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May 25, 2007

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Is it Friday already? Another week of my life slipping by toooo fast!!

The problem with staying at home all week is that there's really nothing to talk about! It's either work, work, work or just sitting around watching it rain. Either way, it's pretty boring to talk about. But we just lived through another seven days, so I'll try to get it all down for posterity.

Our big project is still the storage room. As I mentioned last week, the walls are painted and Dave is still trying to get all the old vinyl flooring peeled off the concrete. That's a nasty job. I found a can of some kind of toxic substance that Dave's dad had, and we've been using that to loosen the glue. It does a good job of getting all the old flooring and glue up, but you have to be wearing a nuclear safety suit to use the stuff! Anyway, another day of scraping and it should be ready to get a new floor. That's scheduled for Tuesday.
We did encounter one unexpected problem. The water heater for the house sits in the corner of this room. Dave moved it away from the wall so I could paint behind it, and moving it evidently put a strain on the water pipe connection. For several days, I could smell something hot and kept telling Dave about it, but his sense of smell is shot, so he was no help. Finally, our friend Ray was over and I borrowed his nose. We discovered that the water heater had been leaking from the bad connection (just a trickle, so it was hard to see) and the water had run down into the heater and fried part of the electric system. It still works, kind of. At least we can still get a shower out of it, but its days are numbered. So, we bought a new water heater this week. We'll take the old one out the day before the vinyl guy gets here and put the new one in after the flooring job is done. At least that's the plan! Stay tuned for the report next week!

We made a quick trip into Portland on Tuesday. I had applied for Medicaid for my Mom and we had an interview with the social worker. We met at my Mom's assisted living place. The interview didn't go as well as we wanted. Actually, it really wasn't an interview; it was more like a friendly chat, with the social worker occasionally taking notes. Little did we realize that the questions asked would affect her qualification and some of the questions we just didn't know the answers to. We are hoping that some of the answers we gave do not disqualify her, but the interviewer said that if she had to make a decision today, it didn't look good. So we probably failed. But I did call the facility where Mom lives and talked to them and they assured me that they would help with the process. They feel she should have no problem qualifying. So, we don't know who to believe, the County or the Residence. We're hoping the facility knows what they're doing and that they'll be able to convince the county that she really does qualify. She can't take care of herself, and she's about broke, so if she doesn't qualify, I don't know who does! It is such a worry. If only the Veteran's Assistance Program for widows of veterans would kick in. That has been an on-going process for over a year and a half now and we are still waiting. That's the Government for you.

While we were in town we ran a bunch of errands, stopping long enough for a bite to eat at Sweet Tomatoes. That is one of our favorite places because it's "all you can eat". You can stuff yourself on salad, soups, pastas, and desserts. We ate there at mid-afternoon and couldn't even think of eating for the rest of the day! After lunch, we made stops at Office Depot, Costco and Freddies before we hit the road for home.

Since the weather has turned nice again, I spent a couple of hours working out in the yard this week. On Thursday, there was another work party at the Waterfront Park. This week we laid the sod. Boy was that a hard job. We were thankful that we had enough extra volunteers so we could get all the sod down. I would have volunteered Dave, but he conveniently had a Blazer Broadcasting meeting in Portland, and was gone all day. Talk about good timing! Then, as if I wasn't tired enough from putting in four hours of hard labor, I decided to come home and mow the lawn. I was one tired pup by the end of the day.

The weather is finally cooperating around here and my flowers and garden are starting to grow. With all the rain and cooler weather, everything was at a standstill and there wasn't much that could be done. It's nice to see the garden with some new growth! I finally got Dave to fix my third fence planter. It was broken and he had to piece it back together. So now I have three nice planters evenly spaced on the fence. I have also been watering my friend Donna's flowers while she is on a road trip to the Southwest. So far, I haven't let anything die.

Once again this week, we have been entertained by the wildlife surrounding us; the elk feeding on the island, the raccoon visiting the birdfeeders and the various songbirds that have been coming to the feeders.