Used truck shopping, getting close

Since we have not gotten a single serious call on the Flex since we started advertising it over two months ago, Mama went and looked at trucks yesterday. She found a couple she was interested in so we test drove one last night when I met her at a local dealer. I liked what we did drive but I was not too comfortable with the price as opposed to the year model. So far we are going to be better off if we keep what we have.

I think she is going back today to try to talk to the used car man about making a deal on a diesel truck. It is out of our price range but compared to the used gas trucks they had to offer, it will be the better vehicle to own five years from now. If we have to finance a vehicle, my goal would be to own a worthwhile vehicle in four or five years.

I would rather get away from any loan and pay cash for a vehicle but we are six to eight months away from that. I told Mama last night that I would rather keep what we have and pay cash for an older truck, if that is what we really need, in the spring of next year. We are not suffering by keeping the Flex so at this point it would be better to wait. I doubt the salesman will go for the deal she told me she was going to offer, but I am willing to let her try.

We were out of paint last night so I put in outlets and covers in the kitchen. It gives it a more finished look. We will have our work cut out for us over this long weekend. I do know Mama is planning on buying the paint we need to finish out the apartment and I would like to start getting the kitchen cabinets set. I found the place where I can get cabinets to match the ones I have (in Austin) but I will have to set in place what I do have to see exactly what I need.

After we finish painting we will get the paper off of the floor and begin the final cleanup to get the floors finished out with a final coat of the sealer, then we can start moving stuff over to the apartment.

I am not sure if we will make it that far this weekend without help, but we are that close.

Still busy, God is still calling, color questions, excuses

Yesterday was another crazy busy day. It is not that the things I am doing are difficult but all of them seem to be completely disconnected from each other. Since there is no overlap within the various projects there seems to be no good way to move from one train of thought to another without stopping one and restarting another only to have to go right back to a thought I just stopped working through.

All of these disconnected projects require meetings and phone conversations with multiple individuals in various geographic locations. That takes time; lots of time. Most of the meetings are relatively short; half an hour to an hour. Some are very lengthy, going three to four hours or more. Last night, I finally walked out of a teleconference that had started at 1 pm a little before 5 pm in order to get home in time to get ready for church.

At church a man from our church who is starting deputation spoke last night. He is going to Xalapa, Veracruz Mexico. It was one of the least professional presentations I have ever seen. The pictures were all out of focus, the grammar used was pretty bad, and even our pastor’s portion was not well done. But the heart he has for what God has called him to do was undeniable. It all just had the feel of something you want to be a part of. We were excited and challenged by his very unpolished sermon.

What will be fun is to see what God does to him as he practices and gets more experience preaching and giving his presentation. I have seen God do some pretty amazing things with a man who fully surrenders to Him. God does not call the qualified, I have been told, rather, He qualifies the called.

Mama used the gallon of paint in the kitchen yesterday. I think it turned out to be darker than she was expecting. We did not get a chance to look at it until after church last night. Since there are no lights in the apartment yet it was difficult to tell by flashlight. I should hear more about it today when she goes out again to look it over.

 I will not be able to buy any more paint until I get paid again so I hope we come to a decision before we commit to this color. The good news is that it is only paint. We can always cover it with a color more to our liking if this one does not meet Mama’s expectations. Those of you who have helped her decide on colors know what I am talking about.

When I got home last night I told her that I must be getting ready to start because I felt blah all day – sort of depressed, but not really. I am not sure where those times come from but as I male I have limited excuses to offer when those times do come. Most times, one excuse is as good as another. It is always the little things that press on us daily that present the most challenges to our character.

I was told about a man who was camping in a remote spot and came across a bear. He prayed that the Lord would save him from the bear and the Lord graciously answered that prayer. As he lay down that night to sleep a mosquito started to fly around his head and kept him up all night. He never prayed about the mosquito.

Sound familiar?

Work and homework

Yesterday I was tied up in meetings pretty much all day. I even ate my lunch during a meeting so I could have that done in order to go to another meeting. Today will be pretty much the same with the same ending time of a little after 5 pm. It is nice to stay busy but it is also nice to have time to reflect and plan the work I have been assigned. Oh, well. It is a job security of sorts.

I have discovered that the most important function of my job is to keep things off of my bosses desk so he can concentrate on the issues more urgent for him. Another primary function is to know how to route emails in order to get answers to out-of-the-ordinary questions. That can be fun but it gets tedious at times also.

I interview five people yesterday for an open position in my group and I will have to interview at least that many for another opening created when one of my direct reports moved into another job here in the Decatur office. Both of those are good problems but it does affect the overall workload; another job security item.

Mama and I painted some more last night; cutting in at the corners. It is one of those slow tasks that give time to think and talk as we worked. We had a good time working together but eventually the fumes got to Mama and she had to get out of the apartment. She did paint some of the brown on a wall just to see if she would like it and I think she did. I will know more today when she sees how it dried. That color will go on a lot of walls.

We are going to leave the ceilings white for now so there will be a lot more cutting in at the ceilings in each room. Since we have not moved anything into the apartment it is pretty easy to get the painting done. Once that is done I will refinish the floors; they were scratched up pretty severely when the sheetrock was being put up. Hopefully, this weekend I will start putting the cabinets in place; without damaging the floors after they are finally finished.

I still do not know exactly how the cabinets will be arranged. I have a general idea but until they are placed I do not know for sure how it will all turn out. Mama is really excited about getting the kitchen done so I hope it turns out to meet her expectations.

I should have pictures next week.

My glasses, Maggie and Aaron, odors

Those of you that know me know that I have to put everything that I plan to take to work with me either in or on my lunch box the night before if it is to make it to work with me; my cell phone, my glasses, any paperwork or bills, etc. If it is not there when I pick up my lunchbox as I walk up of the door I will probably not remember to get it on the way out of the door. So I was pretty surprised yesterday morning that I did not see my glasses where I usually hook them to the lip of the lunchbox.

I knew that there was an extra pair in my desk at work so I went ahead and left the house without them after I looked a couple places I may have laid them down. Later that morning Mama called and asked, “Are you mad at me?” I immediately tried to think of anything I could have done to give her the impression that I was mad. Nothing came to mind but that does not ordinarily exempt me from culpability. So I told her I was not and asked why she asked if I was.

“Because I used your glassed last night when I could not find mine and I forgot to put them back.” I told her about the extra pair I had at work and she was noticeably relieved. She did find her glasses but it did reinforce both the good and bad of having the habit of having mine in the same place – they are easy to find no matter who needs them.

Maggie called me yesterday. She and Aaron had been to see the doctor and she was worried about her blood pressure. It was 100/58 or some number within that range. Grandma had put her in a panic because it sounded dangerously low to her. I assured her it was not a concern if that was normal for her. Besides the doctor was not worried by it so I can assume it is pretty typical for her visits.

I told her Grandma’s concerns stem from the fact that her blood pressure is normally between 145/90 to 160/110. Mine can run pretty high also. In fact a reading on my blood pressure as low as Maggie’s would only be when I was passed out. But I trained for my EMT certification with an instructor whose reading s were always 100/50 or lower. He was the one of the most animated individual have ever been around.

Aaron got to go to the visit with Maggie and was shown how to take her blood pressure as well as shown how to press on Maggie’s belly and find the baby’s head so they can monitor the position in the womb over the last month of her pregnancy. They are both pretty excited.

Mama is excited also – but from a distance. At the farm she is excited about painting the apartment. Last night she painted the bathroom with a color we had matched to a paint swath at Lowe’s. It was a gallon I had bought for $5 several months ago. The young man who helped her with the color did a great job of darkening the paint to the desired hue.  I am not sure if we will ever need to match it but it will prove difficult if we do. Fortunately it was enough to cover the bathroom and it is a very pleasant color.

I put a second coat on the ceilings as she did the bath and we were both finished about the same time. She had to keep going out for fresh air. It was pretty smelly – from the paint. Not like the other day when she fussed at me about how the bathroom smelled. She told Victoria she thought one of the dogs had pooped in the house.

 I told her most guys would have congratulated me but women see things differently.

Work and shopping, Victoria’s not so secret admirer

Mama and I worked together Saturday morning to get the primer on all the walls and ceilings in the apartment. It was very hot and pretty humid for our area. We got the entire apartment painted in a little over three hours. As I was cleaning up the roller brusher and pans I got the idea to go to IKEA to see if we could but our sink. Mama was all for that so we went.

We got to IKEA around 2:30 that afternoon and finally left at around 5:30. We looked at everything on the way to the kitchen area because Victoria was looking for book shelves and a desk. There were almost more ideas than we could process throughout the showroom but I think Victoria settled on one or two to think about and save up for.

When we got the area I was looking for Mama asked a store representative about the sink we were looking for and was told that the store was out of them. They were on order and expected to be in the delivery scheduled for Sunday. I was thoroughly disappointed but we made the most of it, finished out the showroom and wandered through the entire lower section toward the aisles where you get the items you looked at in the showroom.

Victoria got a floor lamp and Mama got a couple kitchen items. We will have to make a return trip very soon because I am hoping to get the kitchen set up this weekend. The sink will be an integral part of arranging the cabinets I do have. I have a pretty good idea of the combinations I can arrange with the cabinets I have bought but until I actually set them in place I am not totally sure how they will fit. It is fun to be this far along!

By the time we got out of IKEA we were pretty tired but I pulled into Costco since Mama had wanted to check out a few things there. When we got there it was just after 6 pm and they were closed. Once we found that out we remembered their shorter store hours on Saturday – but only after the fact. It added to my disappointment but we all shrugged it off and headed home. On the way we stopped at Sam’s and spent too much money trying to set ourselves up for the diet Mama is going on starting September 1.

Mama is going to paint the bathroom in the apartment today and when I get home I will paint a second coat on the ceilings. For the time being we are going to leave the ceilings a flat white. It was recommended by a friend who paints houses for a living. Mama and I have never fallen in with that more conventional thinking because it is a pain to trim it out. It is easier to paint the ceilings the same color as the walls but we will give it a try and see if we like it.

Yesterday we had Andrew Brooks with us (he is a twenty four old special needs young man in our church) and on the way home he invited Victoria to come over and play. He said he would teach her how to play Halo and maybe have a sword fight with his light sabers. We said that would not look good for Victoria to be in the house alone with him. He answered, “I won’t touch her or anything and if I did she could slap me and I wouldn’t get mad or anything.”

We still politely declined. He sighed. “Maybe some other time.” We didn’t have the heart to say, “Probably not… Ever”

Sheetrock is complete, shopping in Decatur, future plans

The sheetrock is completely done. Even the texturing of the walls is complete. Mama could not wait to go and get paint last night. I talked her out of ordering the main final color – five gallons worth – until we have has a chance to use a gallon of on the sealed walls. That will not be until next week some time. We did get the primer/sealer to begin painting the walls and ceilings this weekend.  Seeing the sheetrock done is very exciting. Seeing the painted and ready for occupancy will be even more exciting.

Mama even got a chance to witness to the sheetrock crew briefly. We will never know until judgment day in Heaven what effect such few words will have in the lives of those men. If and when we get to the sheetrock on the farm house – in two years or so – we will look this crew up to do the work. If that happened we will take the opportunity to witness to them once again.

Mama let me take the Flex to work today. She and Victoria are coming to town this afternoon and Mama will need a ride home while Victoria stays to sit with some children as the mommy and daddy go out for a birthday dinner. I think Mama would have ridden home in the truck with me but it made at least a little sense to have the car to get her home. The truck provides a pretty hot ride home in the afternoons but so far it has gotten me safely to and from work.

While we are in Decatur we are going to look at Lowe’s for some paint brushes and various other tools for getting the paint from the buckets to the walls and ceiling. We elected to buy the paint at the local Ace Hardware rather than Lowe’s since the price we pretty comparable and the distance was more manageable but I still need a shower surround and several other things that it is better to use Lowe’s to supply for us.

Hopefully during the final stages of getting the apartment set up – kitchen, bath, bedroom and living area – we do not run into any major obstacles. If we do we will figure them out and make adjustments but it would be nice to have this close to complete by the end of September; especially since Mama is scheduling her surgery for the first week of October.

I took a muscle relaxer last night so I am struggling this morning. I was prescribed the medication for my back pain but I noticed how the medicine also helped my colon. That is why I took one last night. I am testing to see if what I saw was related to the medication or rooted in something else. I can also use the relief from the spasms I generally endure but I do not want to take them for any extended period.

Maybe it should be a weekend only thing.

Dieting again, celestial events, fun times ahead

Mama has come around once again to the idea of getting her diet and thereby her weight under control. I am all for it and I will go on whatever diet she chooses. So far we have not made any drastic changes other than a serious refocus on what we really are eating – and not eating. Sugar is the main enemy at this point because the overarching goal of the entire process is to beat the candida issue she has constantly dealt with over the thirty one years of our marriage.

Victoria is fully on board and has lost over six pounds already. She and Mama were quibbling about some article of clothing Victoria was going to wear to church last night. It was something of Mama’s; something that she liked but has not been able to wear recently, something she was saving for when she could wear it. Finally Victoria looked at her and said, “I’m gonna start feeding you cookies.” For some reason that struck me in a way that confirmed that the change of attitude was real and could be lasting.

We got home from church a little later than usual because there was a young missionary couple there who had a very young set of twins in the nursery. Mama cannot ever resist twins. Sometimes I can talk her away from a baby she wants to get a hold of, but I never try to run the same interference when it comes to twins. She enjoyed herself as long as I could bear to wait and then I had to drag her away.

Anyway, when we did get home we had to troop out to the chicken coop to shut them in for the night and while we were out there we got to see a shooting star. It is a rare event for either of us so it was nice that we got to share it. Many months ago while I was on my way to Borger from Amarillo I saw a shooting star (a meteorite) that was so large that it lit up the sky as it streaked from very high above the horizon to almost touching it – at least from my perspective. The whole event, on that occasion, took about four seconds. Last night was the normal brief, fleeting flare that disappears before the mind can really register what just happened.

The moon was full and very bright. It was one of those nights that the moon looked much larger than at other times. I was looking at it through the large oak tree we have in the front yard trying to figure out how to capture the image – I do not know if it would be possible. At one point it drifted into a perfect opening in the branches of the tree that framed it entirely while the light filtered through the foliage around that opening; a void in the view we would not see during the day. It was a nice moment. A nice evening on the farm.

Victoria is off today and through the weekend. She and Mama have some chores they plan to tackle on the farm but they are conspiring with one of the young moms at the church to sneak off to Decatur and take her younger children out to do something fun. I have no idea what is planned but they are both excited about it. Tomorrow Victoria has been asked to watch those kids for several hours and Mama plans on coming along and shopping.

She is already imagining new outfits to compliment her new smaller figure.