Now the Yard

Maybe I should take a picture of the "before" so you (well, me too) can see the difference when it is finished. It's our backyard I'm referring to. We decided to get rid of some lawn -- which really wasn't lawn anyway. It was more a patchwork of weeds and grassy clumps. Anyway, last summer Korak rototilled about half of our backyard so I could get the cottonwood tree roots out of it (the trees are gone so no worry about the roots returning). Since then it has produced a nice crop of the most interesting looking weeds. Now I have to digress a little and talk about the weather. For the last few weeks we have been having rain, then sun, then rain again, then a forecast for rain but maybe not, and throw some cold in there, and so on. It even snowed one morning -- not much, just a little bit. But this weekend --sun, warm, almost hot. Mid 70s for the temp which seems hot considering some of the temps we have had.

So back to the backyard. I was able to spray that nifty crop of weeds with Round-Up, dig up an old stump, and we hauled a trailer load of stuff to Jo-Grow. Oh, now I need to digress again. Jo-Grow is at the old landfill where we can take woody yard debris like grass clippings, limbs, vines, etc. They grind it up, mix it with fertilizer stuff, let it stew for awhile and then sell it back to the public as mulch. The "Jo" is short for Josephine -- the name of our county. The "Grow" comes from... I don't know what... maybe because it's supposed to be good for growing. So we borrowed a trailer, cleaned up a bunch of stuff in the yard, took it to Jo-Grow and brought back a trailer full of... well, Jo-Grow. Then I borrowed a little rototiller and prepared our old raised-bed garden to be the new raspberry patch -- with a little Jo-Grow thrown in. This meant digging out the old railroad ties and putting in new supports to hold the wires to hold up the little, slender bodies of the raspberry bush. All of this means, my body is sore. It seems I keep finding projects that make my muscles tired.

The rest of the project will follow in due order. While we were in Arizona we were impressed with the rock landscaping -- to be interpreted, "no lawns." So we are putting in a new raised-bed garden, some kind of rock design, some flower pots, shrubs of some sort, etc. Something like that. As you can see, it is very well thought out. Also, we are going to put in a hedge of something along the back of our property. The guy developing the property in the back says he is going to put up a fence but who knows when that will be. With the housing market the way it is, he may not build there for quite awhile. So we are going to plant something -- maybe photinia. Anybody know anything good or bad about using photinia as a backyard hedge?

There are things in our lives other than backyards. We volunteered to help Diana with Kids Klub each Wednesday evening. She has been doing it by herself or with help from a couple of middle schoolers. It was fun to be back with some of the kids we know and to meet a lot of new ones. Today we went to church at Calvary Chapel. They meet in a converted store down town on 7th. It was kind of odd to sit in church and watch cars go by on the street.

Well, you can tell it has been a rather low key week. Lots of work in store for the coming week if the weather permits. So what is in store for your week? Keep looking up.

Completed!

The floor's done. And I think my knees are, too. It took us 3 days and that includes the quarter round we used as a base (around the edges). Actually it looks pretty good. There is only one spot where the crack is too wide. I'm not sure what happened there. The hardest part was getting the stuff laid on a part of the floor going into the hallway that slopes down. Since we had to put it on edge to snap it in, we had to build up the lower end to make it level, then remove the blocks. It looks okay. Here is what the finished living room looks like with Beth's new rug and furniture back it. And here is what one the carpenter's looks like when he's hard at work.

The two ladies in the NEW double recliner are my sisters, Beth and Doris. It was Beth's birthday so we celebrated with a dinner and cake.

Before we left to go home on Thursday, Roy barbecued T-bones and halibut for us. We had so much meat he sent some home with us. Yummm! It sure was good.

In the last blog I mentioned the tax odyssey and pronounced it finished and done. Wrong! I got a call from H and R on Monday that they couldn't file the taxes electronically because something was wrong with one of the EIN numbers. We could file the old fashioned way -- by mail, but we hadn't signed the mail-in forms. So what to do. We were 140 miles away and taxes were due the next day. What I finally figured out was to download an extension form, print it, and send it in. Fortunately I had my computer and printer with us. Then when I got back to Grants Pass, I got the mail-in forms, we signed them and NOW it is all done, finished, and over. Yea, right. Something will pop us. That is the pessimist in me.

Here are the four wanderers. Long time bloggers will remember Roy and Twila from Alaska pictures. Roy was my loyal companion on the floor project.

Today we worshiped at Edgewood Christian Fellowship. They meet in a local school cafeteria. They are huge and we were sort of stuffed in the room. Good sermon, though. Oh, we woke up to snow this morning! Not much but enough to make the car white. Maybe someday spring will come.

Well, that's it in my world. What's in yours?

Moving On To Floors

Well, we relieved some of the stress. Tuesday we bought a car. Our friend Roy, who works at the Ford dealership in Grants Pass made contact with us -- he had been out of town -- and we bought a 2007 Ford Taurus. It was a former Budget rental with 31,000 miles, very clean. I've never had an extended warranty on a car but thought maybe it would be a good idea with this one so we rolled the price, warranty, title transfer, and closing costs into one ridiculous offer. After a little back and forth exchange we finally settled on a decent price. Joyce and I felt good about it because the final price was less than the amount we had available. A couple of the other cars we were looking at would have meant going into debt a little bit.

Now let me tell you about tax stress. I had my taxes figured out but with questions about a couple things so I wasn't real confident I had done it all correctly. 'The way I figured it, I owed the US gover-mint about $400 more than I had already paid them. Almost the same with the State of Ory-gun. I made an appointment with the local branch of AARP to look them over and answer my questions. We showed up on Wednesday, filled out their form, and the lady started putting things in the computer. Then she had questions about what to do. Her boss came over and discovered I had income from being a minister (remember Newport the first part of last year?). After an hour and half of forms and computer input she informed us they weren't supposed to do minister's taxes because they were too difficult. Okay, now what? I tried again to put the right numbers on the right lines but ran into more questions. Now I'm beginning to panic because I'm scheduled to go to Eugene Friday and be gone until the end to the following week -- note: that is after the 15th.

I told Joyce, "this is nuts." I picked up the phone (sidebar here: this was a cell phone. We don't have the old land line phone number any more. The phone company has given that number to some unfortunate soul who is getting a host of calls for Gene or Joyce. Go ahead and call us, but don't use the old 476 number). Okay, where was I? Oh yes. I picked up the phone and called H and R Block with two questions. Do you have someone who knows how to do taxes for a minister and can they do it in the next two days? Answer: yes and yes. My appointment was for two hours at 10:00 Friday. She said we could do it all right then, wrap it up, and be finished with it. Sure enough, she was quite knowledgeable and so was her computer program. Two hours later I had good news and bad news. The good news was that she saved me a bundle on taxes -- I only had to write a check for $40 to the IRS and I get money back from the state. The bad news is that H and R Block is rather expensive. But all in all, I'm way ahead. And it is done. Over. History. Behind us. And we can move on to other things. Like floors.

I promised my sister Beth, I would install a new wood floor in her kitchen -- you know, one of those "floating" wood composite jobs. Somewhere along the way, the kitchen project grew to include the living room and hallway. Oh well. My nephew Roy, prepared the floor by taking up the old carpet and leveling the low spots. Beth lives in Elmira, west of Eugene. So Friday afternoon, Joyce and I showed up with the RV and work began. By Saturday evening we were about one third finished and possessed sore knees, legs, and muscles in general. We have lots of corners, nooks, and crannies to do but it will be done by the end of the week.

Today we attended worship at the Eugene Free Methodist Church -- they call themselves Living Hope. Good service and good message by Pastor Dave. Afterward we enjoyed lunch at Izzy's with my sister-in-law Iva, and Joyce's brother and wife Jack and Luwayne. The only problem was that our time was too short. I had a Conference committee meeting at 3:00. It has been a good day.

Sort of a boring week, huh? I guess that happens when one is retired and doesn't have anything to do. Are you bored? What's your day like?

Decisions! Decisions! Decisions!

Being home is stressful. I guess the decisions aren't big enough. When we are traveling we have to make really BIG decisions like what route will we take, where will we buy diesel, which museum will we visit, and which RV park will we stay in. Now those are biggies. I mean, if we pick the wrong route the pavement might be rough and if we pick the wrong museum it might be boring. And of course, if we pick the wrong RV park the other guy's rig might be too close (we had a few of those).

But here at home the only decisions to be made are things like which car to buy, which high speed internet service to subscribe to what is the best way to upgrade our TV reception. What trivia! Where's the challenge? How does one really get himself into the importance of such minor decisions? I'm getting stressed at the simplicity of life...

Okay, I hope you can tell I'm being facetious. Actually being at home is proving to be more stressful. I hate buying cars. I hate trying to decide which make and model; I hate picking the actual car; I hate the hassle of haggling. I hate trying to decide which promises and bits of information coming from the salesman are true and which are false. Stress! But I started the process last week.

And then the internet. And the TV. We have to do something to improve things so I've inquired at all the available providers. Now the decisions. One consideration is what will happen when we travel again -- can we simply suspend service or do we have to shut it off. And what does that cost? Oh the stress, the stress! Whatever shall I do?

Well, here's what I did. I didn't do anything. Some people call it procrastination. I call it careful contemplative deliberation. Maybe I'll make some decisions this week -- maybe not. Got any good suggestions?

Here's what I DID do. On Tuesday I joined RASCALs. The acronym stands for Rogue Area Senior Computer Assistance League. They meet each Tuesday morning for a couple of general sessions on some computer program or problem and also offer classes on other computer subjects. I was part of it a long time ago; it was fun -- and informative. I also visited a couple of senior people in the hospital. Kind of going back to my roots. I always enjoyed visiting senior people and especially those who were ill or had other needs. A couple of lunches and breakfast with the area pastors and that was my week. No wonder I'm tired. I worked hard.

Decisions. I hate 'em. Do you like making decisions? Tell me why?