Adventures Continue

End of day 2

Porch potential

Good morning son! And how are you this fine day? The sun is is moving slowly over the trees here in the front of the house. It seems brighter these last few days. We have no porch! Can you believe it? We've waited patiently (well, most of the time) all summer for the new porch and it's finally happening. Jamison and I are so excited. We can't wait to add a huge chrysanthemum, bird bath and feeder. It's so cool to sit here in the early morning and watch the birds. We're studying up on Cardinals so we can draw more of them, especially this winter. We have the perfect shrubbery to create a winter haven for them.

The weather is chilling off but it's such great sleeping weather. It's cooler during the days and you can really tell Fall is arriving quickly. Local TV Channel 13 is already giving us the  fall foliage report. It's really cool. It tells us where the leave are beginning to turn and how fast We planned a trip to Lake George last week but dad caught the bug I had earlier and so we've moved it out a couple of weeks. I can't wait. I've really looked forward to see the dramatic change in seasons here in the East. We'll make the most of it this year. We plan to visit a few orchards and pick up some pumpkins. Not for carving. Dad admitted the other day when we were talking about your pumpkin carving contests over the years, "Aaron won". There, you've heard the words from dad, via mom.

Josie 2011

I've seen some beautiful designs in magazines with mod- podge, paint, Sharpies, yes Sharpies. I think I'll leave those for people with good art skills though. I'll stick with other graphics; vinyl, for instance. Oh the things you can do with a Cricuit and vinyl! Oh don't go there! I can just see you laughing. You watched me make those sweatshirts for dad yesterday didn't you? Well, I got two out of three right. The one with the trumpet and joy is pretty dark but I think he's going to have to wear it anyway. The one I really wanted to do right and messed up was the one with Jamison's picture. I mirrored the words "My Pal" under the picture but I guess when I was working with it I didn't notice the words had reversed back. Right, I know, now, the words "My Pal" are backwards. Guess that one is going to get a vinyl design over it. Were you laughing when dad and I tried to close and clamp the heat press? I know you were. It took both of us to hold it down and dad almost standing on his head to get enough pressure to clamp it together. We both laughed when we remembered you use to do it with one hand. It was fun to laugh and work together though. It's times like those we've worked our entire lives to have together. The problem with us is, we enjoy "piddling", as your great-grandma would say, around the house working on projects. 

Dad, the "mouse hunter".

Dad began the transformation on his space yesterday. He'll finish taking the shelves down today in-between setting mouse traps for the field mice that have been invading our home. There must be dozens because they have been eating about 3/4 of a cup of De-Con every night. But they still keep coming. It kinda reminds me of that house we bought next door to us in Springfield. You remember? We didn't know that Gim had previously owned a restaurant and that the entire contents of the restaurant were stored in his house. When he died and we bought the house we couldn't believe it. Remember the day we first opened, what we thought was a bedroom door? It turned out he had stored every noodle and grain of rice that had been grown in the year 1990! And, the mice had found it. We opened that door and it seemed that 10,000 little white mice came running out into the house. I always wondered why we were having trouble with mice in our house next door. It became abundantly clear at that moment. Why they would want to come to our house I never understood though. Unless it was over-crowding where they were. They had enough food in that one room to last five generations. And we let them loose. We finally sold the house to the school district because they wanted the land. I can only imagine where all those mice went when they tore that house down. Seen any little white mice in heaven? Just kidding.

Our new address

I'm enjoying retirement. But I think dad is enjoying my retirement even more. I didn't realize how much he really wanted me home. We're so thankful for the additional income this last year. The Lord was so good to provide such an extraordinary opportunity to enable me to supplement our income and we're both very grateful. I'm enjoying retirement. Dad just laughed when I said yesterday, "I'm ready to be through with big projects so I can start some, 'lap projects' for Fall and Winter". I don't think he believes I'll ever be through with the big projects. But, I am. My studio space is done. I'm anxious to get dad's space finished and all of his things put away, his guitars hung and pictures on his walls. I put off painting the living room walls until Monday because, believe it or not, I want to move the furniture around when I clean. I know, can you believe it? Me, moving furniture?  Oh, stop laughing!

Life is good. We're enjoying every day. It's still difficult sometimes to realize I'm not bound by the "weekend rule". One day does kind of run into the other, but I'm finding there's nothing wrong with that. 

Until next week, be Aaron, love mom