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Barbara
Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week
of 15 January 2007
Latest Update: Sunday, 21 January 2007 12:15 p.m.
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Monday, 15
January 2007
I
have a holiday today. Bob has gone to the dentist to have a tooth
pulled. The dogs are very confused. They cannot figure out why I am
home and Bob is not. Since it is almost always the reverse they must
think Bob has left for good. As a matter of fact the garage door just
went up as I am typing this. I imagine he will be in recovery mode most
of the day. With me being home I can take over dog duty.
As usual I am taking advantage of being at home an extra day. After
vacuuming the usual weekly dog hair I tackled the hall bathroom linen
closet with a reorganization and cleaning. The bed linens are
changed, washed, and put away as well as the towels. Bob ususally folds
the towel load but I did it for him.
Next up, my desk. I have been piling things up all weekend to
sort and put away knowing I would have this afternoon to work on that.
Other than that, I have some odd jobs that need taken care of.
The weather is very warm, high today in the 70's. By tomorrow night we
return once again to winter with rapidly falling temperatures over the
next 48 hours.
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Tuesday, 16 January 2007
A busy day off. Last night the sprayer on the
kitchen sink sprung a leak in the hose. Bob wrapped it with duct tape
until Gerald could come over and take a look at it. Turns out the
sprayer was part of the entire faucet assembly which would make
replacing just the sprayer difficult. Gerald does a lot of kitchen
remodeling. He just happen to have a very nice faucet/sprayer almost
like new he had pulled out of another job.
This morning his hired helper came over to install that. In the
meantime, Bob had Gerald take a look at our shower. The faucet's are
dripping. Even though we are replacing the hardware in that bath when
we do the remodeling this drip is coming from the pipe fitting itself.
I had to leave at 9:30 for my 10 o'clock physical appointment while he
was in the middle of working on that project.
All checked out fine at the doctor. I get the lab work results back
later this week. After lunch I took two of our sofa cushions to a
nearby re upholsterer. The covers we have now are splitting at the
seams and just not holding up very well. He does not sell the fabric
but gave me a very good price on the covering. He can use the same foam
but he wraps a piece of batting like material around the foam to give
it more stability. He sent me to the other end of the shopping center
to Hancock's Fabrics. They had two different fabric pieces on sale I
like but not enough of either one to cover all twelve cushions. I
decided to change things up a little. Instead of having all twelve
pieces match I went with the check for the sofa and a matching solid
for the love seat and ottoman's. The brown tones will look better in
the den with the furniture and the paneling. I dropped the fabric back
off at the shop then came home for the rest of the cushions. We are now
sitting on some of the old foam seats I saved in case we needed them
for something else and using other pillows and cushions for our back
and the ottoman.
By the time I got back home it was time to take Duncan for his
vet/yearly appointment. He is doing very well for a twelve year old
dog.
I need to fix dinner soon. Tonight we have our Friends of the Library
annual meeting and entertainment. This year we have a young lady who
plays Celtic harp accompanied by a husband and wife who play flute and
guitar. I need to get there early enough to help set up the
refreshments and get things ready. The music will run for about 40
minutes. While they take a break we will conduct a short business
meeting followed by another half hour of music.
The wind has been howling all day as the temperatures continue to fall.
Tonight is to be a low of 27 after having almost at least a week or
more of lows in the 40's and 50's. The rain showers never did make it
for yesterday or today.
Needless to say I have made good use of my days off. Time to get back
to work tomorrow. With Drew on vacation all week I will have to do
deliverys and related jobs.
Finally, a sad note in the NASCAR racing community. Benny Parsons died
today of cancer at age 65. He was racing here at the old Bowman Gray
stadium back when I was growing up. He went on to win several major
Winston Cup races. After he retired from racing he started a racing
school and went into radio and TV broadcasting of races. Of course he
was born and raised in NC but moved to Detroit to work after high
school before getting involved in racing. As with many of the older
NASCAR racers he over came the poverty of his youth to make it big in
the sport. He continued to give a lot back long after he retired.
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Wednesday, 17 January 2007
no update.
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Thursday, 18 January 2007
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Week]
The drive in work this morning was slow but
pretty. The snow started falling pretty heavy just as I left for work.
I kept to my main route which was mostly clear with some patchy snow.
Traffic was heavy but slow which meant nut cases who like to drive 50
mph were limited to the 20 mph crawl. Even with the extra five minutes
or so I still made it to work on time.
At lunch the snow had turn to a driving drizzle. I took a quick half
hour walk to get some fresh air. By that time my legs were getting cold
despite having on a fairly heavy pair of cotton pants. By the time I
left work the precipitation was pretty much over and the roads were
just wet. Black ice might be a problem in the morning.
Work is very frustrating. I had two major cases accounting for about
100 boxes on my destroy list for next week. Just so happens someone
needed part of the case. Now I have to pull 100 boxes out of my
spreadsheet and pull them in to separate stuff that needs to be kept
from what can be destroyed. Our off site storage facility also has to
pull them from their pull sheet I had submitted for those boxes to be
pulled for when we go off site.
They are both older cases dating back before we started doing
inventory in our CMS database. In a parallel project, I am
organizing some old files not listed correctly in one database that
have been in storage forever because they are not coming up on yearly
destruction lists. Some of these boxes actually have destroyed
files in them mixed with stuff that needs to be retained. What a mess.
I finally finished the Anne Perry. I have now started the third book in
the J.A. Jance series, Shoot, Don't Shoot. I can already tell you one
plot involves a serial killer from the opening chapter. Her other
two books had several plots going at the same time. I have no doubt
others will surface as I continue. This is the last of library book on
my TBR stack. I may take a break from my current series and pick up a
couple of those before going back to Hamish Macbeth, Thomas and
Charlotte Pitt, and Joanna Brady.
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Friday, 19 January 2007
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No update
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Saturday, 20 January 2007
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Not much to report last night. My short three
day work week seemed like it was five days. With Drew out on vacation I
was handling his deliveries, box requests, and my destruction stuff. By
late afternoon I had sorted through half of the first 50 boxes brought
in from off site I am sorting between destroy and keep.
On the way home I made a trip out to Home Depot to pick up two gallons
of the ceiling paint and made a quick grocery store stop. We just hung
out last night watching more episodes of Veronica Mars. I wouldn't be a
teenager again for all the tea in China.
This morning I was up at 7:15. After breakfast I cracked open the first
gallon of paint and went to it. I started on the garage end of the room
because of less furniture needing to be moved. By noon I was almost
halfway. The textured ceiling down there is not in great shape. Some
small areas are smooth, others are thinly textured and others really
rough. At least the ceiling will be white instead of dingy brown. I
don't think we painted the ceiling when we put the apartment in for
Lenore back in 1990. I am brush painting. While it takes a little
longer I am not having to worry about pulling the stucco stuff off.
With almost half the room done I already used up one gallon of paint.
With bad weather due to come in tomorrow I ran out to Home Depot to
pick up another gallon. Even if I don't need it for that room I will
need it for the remainder of the ceilings down stairs.
I am working about 45 minutes then taking short breaks to rest my neck
and arm. This has been my long break with lunch and running out to pick
up the paint.
It is beautiful outside but cold and windy. Malcolm keeps pestering me
to go outside to play some ball. Perhaps we will have a short play
session before I start back up.
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Sunday, 21 January 2007
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A slight twist on an old saying...He also
serves who lies and watches. Malcolm goes downstairs with me while I
paint. He lays on either the garage floor, I have the door open out to
garage, or in the finished area just at the edge of my drop cloth. He
is a working dog even when he cannot help he is supervising.
I was up and at it by 9am. Several short breaks involved walking the
dogs and later taking them out back to play some ball. The latter was
right around 10:30. At that point something frozen was falling either
sleet or snow. I am now in the midst of my long break. I have about 3/4
of the ceiling finished. The middle portion I did yesterday was by far
the easiest. Now I've hit the area of the ceiling where the stucco is
very rough. Despite taking short brush strokes with lots of paint the
flatter areas of the ceiling between the bumps is not covering very
well. Not only is it harder to paint but is also even slower. Also, as
I predicted I do need another can of paint. I used on can on the
section I did this morning. I am not sure this can will take me to the
end. As I said yesterday, it at least looks better than it did even
though the texture variances across the ceiling have made a big
difference in how it looks when it is dry.
Just as I started back downstairs, Frances called. She is bringing us a
large bowl of homemade vegetable soup and homemade egg salad for Bob.
That will make for a nice, easy dinner after two days of ceiling
painting. The precipitation that was falling has stopped for right now.
The main batch of freezing rain and sleet is not supposed to move in
until mid-afternoon and tonight before changing over to rain.
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Copyright
© 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
by
Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.