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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 19 August 2000 (Week 34)

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Saturday, 19 August 2000

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We have a busy weekend planned. I am going to try to finish up painting windows and get started on shutters. We are also going to power wash the deck and the eaves of the back of the house. 

I am not sure if I will clean house this weekend or wait and do it Monday. Depends on how much I get done today.  It is to be nice and cool this weekend with low humidity, so it will make it nice for working outside. 

Lenore picked out a new lift chair yesterday. It will be in sometime next week. We have to go pick it up, which is fine. We have someone with a truck who will do that for us. 

Kerry is better. His stitches are looking better and the incisions are starting to heal. It will be a long time before his hair grows back. He is still not eating his dog food. He will take human food from us and that is all. I am not sure if he is pouting because he cannot live up here or he just does not feel like it. BC's can be very sulky if they do not get things their way. I hope it is a hunger strike and not illness related. 

I must go out and get started painting. We cannot start the power washer going until later in the morning since it is so noisy.

Sunday, 20 August 2000

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I painted two windows yesterday morning while I was waiting for us to get the power washing started. We got set and started power washing about mid-morning. Bob did the high sides of the outside of the deck on the ladder while I held it.

We worked until about noon and then took a break to fix Lenore some breakfast and us some lunch. After lunch we came up top and started on the floor and the inside rails. I did most of that while Bob did work on the computer. The washer finally ran out of gas around 2:30 and we stopped for the day.

So, we cleaned up, put stuff away that we did not want to leave out over night and I took a shower. 

Today is to be exceptionally cool for an August day in NC, so I am going to paint front windows while I have good painting weather. Bob may do more power washing on the deck floor and rails. We only got about a third of that done when we quit.

We had take out Chinese for dinner last night to make it easy on every one. Tonight I may just make pizza or something easy since we will be working all day.

I will wait and clean house tomorrow.

Monday, 21 August 2000

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Yesterday was more power washing and painting. I finished the front trim and windows and Bob finish the last of the deck floor washing. We still have a little of the deck to finish and I will start on shutters this week. After I get back from the gym I want to clean house and get started on dismantling the guest bedroom.

While I was painting I listened to the race on the radio. I do not enjoy listening as much as I do watching but the painting had higher priority for the day so that was my only option. I missed about the middle of the race when I went around to help Bob finish up the power washing and put things away for the day. I came in to see the last 30 laps before I took my shower.

Our friend, Steve Tucker, who works for RJR's Sports Marketing Team posted on his diary page  that he wondered if Winston Cup driver Terry Labonte is hanging up the racing helmet. I too had been contemplating the exact same thoughts on Friday when I saw that Todd Bodine was qualifying and running the car for Sunday's Michigan race. Terry suffered a pretty bad concussion in the Daytona Race July 1. He drove the next week at the New Hampshire race but got out of the car the next week at Pocono due to dizziness. He then elected to sit out the next two races breaking his Iron Man streak of 655 starts. 

Needless to say I was pretty shocked when I tuned in the the pre-race program while eating lunch on Sunday and saw Terry suited up and being interviewed that he was driving the car. You can read an interview posted on the NASCAR web site about the a successful treatment of an inner ear problem that was causing the dizziness. He finished 20 yesterday and I am glad to hear Terry is able to go back racing. He has been my favorite driver since I started watching Winston Cup racing again about 8 years ago after we  became friends with the Tuckers. I used to watch it when I was younger on Wide World of Sports. At that time you could only get the big races. I also used to listen to the racing here at Bowman Gray Stadium on Saturday night. We did not have air conditioning and you could hear the engines as they roared around the track. This was of course before it was called Winston Cup but all the old time drivers raced on the small 1/4 mile track. 

My sister and I, who is also a big race fan, have attended two races in the past few years. We really enjoyed Bristol and Dover was okay. You can see more at the smaller tracks. With Bob and I moving to New Hampshire maybe we can go to a race up there at some time.

Tuesday, 22 August 2000

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We did not do any work on the house yesterday. After I got back from the gym and errands I tried to start cleaning house. I say tried, because it was one thing after another. Since Kerry has virtually stopped eating for about two weeks, and was eating very little then, one of my errands was stopping at the pet store to pick up a can of dog food.  That did not stay down well either so I called the vet. He recommended Pepcid AC to settle the stomach and baby food. That seemed to work last night.

This morning he would not take his Pepcid in cheese or dog food and I had to force him to take it. 

Bob has to get a tooth pulled this morning. This is one that our previous dentist tried to save with a big filling but it fell out. Our new dentist told him when it started to bother him, he would pull it. Well, it started bothering him over the weekend, so he is off to the dentist this morning.

I am going to paint shutters this morning. I have spinning class at the gym tonight, so I will work until lunch and then do computer work this afternoon so I will not be too tired. I will most likely have to take care of dogs and mom since Bob will be down for the day from the tooth extraction. It will be soup and sandwiches for dinner since Bob will not feel like eating and I like to eat light when I do the spinning class.

Guess I better get to it while it is still nice and cool this morning.

Wednesday, 23 August 2000

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After much rest and soup and sandwiches for dinner last night, Bob seems to be mostly recovered from having his tooth extracted yesterday. His appointment was for 11:30 and he did get home until almost 1:00. By then I had painted six shutters and cleaned the windows for each set as I finished the painting. I came to eat a bit of lunch and check my mail. I did not want to take my shower until he got home just in case they ran into a problem and I needed to go pick him up.

After getting him settled and the dogs taken care of, I worked on genealogy stuff. I am not working on my mother's side of the family, the Callahan's. Like the Fritchman side, I had worked on this line until I became stymied. In this case I have only managed to get back three generations to my great, great grandfather, Isaac Callahan. Mom's side has a lot of complications, the number one being that the court house was burned when Sherman marched through the south. A lot of important records were lost that I needed. Now, with the internet and lots of people doing genealogy, I have picked it back up. 

There is some question as to whether Isaac was born in Ireland or in the United States. I need to try to find some connections to the lines. There are also some family stories of Indian raids and the fact that Isaac was born to a Meshaw Indian. Once I get things organized I will put this line up on my Fritchman Genealogy  page. 

I am not sure what I will do this afternoon when I get back from the store. I may wash outside windows today. I also need to get started clearing out the guest bedroom to move Lenore into. More on that later in the week.

Marcia Bilbrey reported on her page yesterday that it looks like Matt and Keri Beland of the Daynotes and Netwidows gangs respectively, will be relocating back to the Seattle area. Congratulations to Matt. I know Keri is very happy to be leaving Phoenix and although her interview did not go as well, I think she has an alternate game plan. Good luck with your move.

Thursday, 24 August 2000

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   And your first question is, why does Barbara have a picture of a telephone soaking in water on her page today? Because the other night while I was downstairs doing something, Malcolm over turned my glass of wine and it poured all over my telephone on my side table. The next morning it was dead.

We soaked it for a couple of hours in water and then I took it apart to let the insides dry. I am happy to report that the telephone is over its hangover and is working again quite nicely.

I said on yesterday's page I was going to wash windows. Instead, I edged, mowed, and trimmed up the front bushes all nice and neat. 

After lunch we dismantled the bed in the guest bedroom and I cleaned out and packed up the contents of the short dresser. We will move Lenore into that room tomorrow so that we can get the downstairs carpet cleaned and get that area all neat and cleaned up. We can use that area to place extra furniture from upstairs rooms that we need to remove to make them look larger. 

This morning I am supposed to play golf but it looks like rain at this point. This afternoon I am supposed to meet Bob and a friend who has a truck at the medical supply place to pick up Lenore's new lift chair. We will go ahead and put it in the guest room and move her up here today. That will most likely take up most of this afternoon getting things moved around.

We'll see what happens.

Friday, 25 August 2000

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It did rain, but only long enough to make it too late for us to get the round in before I had to go pick up the chair. 

How difficult can moving one elderly person from a basement apartment to a room on the main floor be? Well let me tell you it could not be more trouble than if we had moved her across town.

It took an entire afternoon just hauling up enough stuff to get her set up for last night until we could get her completely settled in.

After we picked up the new chair we brought it straight in up here to her new room. We then loaded the stuff in the back of Hanna's truck that we were giving her: mattress, box springs, and small book case from the upstairs.

We went downstairs and off loaded Lenore from her chair to the wheel chair. Loaded the old chair in Hannah's truck along with some old kitchen chairs of Lenore's. We sent Hannah off with a pickup truck load of stuff and started moving the stuff she needed. Two end tables, two lamps, walker, potty chair, tv, small table stereo, and two buckets of stuff like check book, papers, pills, clock, etc. etc. etc. We did not even attempt some clothes, her food from downstairs, some other personal items, etc.

After four thousand trips up and down the stairs I stopped at 3:30 to take a shower and do something about fixing dinner. I also had to either box up or move to my office the stuff that was in the drawers, on the tops of the dressers and the bookcases that were in the guest room. Most of the books and small items I went on and boxed up since I don't need them on a regular basis. The remainder is dumped in either the living room or my office.

We now have a guest in our guest room that fills up the entire room more so than when it had a bed, a couple of dressers and small book cases. I am on the verge of blowing a gasket because I cannot stand to have my house in such a mess. The living room looks like a disaster area and my office is not much better. Today I will attempt to get those rooms in some kind of order. I guess we will work on the downstairs next week to get it ready for the carpet cleaners.

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