respublica

Almost an all-nighter

With the Impeachment trial going on in the senate this week, we are paying slight attention to the actual speeches and more attention to the time. Our daughter works for the senate and as a senior staffer, she has to stay until the hearings adjourn for the day. Actually, yesterday, the first day of hearings, they did not adjourn til long after midnight.

I was texting with her late into the night as she waited in her senate office. I found it hard to sleep and kept looking at the clock. There came a point when I became more than a little anxious while thinking of her having to walk to the train and then ride the train home in the middle of the night. Or very early morning to be specific. Even in DC, the streets can be empty and dark at that time of day.

I told her I worry and she wrote back "I hear you. I'll be fine. It's nice to have a mom that worries. That still feels nice."

If you're a parent, would you not worry long distance no matter the age of your kids? In the end, I trust she got home fine, I haven't heard. Now today it all begins again.

Connor goes to a big farm

This past weekend our grandson Connor went along with Dale and some of our students and a couple members of Holy Cross to Mission Central which is in Iowa and Nebraska. They stayed with church members at night and Connor was on quite the farm. That family has huge farm equipment which is mind-boggling to a kid.

Unreal

All kinds of different things

This is one of those weird days when we have to do several things, none of which have anything to do with the other. 

First up was setting up a new wifi router in Collinsville. Our older one died last weekend when we were here and we are spoiled enough with having internet access that not having it was a real pain. But, I remembered how difficult the original router was to set up at least ten years ago and dreaded going through that again. However, tech has simplified a lot over those years and I had the new one up and running in about 15 minutes. And that time frame included pairing it with Dale's computer, my computer and our iphones. I have to say that old router lasted a long time so I can't complain too much.

Next up will be going to a men's store and getting Dale a couple of new suits which he needs. We'll see how that goes.

Then there is a bit of old business to check on. Just like last Christmas season, someone in the local seminary neighborhood has been unplugging some of our Christmas lights down in the park area off Demun. The main target has been the white nativity scene. The light is constantly unplugged well away from the actual scene. The two small spotlights in front of it have been toss to the side. I had to follow the long extension cord halfway across the park until I found it unplugged to another cord which attached to the power pole. Whoever is doing this has to really hate that nativity because this is a bit of effort. 

I'm just fed up enough with whoever it is doing this that I have been obsessively going down there and plugging it back in again. It has to be someone from the neighborhood who is in our area regularly, maybe walking a dog, merely walking alone or sitting in the front window at Kaldi's. Today I plan to duct tape all the cord attachments so it will be a lot more work to unplug. We leave Christmas lights up until after Epiphany so I have a few more days to keep this up.

Moving the dust around

We've spent the weekend in Collinsville with the plan to attempt to remove all the dust which accumulated after our basement water treatment mess. The basement floor was jackhammered all the way around and drywall was taken down which meant we now have no water problems, but the dust has never wanted to go away. There was a point where everytime I was at the house, I came down with what seemed like a bad cold, but was really just from the lingering dust. 

So, I decided this was it. That dust was going away. I shopped vac-ed all the basement floors until I was about out of my mind, and then washed them all down. It seemed better, it has to be. Then I went to the main floor and vacuumed twice. Once with an older vacuum I didn't care if it got messed up and then with our newer one. Followed that up with a complete dusting of any surface as well as cleaning the hardwoods with a cleaner made for them. I changed all the bedding and then carried out food from Bandanas.

I have to say we both slept a lot better. We've put this job off because Thanksgiving and Christmas took precedence. Dale just will not get out of that basement. He's made himself a new office and has plans for new walls. Frankly, if we are going to move back her next June, we need to focus more on the other two floors. But it is what it is. Some progress has been made.

Christmas!

We had one of those Christmases when everyone was in a good humor. The boys had fun, the parents didn't have to watch them every minute, the dinner was easy and the weather was sunny and warm. Nice day. I'll admit Christmas dinner prep and clean-up was so much physically easier than Thanksgiving. No turkey on Christmas, we had a big beef tenderloin roast which I got at Schnucks and used all the store rewards points I'd been saving since this summer. Schnucks customer rewards is one of the best store rewards of all of them. The points given each time you shop add up to real dollars taken off your bill at check-out.

Here is a quick look at family this year.

Katie and Charlie's two boys, Drew and Jake. Perfect poses.

Lizzie and Darren's boys, Christian, Nick and Connor. Also perfect poses.

My sister sent me this painting of Ferdie she had made and it made my day.

Katie got into the Ferdie memories as well with this wine glass.

Connor wanted another giant bear for Christmas. 3 of our grandsons love the big bears and have bedrooms full of them. So I couldn't help myself, it's such a sweet thing. I rather like cuddling up with them myself.

 

After the day ended Dale and I took a walk through the campus to see all the Christmas lights. It was quiet and calm.

A visit to the milk truck

We went to a lunch meeting with two of our seminary staff people yesterday and afterward made them come with us to see the restoration progress of Dale's milk truck. We were in the area so Dale thought, "why not".

It's just about finished, they even turned on the engine for him.

Oh the hours we spent

While I was pondering what type of garland or even no garland to put on our Christmas tree this morning, I got to thinking of all the things we did over the years when the kids were growing up. We'd see some interesting idea on TV, like Martha Stewart, and decide to try it. Funny how things look so simple when expert crafters do something.

We strung popcorn on a string to make an old fashioned garland. That was a mess, but we hung the strings anyway. The popcorn kept breaking apart when the needle went through.

We made cranberry Christmas wreaths which mean getting a styrofoam wreath, bags of fresh cranberries, and several boxes of toothpicks. The toothpicks had to be cut or broken in half, pushed through a cranberry and then stuck onto the wreath. This took hours and wreaked havoc on the fingers. But it was pretty cool and we did that for several years. We were masochists.

Then during a year when sweet gum balls were just covering the yard, we gathered a million of them up and hot glued them to a styrofoam cone. Then spray painted it. This project was the first and only time I bought a glue gun.

Needless to say, those days are gone and I say that with some regret.

Finally the tree is up

We appear to be way late in getting our tree up, everyone else seems to have put theirs up during the Thanksgiving weekend. But, we bought it Sunday and Dale brought it into the house yesterday and last night I got the lights on. Nothing else is on, but we're getting there. Time is moving too fast these days and there have been so many extra events going on and places to be, that the tree got short shrift.

I kind of like it without a lot of things hanging on it. Or, maybe I want to think this to get out of having to drag out the boxes of ornaments. Just kidding.

I love the Christmas tree season.

First moving day

For the past year or more most of the seminary's faculty homes have been renovated, at least the empty ones. Not just paint, but total gutting of bathrooms, kitchens, new wiring, plumbing, windows, heating/cooling systems and on and on. It's been a long process with every tradesman you can think of working on the street. Today one of our faculty families will be moving in to a completed house and I kind of have to laugh. The faculty guy is in Houston for a conference and it's all up to his wife to see this through. This is not uncommon around here.

When we moved into the seminary home, Dale conveniently was out of town at a conference. I will never forget how much work I had to do back then. And, now that we will be moving back to Collinsville in June, I know full well he better be around this time.

Which brings me to a bit of history. The seminary faculty homes were built at the same time as the present campus, mid 1920's. This is around the time frame we always though was when our Collinsville house was built. A former city councilman, Harry Hall, built and owned the corner house and I believe the second as well. But as we've had work done on our house, someone told Dale ours was built in the 30's. We know it was built by Mr. Krite of the hardware store fame and built for his mother. It was built well.

It's all about the basement

After all the work and mess and money involved in having a water treatment system put into our basement, I had high hopes that we were done with that part of the house for a while. Other areas now need looking into. But no. After church today I heard sawing and hammering from down in the basement. I fought the temptation to check out what was going on and instead concentrated on cutting the grass and bagging leaves.

Finally I did go down and found Dale putting up a stud wall over the water treatment covering. He just can't stay out of that basement. His books need to be back on shelves, he said.

I give up.  On the other hand, I can't blame him too much wanting to get a head start on final work since most of the other things which need to be done are not scheduled by other trades as yet.