Maggie and Aaron, apartment notes, IKEA

Maggie went to the hospital yesterday at about 2:30 a.m. local time. We were in contact with Aaron and Maggie through most of the day yesterday as the hospital let her body work out the final stages of the pregnancy. Late yesterday evening they gave her the meds to strengthen the uterine contractions and the baby was born about 12:30 local time. Mama got the call here about 3:45 a.m. Aaron texted me at 3:43 “Have a beautiful little girl.” Praise the Lord!

I still contend that in the average walk of life, the birth of a child is the most commonplace of God’s miraculous interventions in our world. We tend to look at it as it happens in our country but there are children born today in much more primitive settings in countries that do not enjoy our health care advantages.

Though their survival rate after birth may be lessened because of life conditions, their birth is perhaps more miraculous than those assisted by doctors and nurses. Those in our society who see children as a burden rather than a blessing have a skewed focus on God’s purpose for our lives.  The caveat is that, in our own society, so many are born into fatherless homes. Not so for our little granddaughter. She is number four for me and Mama, number one for the Ledfords. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Mama and I worked in the apartment last night assembling the cabinet we got at IKEA and getting the faucet put on the sink – also from IKEA. It was a hot, muggy night but we were running the portable air conditioner in the apartment. That will be all we do for the remainder of this year. I do not think we have too many oppressively hot days left in 2013 so we will hold off getting a window a/c until the spring.

I also put up the first part of the filler I needed in the bathroom for the shower faucet. Mama and I bought two pieces of tile – usually use for backsplash – and I cut them to fit over the faucet. Together they will fill out the space I need to assemble the external decorative parts of the unit. It should come out pretty well.

I had to leave everything drying overnight; the cabinet included. So depending on what I have to do this evening I could start getting the kitchen set up. Mama is really ready for that to happen. I had planned on going back to IKEA Thursday after work but we are expecting some heavy rains – Praise the Lord! – so I may have to go today. I need to pick up the countertops for the kitchen and I have to drive the little tuck since they will not fit in the Flex. Since the countertops will be raw wood I want to avoid getting them wet.

 Now that we know the way to the IKEA store in Frisco, I can only assume we will be going quite often.

Lots of meetings, lots of travel, little blessings

Last week was a busy week filled with many hours in the car and equally as many hours spent in meetings. I did not turn on my computer from Wednesday through the weekend. I spent all my time either in meetings or commuting to meetings. I could have spent some evenings on the computer but that would not have been much fun for Mama.

The good news is that all the meetings went well. There were minor hiccups and a little resistance from the various groups but all in all it was a good. I got to meet with lots of people I do not get to see often and I got to smooth over some rough patches that have been created by the recent required moves. People tend to get edgy when you upset their routine.

Mama and I spent the evenings in various ways. We ate out quite a bit. We shopped a little and we went to church. Chase and Makaila met us for dinner one evening. We went to a restaurant in Dumas that had been recommended to us. I had eaten a pretty filling lunch that day and nothing on the menu sounded good to me so I did not get anything. It did not seem to bother anyone and I felt better that night for having not eaten.

We were scheduled to come home Friday morning but we ended up staying in Amarillo at Chase’s apartment so Mama could be there to tend to him through the night after he had all his wisdom teeth pulled that morning. I was not enamored with the idea but I think it was a good thing we stayed. He got pretty sick that evening but seemed much better in the morning; well enough that Mama felt good about leaving him to heal on his own. She checked on him yesterday and he was eating pizza so I suppose he is okay.

Mama and I were able to get several of the items I need to complete the bathroom and get the layout of the kitchen finalized. She had been calling IKEA to check if the sink she wanted had come in and it did make it to the store on Saturday. So thirty minutes after we got to the farm we headed back out to go to IKEA and pick it up – an additional two hundred mile round trip. All told I drove nearly a thousand miles during the week. Mama was with me for about seven hundred of them.

I will have my work cut out for me this week putting together all the items we were able to bring back with us from Amarillo. One of those items is a ceiling fan for the bathroom. We have been having trouble finding one small enough to fit the area we have available for it but we stopped at Lowe’s and asked if they had one. The lady working the area looked and it is a special order item.

While Mama and were looking at other fans she and another gentleman came up to us with a fan that would fit. It had been a special order and the person who ordered it did not like it. The original price was $125. It was being sold for $25. Oddly enough it fits perfectly in the décor of the bathroom. It was a blessing  but that is the way God always works if we wait on Him.

I may get it installed tonight.

On the road, farm updates

Mama and I were on the road yesterday so I did not get to write. The trip was more interesting than usual since we had to wait in Bowie for the banks to open before we could leave. Grandpa is buying some hay for us and we needed to get the money to then via a bank in Bowie. It turned out to be a good thing we were getting off to a late start because I had to repair some fence the horse had broken through and get her back into her pasture so Victoria did not have to deal with that while we were away this week.

When we got to the town of Childress we found that the highway was shutdown in both directions so we had to take a very crowded detour for about thirty miles. There were anxious drivers playing hop scotch in the queue of traffic only to find that there was no gain in the very dangerous game they were trying to play at everyone else’s expense.

 Mama could not see how close some of them came to getting wiped out by the oncoming traffic as we approached one rise after another which was just as well since it would have panicked her no end. I was relieved when we got to Memphis and Hwy 287 was open again. (I found out today that the closure was due to an overturned truck that was carrying some hazardous chemicals. It must have been a doosie of a wreck.)

Over the weekend we got the double oven cabinet set and I got the bathroom hooked up. I have one minor leak in the lavatory drain that I will have to repair when I get back and I have to do something to fill the gap between the shower faucet and the shower wall – about ¾ of an inch total. The valve was placed a little too far out for the final wall.

I also put on the back door to the apartment – where we access the shop. My tentative plans are to be able to move in the last week of September. It should coincide with Grandma and Grandpa returning from their time in West Virginia. That is, if we get to the point where we can move by the end of the month. Right now the major delay is getting the kitchen ready. Mama and I are planning on going to IKEA for the cabinet and sink she wants in the kitchen and that will determine how I lay out the kitchen.

I almost completed modifications to the second double oven cabinet. I have put the two extra drawers I had to cut out of the cabinet that will actually hold the double over into the frame of that cabinet. When I am finished with it will have five drawers, a large opening for small appliances and cabinet doors on the top.

Grandpa bought us two garage doors that I can fit into the two openings at either end of the shop. That will be a fun project that will finally allow us to seal up the completed part of the shop building. Lots of work still to do but we are clearly making headway.

Today I will be working out of the Borger office while Mama goes to Amarillo to spend the day with Chase and Makaila. I know she plans on baking some cookies and making Mexican casserole. Other than that I am not sure what they will get into. We plan on meeting tonight in Dumas where Mama and I will stay through Friday.

Meanwhile, Victoria is tending to the farm and all the livestock on her own. I think she was looking forward to the time alone – and at the same time dreading it, at least a little.

Busy times, planning work

Our office visitors headed out just in time for me to get to a three hour afternoon meeting. These last two weeks have been busier than usual partly because I have someone in the office working on our very messed up web page and the hundreds of sites it connects to. She is one who does not do anything without clear direction and she has needed a lot of direction. While that is going on I am setting up to start a new helper in the reception area and preparing to post a job opening for another of my direct reports – which will result in multiple interviews in the near future.

By the time I get both persons trained and self-sufficient it will be November. It is hard to believe that we are near enough to start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas in practical terms. I told Mama I am more ready for Christmas this year than in the past several years. That is partly because we are more settled than we have been since we left New Jersey three years ago. That move resulted in three subsequent moves in as many years. I think I am ready for Christmas this year because I have been listening to the iPod play through the repertoire of songs on its playlist and about a quarter of those are Christmas songs.

I am also ready for some time off and I have several slots of time scheduled during the holiday season.  Many of my friends and office mates are talking in animated terms about hunting trips they have planned for that time of year. I have not done any hunting since we left West Virginia and I cannot say that I miss it. For the moment, all my recreational energy is being spent on farm. It just feels more productive to me; and far less self-serving.

When I got home last night I cleared out the laundry room. Mama had painted it during the day so I pulled up the paper the sheetrock crew had put down to protect the floor from their mess. I took the time to get the outlets and switches hooked up and wired in receptacles for the hot water heater and dryer. By the time I had gotten all that done Victoria was home and ready to help me move cabinets but I was still not ready to go there.

Mama and I are going to pick up a rug from the seller at Trade Days this evening. I will meet her there on my way through Bowie. She is planning on going to the nursing home and get away from there in time to meet me. I think we will need the truck for the rug; it is eight foot by eleven foot. It is not the size Mama ordered. She ordered two five by seven rugs to go under either side of our bed. This one will take up the entire room but we are going to look at it and she has planned to buy it.

I need a large rug in the apartment as I stage cabinets. The large cabinets are eight feet tall. In order to get them into the kitchen I have to set them upright in the living room – the ceiling there is almost ten feet high – and carefully scoot them across the kitchen into place. It is not an easy task and I do not want to damage the floors in the process.

 If Mama and Victoria help me we will use some towels under the righted cabined to shuffle and slide it in place. After that one is in place all the rest is fairly easy until I have to put the double oven in the cabinet; it weighs 275#. Mama and I will be out all next week so this weekend is the last time I will have to work on the apartment for a week.

I am hoping to get a good bit done but time will tell.

Long day, BBTI, visiting in Amarillo

Yesterday was a fairly late day for me. I did not leave the office until almost 5 pm because of special meetings. I am usually out the door around 3:30pm. When I got home Mama was feeling pretty badly and I was wiped out as well. We both ate a little supper and sat down. That is as far as we got. We did not make it to church last night and both of us really hate to miss but I was in bed by 8 pm. It made for a rough morning because I woke up at a little after 3 a.m.

BBTI (Baptist Bible Translator’s Institute) has started classes with a new crop of students. There are three families, each with four children and there are five singles – two young men and three young ladies. Each of them are in the process of picking a church to join for the year they will be in Bowie and it looks like one of the families and three of the young singles will be coming to our church. Mama and I may have to make extra trips to the campus to pick up one or more of the young ladies from time to time but that is not too much out of the way.

We did give a ride to one young lady on Sunday evening and we got a little lost as we tried to find our way around on the back roads from the institute to the highway. We ended up at the right place but have no good idea how we got there. I will have to do some study on that if it becomes something we do on a regular basis.

I am looking forward to this weekend. There are a lot more little things that I can get done as I work with the materials I have on hand, like the kitchen cabinets. I will only have Saturday to work and then only part of that since it is Trade Days weekend, but I do hope to get the kitchen laid out.

Next week Mama and I are going to the Panhandle. I would say Amarillo but I am not allowed to stay in Amarillo because there is not a business need to do so. We are going to stay one night in Borger and three nights in Dumas – both are about an hour out of Amarillo. Mama will have to make the drive to go spend time with friends there.

I was calculating the miles to and from Amarillo and the mileage Mama will drive while we are in that area. The trip will cost us about $300 in gas and meals. When I told Mama the cost she admitted that it had never crossed her mind that there was any cost associated with the trip since the hotels were being paid for by my company.

Mama has already contacted several people to set up times to visit, not the least of which is Chase and Makaila.

Short evenings, poor placement, car news – sort of

 Sometimes there are just not enough hours in a day. That has been happening a lot lately. We are able to get little things done during short evenings at home but not anything major. I have to pick carefully every evening from the long list of little items to make sure I am not getting ahead of myself but still get something constructive done.

Yesterday evening I put the toilet in the bathroom and set the vanity in place so I could see how I have to fit it in the space allotted. I hung the light Mama picked out last week and had to reposition the vanity to center under the light. That leaves me with a challenge to get everything hooked up  - the drain line and the water lines. We will get it but it makes me wish I had had more insight when we were doing the rough-in of the service lines.

I have the same problem with the plug for the microwave. I have never done the new construction before and I missed when I placed the plug for a range-hood microwave. I will figure something out but I do believe I could have done some more research on placement. The same can be said about how I placed the wiring for the double oven. Kitchens and baths are tough.

I think I have lined up help for the double oven cabinet. My friend from work may be able to come out to the farm after work Friday evening. He will not be able to stay long enough to help me get the oven set in the cabinet but he can at least help me place the cabinet. Mama will be shocked at how much room the cabinet takes up, and I have two that size to put in the kitchen.

Mama was hurting pretty badly yesterday. Her neck is stiff and very sore from the painting we had done over the holiday weekend. I did say that three consecutive days of work in the apartment wore her out. I just did not know until later that day how badly she was hurting from it. She took a muscle relaxer last night and I am hoping it helped her in her recovery.

She and I are going to pick up rugs from a seller at Trade Days this weekend. That is something she has been waiting to do for months. The good news is that we can actually place the rugs when we get them home. The floors are ready and having them in place will actually help since I track up the floor every time I go into the apartment to work – even though I wipe by boots on a towel we have laid out for that purpose. I mopped up most out my tracks last night before I quit for the evening.

Last night Norman told Mama he found a buyer for the Flex – in West Virginia. I do not think I am willing to drive there to show the car to a prospective buyer but I do appreciate the thought. We have had only two calls on it here and both of the callers requested a price $2000 below what we listed. That is not going to happen either. At this point I am planning to keep the car, but I am willing to go through with the sale if the Lord really opens the door.

We are trying to speed up the process of our getting out of debt – not give the car away.

Working in the heat, guineas

I think three days of work on the apartment was about all Mama could handle. Friday was the worst. The temperature was 112®F. It was about eight degrees cooler in the apartment but that was not enough to make it less oppressive. There was a slight breeze but we still had to take frequent breaks. I got off work early so I got there and got to work in the hottest part of the day.

Saturday was another scorcher. Victoria mucked out the calf lot while Mama and I worked on painting. She cannot handle the smell of the paint. Fortunately the smell of manure does not bother her. We finished painting the walls in the apartment about lunch time so we took an afternoon break and went back to work in the evening. For a special treat I took them to Spicy Mexico for lunch.

All three of us needed the break on Sunday and we made the most of it. We stopped at Lowe’s after church and bought a toilet, light fixture and sink faucet to finish outfitting the bathroom. Mama was hoping to get the cabinets in the kitchen and the bathroom set up on Monday but that was not going to happen. I would have needed much more help to get all that done, besides I really wanted to redo the floors. They took a beating during the sheetrock phase of construction.

Monday Mama and I got all the painting and cutting in finished. I guess we were both pretty tired because we did not do a very good job cutting the top on the wall at the ceiling. I will have to go back over it at some point in the future.

 It had rained that morning and the temperature was down to 91®F but the humidity was near 70%. I put the portable air conditioner in the apartment Monday morning to help mitigate the heat but it was very limited help. It gave us someplace cooler to stand when we needed but not much more than that.

Around lunchtime on Monday Victoria told Mama she would really like to go shopping for some clothes and I thought that would be a great idea for the two of them while I spent the afternoon cleaning the floor and getting it prepped for a final coat of sealant. They left as I was mopping the floor for the second time. It took two more times mopping and two more times sweeping before it was clean enough to apply the sealant. I finished the floor a little after 5 pm.

I was just cooling off when Mama called and asked me to go check the water for the horse and the chickens. They both needed refills so I took care of that and while I was out I filled the troughs for the cattle also. I looked into the guinea nest Mama found last week and there were four eggs in it. I left them for Mama to deal with.

She has been giving them to a lady who runs a burrito stand in Montague. Rosa, raises the guineas and sells them. I am assuming she has had some pretty good success. She was as excited about the eggs as Mama was. We will find out if they hatch or not in a few weeks.

If they do that would really excite Mama.