So; it has been a pretty active month, this month of August.  But maybe not a lot of pictures to show.  In the last writing, we had just come home from Grand Rapids.  Maybe I will put a couple more pictures from that:

 The following Saturday we went to the last show at the playhouse for the summer.  It was a production of ‘Chicago’, and they did a very good job of it.  Obviously, no pictures from that!  But we sure enjoyed the show.

The following Saturday we attended the annual Volunteer Day at which the town honors the people who volunteer their time in town activities.  Ann is eligible because of her work on the WEC; my volunteer work is mostly down in Kingston, so I am not eligible, but I go and keep her company.  We talked to a number of people, were recognized by others and others we recognized.  Listened to the music which was very good - and very loud.  At the end of the day there were fireworks; we watched them from the top of the hill on our street.  Took Daisy with us and she took it in stride - she does not really like loud noises, but being real near us, she tolerated it pretty well.  Again, no pictures although years ago I tried taking pictures of the fireworks and they came out ok.  Will have to remember next year.

The next weekend was the busiest.  On Saturday (the 25th) we went to Tarrytown to attend Ann’s xx (not talking about how many) high school reunion.  About 50 alumni and spouses there.  Ann saw and talked to many of them; I talked to a few but mostly listened to her and her buddies.  But the company and the food were good.  I will put only one picture from this - I think none of you will know them, so... 

 About three people came from California, and about 16 alumni still had Ossining addresses.  We stayed over down there, and on Sunday morning there was another gab fest.

After we got home on Sunday, I grabbed some train stuff and went down to a friend’s house who was having a 5th annual open house featuring his O scale train layout. Quite a good turn out including a lot of the host’s neighbors.  A lot of trains were run for several hours.  Including mine.  But I did not think to take my camera, so again no pictures of this!

Then there was yesterday - Sep 2.  Because my birthday is Aug 26, and Ann’s is Sep 11 (yea!), we tend to have only one combined celebration for them.  This year is was hosted by our lovely daughter in law and our son at their (still) new house.  A good time was had by all; some pictures are included.  They put on a real feast with everything from dips to cup cakes.

So, this will have to do for now.  Stay well and happy, and we will try to do more on facebook, and here than in the past.

Summer Activities

Hello again; it has been quite a while since I last visited with you.  One reason is that most of life has been quite routine and therefore boring to both you and me.  But I guess enough has happened to write a little about it.

First a little about the health situation:  nothing really major has happened to either of us.  I had another little fall that broke a rib, but that is now well.  Also, at the recommendation of the dentist I had a tooth pulled and a new bridge put in.  This was because of the stent put in last year; teeth and the blood system have a connection.  The new bridge feels good; a trip to the recommending dentist is scheduled for next week.

For various reasons, both weather and personal, it has been a difficult time keeping the lawn and gardens looking nice.  Some of the walks we have been able to keep free of weeds, but at least one part of one walk still has to have its first weeding.  It looks terrible, and is now very hard to get the weeds out - they have such large roots.  The weather, with its early heat had caused things to really grow.  But one walk has had a real job done on it, with the addition of new white stones.  Here is a picture of it:

On the other side of things, Ann has been growing small tomatoes, and is using the barbecue pit in an ingenious way:


One of the good things about Woodstock is the resurrection of the Woodstock Playhouse and the presentation there of summer stock plays.  We have been to two so far this summer and are planning on one more tomorrow.  Sorry, but no pictures of the play or playhouse.

The last thing to talk about today is our trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan (GR) to attend the annual convention of model railroaders (NMRA).  We drove Ann’s car and took two days in each direction - total mileage was 1600 miles.  We went out 28, then 30, then 17/86, 90, 23, and 96.  We stopped overnight in Erie both ways. In GR, it was a very nice hotel, with very good service and facilities.  We were both rather active all week.  One interesting trip we both took was about the history of the furniture industry in GR.  Here is a picture of Ann in the Steelcase factory which we toured:

I had a nice ride on a 7-1/2 in gauge railroad which covered 120 acres.  The ride without repeating any track took 45 minutes.  A view:

This operation was amazing!  Also saw several interesting layouts but will refrain from showing any of them; also attended a large number of clinics.  Put some items into the silent auction and came away with about $46; not much, but ok.

Well, lets call it quits for now.  Have a good summer and write into your blog when you can - we are all interested in what you have to say.

Fun in Woodstock - in the Winter

Well, it is about time I updated this blog - don’t you think?  So here goes.

Not too much new or exciting.  It is the routine things that happen that get one to put off doing this.  But here we go.

Look at Kelly’s blog and you will find out that they have been very active in fixing up their new house.  Well, we just could not help but try to compete a very little bit.  Last November we contracted with Pella for new windows that were delivered in early January just after my last blog update.  They look nice but almost exactly like the old ones.  Which we are happy about, because we were not tired of the old look.  But the new ones have made a difference.  There is no more cold downdraft coming off of the windows; there are no more little cracks in individual panes resulting from too much heat when I was removing old paint to put on new paint; the old broken and difficult to use storm windows are gone.

We did a total of 16 windows: the four basement windows got Pella’s bottom line of vinyl windows, the two in the kitchen got their top line of wood ones, and the rest of the main floor (10) got the intermediate line.  So now we have rotate-in windows to make cleaning easier, no more banged up fingers opening storm windows, etc.

After that the rest of January and February were rather quiet.  We did get together with Ed and Kelly a couple of times and saw their progress.  We delighted in the lack of snow and ice.  But wonder how the gardens are going to do this year with the unusual weather this winter.

Then in March we took up our daughter’s invitation to visit her and Tyler in St. Thomas; we went down on March 5 and came back March 12.  We had a great time.  Went over to St. Johns for a day and a night and met a very interesting couple .  Visited a different beach in the afternoon every day but two; two on St. Johns and two on St. Thomas.  Enjoyed them all and got a good sun tan. We went to several restaurants including one we went to last years ( Marilyn’s favorite - Betsy’s) and several new (to Ann and me) ones.  Good food, good times.

Now we are back and catching up.  Making appointments for everything from the dentist to the car dealership for a recall (minor), including a catscan and ultrasound to check up on my stent.  On the health front there is noting new except that Marilyn stubbed a toe on a rock on the beach and broke her left middle toe.  Four weeks with it taped to the next one.  Good grief - and she probably wont appreciate that I even mentioned it.  And one of these days I will have to do two things: learn how to put pictures in this blog, and how to use Facebook.  As one of the authors in a magazine says: if the mood strikes, write. 

Bye now.

Differences

‘What a difference a day makes....’.  Well, lets talk about the differences a year makes. (I know that the most recent blog was not a full year ago, but..)   We will use year ending dates for this.  But not in any particular order.

*Most important - Will was with us at the beginning of last year, but is not, now. 

*A new car for me.

*A stent in my chest.

*Into a new house for Ed and Kelly.

*Many renovations to Ed and Kelly’s house, which they did mostly themselves.

*A banged up thumb for Marilyn.

*Job progresses, small but worthwhile, for Ed, Kelly, Marilyn, Tyler.

*A college degree for Kelly.

*A year without train shows except for the club open house.

*A new freezer with new contents (due to Irene and Lee).

*A new toilet (seems to be cutting the water bill almost in half) and a new bed.

*Thanksgiving without Will and Mandy.

*Christmas Day with Marilyn and Tyler (they will alternate between here and Colorado for that day).

*Christmas festivities at Ed and Kelly’s new house instead of Woodstock.

For some things there was no difference:

*Ann’s environmental activities.

*Bill’s activities with museum, alumni club and model railroad club.

*General health of all involved (except Will, of course) but including Daisy (for whom I will have to put up a picture soon,

What differences will 2012 bring - wait and see.

about time to do an update!

I am finally in the mood to do some writing.  I know it has been a long time since the last update - sorry.  But I just wrote a letter to the editor about the uptown Kingston goat situation and it got me into the mood to do some writing. 

So, lets see what has happened in the last two months.  First, we have all been recovering psychologically from the death of Will in late July.  That takes a while.  We all still miss him and family activities are not the same without him.  But we go on.

Maybe I mentioned it earlier (I don’t remember and wont look it up) but one good byproduct of the broken ribs was that they found that I have an aneurysm on my abdominal aorta.  So September was spent going to various doctors about it.  Apparently it was growing fast enough that action needed to be taken soon.  So visits to the vascular doctor and the heart doctor were made.  So was another cat scan.  (No, I do not glow yet from all the X-rays).  So, after all this the surgery to put a stent in my chest by means of an endoscopy was done on October 6.  I was in the hospital only two days, but the incisions made it necessary to take it easy in terms of lifting things.  Walking was encouraged.  There have been followup visits and there will be another catscan next Tuesday.  I have become a bit of a nuisance in the family after all the and Will about the need for looking for these aneurysms.  Apparently my paternal line has a history of broken blood vessels.  My father’s father died on a canoe outing from a heart attack - or was it - medicine in the 1910's was not into autopsies and things so we dont know.  My father was found dead on the floor of a shower - so we don’t know if it was heart, stroke or what. So, I am encouraging everyone to think about having the ultrasound test for aneurysms. Enough.

The rib situation is that that is all over - I am fine.  But the auto accident is not all over. The two insurance companies agreed that it was the other guys fault and his insurance company payed back mine everything including my deductible.  Now he has gone to some lawyers and I am being sued for pain and suffering.  The insurance company is handling it and it will go on for some time.  They are just firing memos back and forth at this point.

But the best news at this point is that as I write is that our basement is getting cleaned from the flooding that accompanied Irene.  Unfortunately, because it was flooding, the insurance company is not paying for it.  There are three guys down there sweeping, washing and so forth. It will be great to get this over with, and then we can put things that have been stored in the Big Room back down where they belong.  But there are still things that have to be thrown out that will be up to us.

But now we can start looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas and make some plans.  Ann has been looking at catalogs for quite a while. She gets up to 10 of them a day. And she has earned a free turkey from Shoprite.  I have still to get into the mood for all of this.  And I have to get into the mood to write a Christmas letter.  But I will.

So that about covers things around here.  Sorry that I cannot write as humourously as Kelly does - see her blog on ‘ Red House Nine’.  But I do what I can!  Till later.

More of the days for the dog.

Well, it has been too long since I last related the things that make fun in Woodstock possible. Have you ever noticed that the things that get noticed are usually not that much fun?

First, to rib you all a little: my ribs are about back to normal. Just a little twinge now and then and a little tightness.  I am ready to forget about the situation but I cant quite.  Now the bills for doctors and the hospital have been coming in and need to be paid.  Did three bills today for the hospital out in Sacramento, and the addresses for payment were in Boston, Cincinnati, and Pasadena. Go figure.

We are enjoying the new bed.  It is higher and smoother and very comfortable. We should have done this a while back.  But it is great, if not fun, to have a comfortable bed to sleep in.  And Daisy loves it.

But we need to talk about Irene.  She was the exact opposite of fun. The power went out on Sunday morning about 7:30 AM, and did not return until Saturday afternoon about 2:25 PM.  We had lots of fun cooking on the grill for every meal.  But that worked and was the least of the problems.  A flooded basement was about 2 feet in water and the machines were upset.  Ed borrowed a 1200 watt generator and we used it to run the sump pump to try to lower the water level.  We succeeded a fair amount and then about Wednesday afternoon the fire department showed up to pump more out.  Down to about four inches, Then our pump took over and it is now down to about ½ inch of dirty yellow water.  But trials of the refrigerator, hot water heater, furnace, dryer, and washing machine all showed that they were willing to provide more fun - they all worked.  The freezer is still on its side so we cannot tell about it.

Outside was a little different: tree branches and trees down.  We had a service in to do the clean up.  We lost a complete pussy willow tree and a lot of parts of a sassafras tree - I always thought it was an elm - now I know. But the fun remains about cutting the grass - it is now five weeks grown.  It was all bad enough, but we had fun compared to a lot of folks around who lost whole houses.  What do you think about folks whose furniture is piled up on the lawn waiting to be taken to the dump?  Or trees by the ton on the side of the road.  We had fun in comparison.

Enough for now.  Until next time - go out and have some fun in honor of all those who are not.





                                       

Doings on the dog days of summer

Well, August is turning into an interesting month.  Of course there is the necessary follow up on the rib situation.  It seems almost well, just another week or two of minor discomfort.

Back on the car accident situation.  Received a check the other day from the insurance company with the deductible of $500.  Seems as if they recovered all of it from the other insurance company and passed that on to me.  Of course there is still the implications for car insurance when renewal time comes.  So I got a total of about 2800 for the old car, but the new one cost about 10 times that.

A week ago Thursday Ann and I went and did something we have talked about since last year.  We went to Lowe’s and bought a new toilet for the downstairs bathroom.  The new one is white (old one blue green); higher by about 3 or 4 inches; 1.6 gallon flush (instead of about 2 - 3 gallons); and a mechanism that does not leak.  So far, it has been great.

And then today we went out and did something else we have talked about for quite a while.  We bought a new box spring, mattress, and frame for our bedroom.  It comes tomorrow.  The old one is about 40 yeas old and has been showing its age: a spring pushing thru, grooves, low spots, etc.  We are both looking forward to trying it out tomorrow night.

Next Ann wants to look at changing the color of the counter top in the bathroom from its current blue to white.  More on this project when it occurs.  There is a light fixture that needs looking at.  The gardens need weeding.  Oh well, it never ends.  But do you ever really want everything to be all right and nothing to think about?