Resurfacing….

Wednesday, Jun. 18, 2003 – 4:34 p.m.

2003-06-18 4:34

Has it really been three months??

Well, No, I didn’t fall off the edge of the earth…. and, Yes, I am still growing roses.

Life got a little busy there for a while but it appears to be settling down now. To catch up on the NON-rose related stuff, here is what has happened in the last two months:

  • The clutch in my car started slipping when I was 3 hours from home, outbound to my parent’s place in the mountains. Not a good idea to try to climb mountains with a bad clutch so it was detour to my parent’s house (closer than my place at that point) and dad lent me his truck to continue my trip to the mountains while the car was in the shop. Needed a new clutch to the tune of $535… Thank you, Dad, for the gift of a new clutch!!
  • Heading BACK from the mountains, I learned from a message on my cellphone voicemail that the cold water supply hose on my washing machine busted while I was gone and flooded pretty much the entire ground floor of my house! All the carpet in the living room, dining room, and hallways, plus the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and utility rooms had to go. All the insulation in the crawlspace needed to be replaced as well as all the downstairs heating ducts. Thanks Goodness for homeowner’s insurance!! I took this opportunity to replace most of the flooring with Pergo and it looks great! The livingroom, diningroom, kitchen and hallways (including front foyer) are now pergo. The utility room got vinyl flooring again. Anything that was portable was carried upstairs so I am still in the process of moving stuff back downstairs.
  • I got the initial check from the insurance company but when I went to deposit it, the bank said that I needed to get it endorsed by my mortgage company. A call to the customer service number told me there was an office here in town… Cool! I can got this done today! Show up at the mortgage company’s office…”Sorry but we don’t have the authority to endorse checks for $5000. It will need to go to the regional office in Greensboro…” Ok, the check is endorsed by both Muir and me and I didn’t want to let it out of my sight! so I got directions and DROVE to Greensboro the following morning and got it endorsed.

  • While the house was in chaos, Galahad (one of my cats) started having problems with his bowels again. He has had a condition that made him ultra-constipated and the medicine had stopped working. Surgery was the only option. So G went in and had his colon removed… but then he didn’t feel like eating so he went back in to have a feeding tube inserted in his neck. That did the trick to get his appetite restarted and he is now eating on his own (and the tube has been removed) but the whole process was very expensive. I could have gotten one blazingly fast computer with all the trimmings for what I paid for his operation. [sigh] But he is doing GREAT!!
  • My maternal Grandmother passed away. She had gone into the hospital for hip-replacement surgery (which went fine) but she had a massive coronary in the recovery room. Her memorial was last week in Indiana and all 5 for my mother’s siblings were there as well as all 16 of my cousins (of which I am the oldest). The current plan is to have a real reunion in June of 2005. [grin]

    While I was in the midwest, I took the opportunity to go see my paternal grandmother, my last living grandparent. She lives in a nursing home about 2 hours west of Chicago. I rented a car and drove for 6 hours each way (staying overnight with one of my uncles on that side of the family) to visit with her and take her out to dinner. We had a very nice time and I am really glad I did it.

In the intervening time, I have actually written stuff in my PDA to post here but it never made it on. I will work on editing it and post some entries over the next couple of days to bring the rose stuff up to date.