I'm Back!

 November 30, 2022

 It’s been a while. Too long a while. My last entry was just before having the entire sewage / drainage system replaced. That’s all done now and works well. It better for almost 14 K-Bucks. No more plastic tubs for the washing machine to drain into. No more floods. Just a nice, neat system that works. Say Hallelujah.

Here's the main "trench" for the longest set of pipes

 

A closer look at the trench. I HAD to shoot this....

 

 

Pipes are laid!  

From shop, under wall, to bathroom. They're starting the masonry procedure.

All covered up!

All done! A nice, neat system that works, and doesn't cause floods.

Now…. Where do I begin with the rest of it…

Actually, I’m just going to cover some of the major stuff so this doesn’t end up being longer than Lord Of The Rings…

About the end of August, Jo and I sat down after another long day of mowing the lawn, gathering the never-ending piles of leaves from the 300 or so trees surrounding the house and yard (OK, that’s an exaggeration, but not much). We are both not getting any younger (She turned 72 in August and I just turned 74 in October), and for some reason neither of us is as enthusiastic as we used to be about busting our butts doing yard work all day in 90+ degree temperatures. 

 

Here's Jo at our birthday dinner for me turning 74. Three days later, she was diagnosed with COVID.

 

Here's our Bud, Andy. We all went to high school together back in the day. Andy lived next door to me, and Jo lived across the street from Andy. He's just as much fun to hang out with as he looks!

We’ve essentially made a decision to find ourselves a nice retirement community, get a nice little 2-bedroom apartment, and let someone else deal with mowing the yard, raking the leaves, shoveling the driveway, and fixing the plumbing. Right now, I’m doing some research, and some of the best (and almost "reasonably" priced) facilities seem to be on the Kansas side (Overland Park, Olathe, Lenexa, etc.), so a move across the state line may happen.

We’re still in the house and will be at least until spring / summer. We still have a number of things to get done on the house so we can take advantage of the housing market and get as much as possible for it. We’ve also been doing a lot of down-sizing. It’s amazing how much stuff you gather in almost 20 years.

Then the evening of October 23 happened. For most of the day Jo was feeling extremely tired, had no appetite, wasn’t the least bit interested in the sports or other stuff she usually watches on TV. She just wasn’t herself. I finally convinced her to let me take her to the E.R. We went to the hospital where our doctor’s office is since all our records were there. They took her right into the critical care room and did all the usual stuff – vitals and IVs, and did a couple nasal swabs for the flu, and that other nasty thing that’s been going around. Final analysis: COVID 19.

The good part is, we’ve had our shots and boosters, so it wasn’t affecting Jo as severely as it was hitting folks a year or so ago. She didn’t even have to stay in the hospital. They gave her a prescription for 5 days and sent us home. The ER doctor told her to stay as active and just do the things she usually does rather than just stay in bed. It’s been a bit of a fight, but I’m happy to report she’s doing well. She’s still tired a bit more than normal, but overall, she’s kicking its butt. She’s a tough lady – 50 + years of being married to me proves that!

Now, all we have left is paying all the &^%$# bills from the ER visit. Jo has no insurance (I could get medical insurance for her, but we wouldn't eat..), and I can't seem to get any kind of Medicare for her. Every time I try it says on their website that she doesn't "qualify." I thought everyone qualified for Medicare...

I went to CVS and got tested a couple days later, and it turned out negative – which kind of surprised me, since we live in the same house and sleep in the same bed.

One of the really good things that’s happened is I’ve been able to move my 2 most-used computers upstairs to the spare room. Jo did a great job of clearing out a lot of stuff (it’s been used basically as storage – like an oversized closet) and making room. I don’t have to freeze all winter in the basement this year!

 

My two most-used computers in their new home. No more freezing in the basement in the winter! The desks are the ones I built some time ago. I designed them to come apart easily for transport.

I’ve taken a bit of a break from Renderosity, and the TNA story, but I’m hoping to get rolling on it again soon. I’ve had a lot of things fighting for attention in what’s left of my mind.

One of those things has been a recent flurry of non-connectivity issues. Our Cable / Phone / Internet provider, Comcast, has apparently been doing some work in the area. Three days in a row, we’ve had major service interruptions. We went to the local Comcast store on Monday to see what was going on, and to exchange a remote controller Jo was having problems with. When we got home, we ended up fighting a losing battle with the new controller. Tuesday, (service was out again) we took it back, and I asked to speak with a manager / supervisor.

We told her about the issues we were having, and again, she found there was an outage. We discussed the other issues we were having, and she asked about how we used the services. Looking at our account, she noted we had some older equipment. She said they had a package that would work a lot better for us, would increase our internet speed, and the best part – it would be about $55.00 less per month.

So, we brought the new boxes home, spent the rest of the day untangling cables, programming remotes, wiring all the other toys; Blu-Ray player, VCR (yes, we still have one), and so on. Then we had to figure out the new menus, new buttons, and yadda, yadda, yadda. It will be a learning process for both of us for a while.

 

Fancy new cable box!

Then today – once again – no cable, no internet, no phone. It’s been a fun week. When it is working, the internet speed is lightning fast, so that’s a good thing! Once Comcast gets everything sorted out, I’m hoping to be able to get caught up on a ton of stuff. We’ll see how it goes the next few days.

Well, that’s enough for today – I don’t want to write an epic, or put anyone to sleep. But look for more frequent Blog posts here, and much more often.

Thanks for stopping by!

Rod