiant Joy.  We both enjoyed the first seasons and look forward to the rest of the sessions.

We both are over what ever we had on the weekend and my foot is feeling much better

Thursday

Back to rain and overcast again today.  I did some studying for my class and then worked on my network again.  I am just documenting stuff and naming the ports on my switches.  Bonnie made a roast for supper in the instant pot and also a butternut squash both were very good.  Now a relaxing evening with a little TV.

Friday

Alexa woke me at 7am this morning,  I made some oatmeal and coffee and headed for the Dermatologist for a 9am appointment.  When we lived in NY I went every year and now that we are settled in I am trying to get in the routine again.  It took months to get the appointment here.  I am seeing the PA-C, I guess you only see the Dr for active cancer issues.  My chair for the exam.

Waiting on the PA

The can of nitrogen.

Thought Rachel was very though and Morgan her assistant documented everything on her iPad.  In fact everyone carries an iPad.  Anyway she froze a bunch of spots almost all of them on my face and head.  I also have some yeast based thing causing very dry skin on my face.  And the dry skin on the top of my head had some fancy name also.  So I have a couple RXs to clear that up.  So the top of my head is a bit sore and I have to pick up the RXs tomorrow.  Of course we are to get a lot of rain and wind tomorrow.

The rest of the day I just took it easy and watched some instructional youtube videos on networking.  It was overcast here today but still in the 50s.

Saturday

It has rained all day here with about 10 minutes of sunshine late this afternoon.  I have been doctoring my foot and ankle.  Heat had been helping but not so much today so I tried ice and that seemed to help some also.  I miss those days when I was over a sprained ankle in a couple days.

I did venture out early this afternoon to go to CVS.  I picked up my two skin cream RXs and headed home in the rain.  I did some reading today and watched a couple basketball games.  Back East our family and friends are dealing with a major snow storm.

Bonnie made beef stew for supper so I am going to enjoy it.

Well thats a wrap for this week.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Some people try to turn back their odometers, not me, I want people 
to know why I look this way, and some of the roads weren't paved"

College National Championship

Monday

I had a good time at the Men's Fellowship last night at church.  We had homemade hamburgers and then split up into teams and played Sports Trivia.  We came in third after losing a good sized lead that we had at the halfway point.  The best part was my Son and Grandson came and were part of my team.

Today is the day I have been waiting for, this evening Alabama and Clemson meet for the College Football National Championship.  Two undefeated teams that match up pretty equally.  It should be a great game.

I spent the day on the phone and on the computer.  We have been procrastinating on finding a new dentist and today was the day.  I had narrowed the choice down to 2 dentists.  One a single dentist and one with two dentists.  The online reviews for the two female dentists were very good, over 1200 five star reviews I only saw one four star review.  So I gave them a call and left a message.  They called back a short time later and I was a bit surprised that we could not get an appointment until July.  But we are signed up.  They took quite a bit of information.  Then emailed me the information to set up our online accounts.  Then I downloaded forms to request the release of our records from our NY dentist.  We filled those out, signed them, scanned them and emailed them.  Then I had to contact my surgeon to get an RX for antibiotics to take just before my appointment.

I also ordered our RX refills online and this evening received info that all the RXs were filled and ready to pickup, so we will do that tomorrow.

Late this afternoon I got a text from our friends who bought our NY house 3 years ago.  A letter had shown up again.  I asked Darren to open it and it was from a program Bonnie had joined years ago to save money for the kids college.  They have been unable to contact us and were notifying us that the money would be turned over to the state in February.  Darren scanned the letter, we filled it out, signed it, scanned it and then emailed it.  Hopefully the $16 will be sent soon.  Yep lots of work for $16.

Time for the big game.  Not looking so good at half-time.  Well Clemson came to play tonight and Alabama never hit their stride.  Clemson lived up to their reputation and we did not.  Good game Clemson.  Congratulations on your National Championship.  44-16

Tuesday

So this week I made a short list of things that I needed to do.  Yesterday was the dentist-check.  Today was I needed to deal with a coming of age issue.  Seems that when you turn 70 1/2 the IRS requires you to start taking Minimum Required Distributions from your IRA accounts.  I guess they do not want to wait until you die to get their hands on the taxes they will charge on the money you have in your IRA.  So they even tell you how much.  By the end of this year I have to take the amount that was in my account at the end of 2018, divide it by 27.4 and thats the amount I have to withdraw.  The one good thing is that it can go directly to a charity and then no taxes are due.  So I spent a while on the phone setting all that up.  Now I am waiting on the paper work to sign and set it all in motion.

Then Bonnie and I made a trip to CVS to pick up RXs and a few supplies.  Then on to a nursing home to pick up an application for our GD.

While we were out UPS delivered the Ubiquiti network equipment I had ordered.  I have always been interested in networking, so I am setting up a small home network.  The first step was the access point  I set up a few weeks ago.  Now I am adding a couple managed switches, a security gateway, and what is called a cloud key that serves as a controller and video recorder or DVR, also one camera to start with.  So I unpacked all of that and then late in the evening I decided to plug in some of the equipment, that led to hooking some of it up, everything was working.  So one more step, change some network settings.  That crashed the connection to the internet.  The lights turned off like they were supposed to but Alexa could not connect and turn them back on since we were still up.  So another hour and I got that fixed.  Leaving well enough alone I quit for the night.

But I had to relax a little before I could sleep to that was about 2:00am.

Wednesday

My task today was to call and schedule our semi annual heating and air conditioning check up.  But before I got around to calling Conditioned Air Solutions, they called me and scheduled me for tomorrow.

So today I waited until the afternoon to hook up the rest of the equipment.  That went well.  Then I changed the setting to switch over to using the new network.  A few bumps but the network pretty much worked just not like I wanted it.  Plus the TVs quit working.  My son came over and in an hour or so we had everything but the TVs working properly.  Then we called it a night.  I did some research on the internet and was pretty sure that I had some sort of ip problem.  Enough for today.

Thursday

I tried a few things to get the TVs working in the morning but so far no luck, still think its ip related.  The Wireless Access Points seem to be connecting but I can't get the uVerse services to start.
Robby came over after work while the girls were at their horseback lessons.  Turns out we had created the problem ourselves.  I had read where we need to reduce the range of ip addresses that the DHCP server could assign.  Turns out we reduced it too much.  So we increased that pool and the uVerse services started up and we have TV and the DVR all working nicely.  About a 30 minute fix, and it was an ip issue like I thought.  So I have learned a lot but still have a lot to learn.

Also Conditioned Air Solutions was here.  The tech was Adam and he was here about 3.5 hours.  He checked the systems over and found a few things that he changed.  He also pointed out two things that probably needed replaced.  One was a capacitor and one was a contractor.  One on each of our units.  He had the parts onboard his truck so I had him change them.  More expensive than if I did it but its done now and it was easier than doing it in the extreme cold or heat.  He also found the circuit breaker for the emergency heat strips tripped.  Looks like the breaker was marginal.  We have 3 5KW heat strips which draw about 61 amps.  We have a 60 amp breaker.  So he removed one 5KW strip from the circuit so we are down to 40 amps.  Hopefully no more tripped breakers.

Its cold tonight already down to 30 so time will tell.  Tomorrow I should be able to start straightening up the wiring mess in the den,

I ordered a shelve and it should come tomorrow.  The new camera I set up is also interesting.  It catches all the traffic on the street, I am surprised how many cars come down the street turn around and leave.  Thats it for tonight.

Friday

Down in the low 20s overnight but the house was nice and comfortable this morning, I guess the cleaning and tune up are doing a good job.

Bonnie started to take down all the decorations today and finished all but the tree I think.

Once UPS came I was able to start on my project for today.  First task was to put the $22 shelve together.

Now to get all the network equipment and the hubs for the Smart home systems moved on to them,

A work in progress and the network still works.

Still a lot to move.  This was at the end of the day.  Its kind of sorted out but all the wiring for the power supplies is still a big mess.  But its come a long way.

Once it's done it will slide back into the corner.

Both of us have not been feeling 100% since yesterday.  Bonnie called it a day and went to bed with a stomach ache early, I am feeling a little bit better.

Saturday

Still not feeling great today so this will be short.  We did have deer in the front yard last night.  I counted at least 9.  Here is a short clip.

Today we had rain almost all day and it was steady but not too hard.  I continued to work on the network but did not make much progress.  I ended up watching a couple basketball games.  Duke won and Alabama lost, both at the buzzer.  My son and Grand Dog Millie were over for a while and we had a nice visit.  Then I pretty much took it easy the rest of the day.  We did mange to take down the Christmas Tree and Bonnie made Potato soup for supper.

Well thats a wrap for this week.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Some people try to turn back their odometers, not me, I want people 
to know why I look this way, and some of the roads weren't paved"

Happy New Year 2019

Monday

First a little review.  We had a nice visit with my daughters family.  The time went quickly and they are now safely back in their home in NY.  Kaylee had to work tonight and so they left a day earlier than first planned.  Here are a few pictures from the visit.  Sadly I did not take a lot of pictures.  This is Bailey she is a mature Grand Dog and like me likes to take naps.  She likes her bed and I think she thinks of it as her den.

We also have a young Grand Dog Millie she is normally on the move, and wants to be where the action is.

So far Bailey and Millie are not buddies hopefully someday.

Bailey is pretty good with her treats and usually eats them in her bed, which keeps the mess there.  She does really enjoy them.  She worked on this hip joint for three days or more.

Easy clean up as the mess stays in one spot.

Kaylee likes to be busy, while the others were out shopping UPS brought a package for her.  It was a cat tree that she ordered from Amazon.  She laid it all out first then put it together from the picture mostly.

It was not long before we had a tree.

Most of our mornings were leisurely, doesn't everyone have to check their email?

Sunday came quickly and we were all ready to leave for church early, we filled up a whole row.  Once again a great service and sermon.  After church they wanted to be on the road in twenty minutes.  They were well organized but it took a little bit longer.

All loaded up.

The trailer was a good idea as last year they had to leave some stuff.  They pulled out after hugs and goodbyes.  A quick stop over at my sons house and they headed north.  They stopped about 8 last night and were back on the road this morning and got home around 1:45.  Kaylee had to work and got there around 3.  She works at a nursing home and they moved her around to several assignments today as of course they were short of staff, being New Years Eve.

Bonnie worked on the laundry today, towels and some sheets.  I had done some vacuuming yesterday.    Then we put up her new mirror and jewelry cabinet.

and finally hung a couple pictures.  Bonnie made these when the kids were young.

Well thats about it for 2018.  My son and family are in Mississippi and so we are having a quiet evening and finished off some leftovers.

Happy New Years may God Bess you in 2019.

Tuesday

Did not do too much today.  It was overcast all day but I don't think it rained.  We watched most of the rose parade after we got up.  We made it to midnight last night.  Funny story.  I turned the TV on about 11:40 to get ready to watch the ball drop in Times Square.  After watching a few minutes I realized it had already happened, oh well.  We tuned in the New Orleans celebrations and watched that.

I watched parts of several of the bowl games.  But mostly when TV was on it was movies.  I also closed out the spreadsheets I use to track expenses and set up the new ones for the coming year.

Finally I set out the recycle bin and a box of cardboard that Dana cut up and packed neatly in a box.  I left the top open so they could see it was cut up cardboard.

Wednesday

You may have guessed they did not take the cardboard in the box, guess it has to be in the blue container.  Their loss they are a private's company and make money off what they collect.  As it has been raining off and on all day the cardboard was wet.  We had a lot of trash this week but I managed to get half of the cardboard crammed in on top of the trash.

Bonnie continued to do the wash today and we put nice clean sheets on our bed.  We have enjoyed the peace and quiet but we do miss everyone.  Most are back to work or finishing up the last few days of their vacation.

Thursday

A little rain today but it stayed overcast all day.  I got the meat grinder attachment out for the Kitchen-Aid mixer today.  We had some left over ham and I ground it up and made some ham salad, one of my favorites.  I meant to take pictures but I guess I got in to much of a hurry and forgot.  After grinding I added salad dressing and relish.  Then I washed the grinder and put the mixer away.  Finally time for a delicious ham salad sandwich, pure enjoyment.

My son and family were out hiking today and sent a couple pictures.

Looks like fun.

Our churches mens group was asked to step in and pickup the food for the local House of Harvest which provides food for needy families so I am headed up to help with that.  There were 5 of us that showed up to help unload so even though it was a larger than normal load it went quickly.  I was back home in about an hour.  Plus I got to call and talk to my favorite sister on the way home.  Then a nice long FT with GD Kaylee.

Now the rain is back.

Friday

Bonnie went shopping today and once she got home I helped repackage the meat and vacuum pack it for in the freezer.  She also got a standing rib roast that I seasoned and wrapped for the night and we will smoke it tomorrow for a few hours.  Hopefully we get the sun that they have forecast for tomorrow.  Then the grandkids and Millie came over for the evening.  Millie does like to play fetch.

And the girls like their phones.

We also got in a couple games of UNO after a delicious supper of goulash.  Their parents picked them up and they all headed home around 9:30 saying they were going to go to a movie.

Saturday

Bonnie got up at 6:30 this morning and headed up to the House of Harvest to help distribute food to the needy.  She got home around 9 and said it was a good experience.  When I got up I took the Rib roast out of the refrigerator to let it rest on the counter.  Then had my breakfast and morning routine.

I got busy just before 11 and set up and fired up the pellet grill.  Then a while later I put the roast in a pan and on to the smoker.

I started out at low smoke which is around 170º.  After about 90 minutes it looked like this.

It was coming along nicely.  After about 4 hours I turned up the temperature to 375, the meat was around 100.  My security camera said there was motion on the back deck.  Well it turned out to be all the smoke coming out of the smoker.  We had us a grease fire.  The camera alerted me pretty quickly and a big glass of water put out the flames.  The meat was fine.  The only damage was to the paint on the smoker as it bubbled up in a small area from the heat.  Totally my fault.  I have only been smoking meat lately "low and slow" so the grease built up instead of running out or burning away a little at a time.

No more flare ups and the meat was soon at 130º

I let it get to 140º as Bonnie likes it "done".  Then I pulled it, tented it and let it rest for about 30 minutes.  While it rested I took the time to clean out the hardened grease and vacuum the fly ash from the pellets.

Time to slice it up.

Well it was done nicely and we plated it up with some candied sweet potatoes and green beans.

Bonnie enjoyed it and it was nice and tender.  I am not that big a beef eater but thought it was pretty good.

We cleaned up the kitchen and I vacuum sealed the leftovers for later in the week.  Then it was time for a shower and finally around 8 I sat down to write this and relax.  Bonnie is calling it an early night and has headed off to bed.

Well thats a wrap for this week.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Some people try to turn back their odometers, not me, I want people 
to know why I look this way, and some of the roads weren't paved"