|
Barbara
Fritchman Thompson Diary
Week
of 3 November 2008
Latest Update: Sunday, 9 November 2008 2:00 p.m.
|
Monday, 3 November
2008
I
went back to work today. I did a lot of sitting with my leg up on a
close file box and/or walking. I tried not to stand longer than to look
for a file. The knee feels good though I still cannot straighten it
straight out to walk.
As Bob eluded to on his page today,
things have been breaking like crazy around here the last week. We both
mentioned the broken water meter. In addition Bob's car battery was
dead last Thursday when he was going to go to the drugstore for me.
Wednesday when I got home from my surgery I was checking my Sony Clie
to see when my next haircut appointment was. The batteries were fresh
but I had lost all my data. The last time I tried to sync with my PC
since Bob upgraded my system it would not work it must have wiped it
clean. That is really not a problem. I told him I will go back to using
paper calendar and address book. That's about all I used it for anyway.
Today when I stopped at the stop sign leaving the
neighborhood I was cleaning my glasses. The left lens fell out in my
hand. Fortunately I carry my previous pair. I pulled into the swimming
pool parking lot thinking the screw had popped out. It was still in,
just loose. I dug out my trusty screw driver and fixed my glasses.
Yesterday
the dryer stopped working while supposedly drying the second load of
cloths. Bob had already washed the towels and they were waiting in the
wings to go in. This is the same thing that happened two years ago when
the dryer was only six years old. We paid almost half the cost of the
dryer for parts to fix it then. See Bob's page for me details on that
story. I called the neighbor who said we could bring over the two
wet loads to dry. Bob proceeded to haul cloths back and forth for the
next two hours.
Enough of that. Hopefully we are the end of our string of bad karma.I
discovered a wonderful new author. I have no idea where I ran across
her name/books but I had it written down in my notebook to check the
library catalog to see if they had Deanna Raybourn's books. She is a
new writer with just two books out. Her first novel in her series,
Silent From the Grave, introduces us to Lady Julia Grey of upper
Victorian class. Bob read it first and said I would like it. I don't
like it, I love it. What a great writer. Lady Julia has a very dry wit
that is hard to explain. I really must recommend her series. Even if
you do not care for historical mysteries and/or the Victorian period,
which I love, you should still give her try. We have the second book in
her series which Bob has read. The third one is due on the first of
next year. Lady Julia was born into a very large family of Marches, all
of which have extremely weird personalities. When her husband of five
years drops dead suddenly all assumed it was from a family history of
heart problems. Soon after his death a young man presents himself to
Lady Julia who had been employed by her husband to find out who was
sending him threatening letters. Julia dismisses him at one but soon
finds evidence there may be truth to the matter. Bored with her period
of mourning she begins to investigate the situation with, at times, the
help of the young man.
Since I finished up the Handler on Saturday I spend most of yesterday sitting on the porch reading this excellent novel.
I
had a haircut appointment after work then picked up takeout on the way
home. Thankfully the election is tomorrow. I am sick of political ads
and phone calls. BAH!
[Top]
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
I hope you voted today unless you did like I
did and voted early if you have that option. I am glad I did. I would
not have been able to stand in line today though the knee continues to
improve.
Bob wants to watch the election returns tonight. I
doubt I will stay up past my usual reading bedtime. He can keep my
posted as what is going on.
[Top]
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
I had my surgery follow-up with the PA this
morning at 8:30. She went over the page of thumbnail size prints from
the surgery. When she came in with them she said "did you know your
knee looked like" and I added the word hell and she said yes. It was
very ugly. I see the doctor in three weeks. In the meantime she said I
could start at the gym. I had packed my gym bag this morning with the
intentions of asking her if I could go tonight.
I am still
limping pretty bad and showed her the place on the knee cap where it is
bother me. She said it will be like that until the swelling goes down.
She said to ice it and exercise it as much as the knee would
allow. I rode the recumbent bike five minutes, did some arm work and
the regular bike five more minutes. The knee itself is not horribly
swollen so a lot of it much be inside.
Last night I finished the Deanna Raybourn book. Next I started the
first book in a series Bob has read once but is rereading while I am
having a go for the first time. Reginald Hill has a series of books he
first started writing in 1970 featuring Superintendent Andrew Dalziel
and Sergeant Peter Pascoe. Bob warned me the first book, A Clubbable
Woman, is a little slow but I am enjoying it enough so far to stick
with it. The TV series based on the books has aired in Britain but is
not available on DVD.
[Top]
Thursday, 6 November 2008
[Last
Week]
[Monday]
[Tuesday]
[Wednesday]
[Thursday] [Friday]
[Saturday]
[Sunday]
[Next
Week]
I did the library and grocery store run
tonight on the way home. Bob has been pulling my car up around front in
the morning when I leave for work and parking it when I get home to
keep me from having to do the stairs. He is also still doing the after
dinner and last time out dog walks. I am not walking well enough to be
out walking up and down the street in the dark.
Dad had a good
report from his doctor today. He was very pleased with dad's knee two
months out from the surgery. He is still going to physical therapy. The
doctor said he could drive but he is does not feel like he is ready. I
will be leaving work early tomorrow to pick up mom for her Friday
appointment and then going with them out to dinner. Now that dad can
get out again we don't have to do takeout.
Warm today, almost 80 degrees. Oh how I would have loved to have been out walking at lunch!
[Top]
Friday 7 November 2008
[Last
Week]
[Monday]
[Tuesday]
[Wednesday]
[Thursday]
[Friday]
[Saturday]
[Sunday]
[Next
Week]
[Top]
Saturday, 8 November
2008
[Last
Week]
[Monday]
[Tuesday]
[Wednesday]
[Thursday]
[Friday]
[Saturday] [Sunday]
[Next
Week]
While Bob did he usual morning routine with
his PC I hauled out the vacuum cleaner. Between the dog hair and leaves
I had to vacuum. Afterwards I rested my leg, I am still limping since I
am unable to make a full weight load stride yet, until Bob was ready to
take off for Lowe's.
Before we left Bob went down to try a quick fix on the dryer from a suggestion from his readers. You can read about his success his page.
If we did have to buy dryer it would have been a good weekend, this is
tax free weekend on large appliances in NC. He is going to make a
better, cleaned up repair tomorrow after we purchase some electrical
tape on our Lowe's outing.
I needed blue paint for the doors and
drawers. We were also still trying to find handles and hinges for the
cabinetry and shelves/brackets. Bob came up with a good idea to replace
the microwave cabinet with shelves and purchase a smaller microwave to go on the counter. The corner by the range top is
wasted space in terms of putting anything back that far. We had looked
at finished decorated shelves at both Lowe's and Home Depot. Last week
we found brackets we liked at HD but they did not have enough in stock
with screws for mounting. We bagged getting hardware and shelving
material. Bob was going to order hardware online but said we would look
again at Lowe's.
Bob wasn't happy with the finished shelving or
brackets at Lowe's nor did we see hinges/handles we liked. We left
Lowe's and drove the mile or so to HD. I picked out a handle I liked
but they did not have enough in stock so we decided to go with knobs
for the drawers and false drawer fronts. Not. After looking at brackets
again, they still did not have enough in stock Bob suggested we buy 3ft
white pine and paint it blue to match the walls. Good enough for me.
The lumber department guy picked out a 12 x 10 x 1 piece of pine and
cut into four shelves for us and I picked up primer for those.
While
I waited on the boards to be cut Bob went back to hardware section
again to pick up a template for mounting the handles. He found some
handles we had not looked at which he liked better and came in packs of
ten with singles available to make up the 32 handles we needed for the
doors and drawers. He decided he was not keen on the knobs. Whew! Two
hours later we were finally back home with everything we needed except
brackets and magnets to hold the doors shut. We forgot to get those.
I
ate lunch and rested my leg then started priming shelves while Bob
filled the holes in the drawer fronts. After the putty dried he sanded
then I painted the first coat then put a second coat of primer on one
side of the shelves. While that dried I took another rest and played
indoor ball with Malcolm. It is such a pretty day, sunny with temps in
the low sixties but I cannot be walking in the back yard or playing
ball which he does not understand.
I flipped the boards over and
put a first coat on those then second coated the drawer fronts once the
first coat was dry then seconded coated the shelves. That wraps it up
for today. I am almost finished with the Dalziel and Pascoe.
[Top]
Sunday, 9 November
2008
[Last
Week]
[Monday]
[Tuesday]
[Wednesday]
[Thursday]
[Friday]
[Saturday]
[Sunday] [Next
Week]
Today I am painting shelves and doors. While
waiting on one or the other to dry between coats I managed to get
pictures hung in the dinning room and the furniture back into place.
Last week I started a non-fiction book from my TRB pile to
read when I inadvertently left my current mystery in the drawer at
work. I have been reading it off and on all week, a chapter at a time
then going back to my mystery. Today I am reading while waiting on door
coats to dry. I picked up Soaring with Fidel
at the bookstore on Martha's Vineyard last year on our Cape Code Trip.
While it is not set on Cape Cod the author, David Gessner, lived there
until he recently moved to North Carolina to teach at UNCW. In
Soaring he recounts a trip he took following the migration of osprey's
from Cape Cod to Cuba. This is somewhat of a nature adventure book of
which I am always attracted to. He not only describes is observances of
ospreys as he follows them he goes into a lot of other birding lore. He
meets a lot of interesting scientists, interns, and authors along the
way all interested in birding in one form of another. I am only half
way through the book but find his writing and his insights very amusing.
Bob
fixed the dryer this morning. He has caught up the laundry doing the
usual dark and white load along with my work cloths and the sheets. It
has been much cooler and windier today. The leaves are falling like
rain now with most of the yard covered again after my neighbor cleaned
them all up on Friday afternoon.
This afternoon while I was
sitting on the couch reading a squirrel hoped up on the den window
ledge and peaked in at me. Guess he was letting me know the bird feeder
was almost empty. I had been watching chickadees and nuthatches fly in
and get food. They can get into the small opening that that goes into
the feeder. It is one of those squirrel proof feeders that closes up
when he tries to sit on the front bar and feed. But they can hang from
their back feet and pull one out at a time when the seed is all the way
down to the edge. When it gets almost empty the seed stops filtering
down. The smaller birds can still fly and get food but the larger birds
cannot.
Bob hauled out the new bag of seed for me so I could
fill the feeder. There is about a three inch deep carpet of leaves on
the deck that need blown off.
[Top]
Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
2003,
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
by
Barbara
Fritchman
Thompson. All Rights Reserved.