Ike blows through

Well Hurricane Ike visited us on Sunday. He was still a big blowhard by the time he got here even through we didn't get any much needed rain out of it. The wind broke one of the trees in the front yard in half and sent it toward the front of the trailer. Luckily, it broke far enough up and was far enough away that only the tips of the leaves brushed against the front door on the way down. We would have been MAJORLY screwed if the trailer had been hit, since it is too old to be insurable.

We lost power around 8 Sunday morning. It took until noon today to get power back. Could be worse, I guess. A lot of customers who live in Kentucky came through my line yesterday and said they were told it was going to be a week before they got power back. It seems their utilities sent crews to Texas to help there, and didn't have enough manpower to fix their own problems.

Back to normal, though. Really makes you appreciate flush toilets.

Thinking about making changes

My car has a new tire, but the transmission is still doing odd things. Right now I am driving it with the overdrive off, which seems to help. However, at some point it is going to die and then what do I do? Can't exactly walk 35 miles to work. Driving the Suburban, well, what's the point? I would be working for nothing but the gas to go back and forth.

I have come across a work at home agency that seems legitimate. It is called Alpine Access, and they do customer service call center work from home. Yeah, I know, not exactly what I wanted to get back into but I do have quite a bit of experience at it, and working at home would be a big plus. Not much flexibility, although from what I've read a more set schedule than what I'm currently doing which would be a BIG plus.

Shayna is now back down here. All of a sudden two days ago she came onto Yahoo Messenger and said she wanted to come back down here, she just couldn't take it up there any more. She was nervous about whether she had enough gas to make it (and WE sure didn't have any way to help if it turned out she didn't) but in the end she did and got here about 1 am this morning. So now that she is here, Ray could certainly look for a job as having someone here for Destiny is no longer a problem. If he could get one making the same as I'm making at Walmart, I would definitely try for the at home work. It would sure make doing things around here easier.

Keep a sense of humor

First, the good. This is a picture of Drew and Andrea on their wedding day, in the chapel in Las Vegas. Good looking guy, isn't he? Looks just like his Mom LOL.

The rest of today didn't go so great. On my way to work, I just get on I-24 and BLAM goes my left front tire. Now, my spare is no great shakes, either. It's one of those stupid donut things they give you these days, and has been used enough that it's shot. But it's all I have, so there I am on the side of the interstate changing my tire.

A very nice state trooper stopped and helped. This one actually helped, not like the one who stopped the one time and sat behind me with his lights going, watching me change the tire in the dark, in the rain, in my whites. He seemed a little surprised, though, that I actually knew what I was doing. It's changing a tire, for heaven's sake, not brain surgery. How hard can it be? Of course, this is far enough South that there's the "don't get your hands dirty, little lady" mentality.

Getting Better

I went back north this week to pick Destiny back up. The job at the VA hasn't materialized (although he hasn't gotten a rejection letter, either, so I guess there is still hope) and school started August 14, so we decided to bring her back here for school. Besides, they just can't take living with Mike's family any more, that was a MAJOR reason for his breakdown in the first place and he realizes that. He's making arrangements to have his parole moved down here. Hopefully they will all be here before too much longer.

The weather here has been MUCH better the past few days. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the 50s and 60s. The tomato plants are finally starting to set fruit, if the weather cooperates we may actually get some off our own plants yet. Jim of course scoffs at my "little box" of a garden, but hey, if I had spent time and money on dozens of tomato plants and they were that scraggly and scrawny I'd be EXTREMELY pissed. Better to learn the ins and outs of a new growing zone on a few test plants first and then expand. He seems to forget he's been down here 10 years and his first gardens were nothing to write home about, either.

I finally got the tar paper for the old shed roof. I had planned on getting the roll roofing with this last paycheck but had to use that money to run north to get Destiny. I really want to get that shed done! I have my chick order all planned LOL and if it goes on too much longer I won't be able to do them this year.

More Setbacks

I guess I should accept that what is peaceful and calming to me is not necessarily so to others. I took Destiny back north to be with her mom, after Shayna decided to move back there unexpectedly. I was looking forward to having an empty nest again, even if it ends up being temporary (Shayna being who she is, who knows when she might decide to head back this way). Apparently Ray doesn't share my enthusiasm for peace and quiet. Even while I was still on my way back from up north, he was saying how much he missed Destiny. He ended up going to Jim's house because he "didn't want to do anything stupid." Apparently he was feeling very depressed and didn't trust himself alone in the house with his guns.

At first we thought he would snap out of it but it just didn't happen. The next day he asked to go to work with me. I thought, what the heck is he going to do for four hours while I'm working? I can't exactly sit and talk with him while I'm working. He walked to Home Depot on one side and then Lowe's on the other and priced out some things. Then he pretty much just hung around on the benches outside until I was done.

The day after that it was still bed. He asked me to "call someone to see if I can get some medication." Now, Ray hates to so much as take an aspirin. For him to ASK for medication there is something seriously wrong. I called the local mental health clinic and they got him in right away. The counselor there recommended medication. We mentioned Ray was a veteran so she called the VA hospital in Marion and was told that all he had to do was bring his DD214 to the ER and they could register him. So off we go to drive the 25 miles to Marion, after dropping his guns off at Jim's. We get there, go through all the paperwork, only to be told we make too much money (HAH that's a joke) Apparently you have to be pretty much penniless and homeless for over a year before the government will live up to their promise to take care of you in exchange for your service to your country.

Later that day the secretary at the VA called us back and said that since Ray was in country during the Viet Nam war he was eligible. So back we go again the 25 miles into Marion (this is beginning to cost a small fortune in gas). They take us back into an exam room and proceed to tell Ray that since he has admitted suicidal thoughts they could not let him leave until he was examined by a psychiatrist, and if it was determined he was an immediate suicide risk he would be admitted to the hospital - in ST LOUIS! Boy, that's really something to tell someone who is already depressed over losing a family member, huh? Tell him that he's going to be taken away from ALL his family. Luckily, they eventually let him go home.

After that, when I had to work I took him to Jim's house to stay with Jim and Kathy. Finally yesterday he felt like he was ready to try to stay home for a while by himself so he stayed here while I went to work. He's been on the Zoloft for a couple weeks now and is doing much better. But while all this was going on NOTHING got done here. Besides, it's been too stinking hot to get much done, anyway.

Chicken musings

The new shed has been done for quite a while, but rehabbing of the old shed has ground to a halt. Lack of money tends to do that. We have the 2x4s needed to redo the roof, but haven't managed to get the tarpaper and roofing together yet. Also, Ray needs to get out to the new shed and do some rearranging so we can move the stuff that's been in the old shed since we moved in over to the new one to get it out of the way.

The old shed is 11x16 feet. I'm planning on building a divider down the middle, using the front half for storage of my gardening supplies and the back half for my chickens. That will give them 88 square feet, about 3 1/2 sq ft per bird if I get a 25 bird straight run order like I'm contemplating. A little tight, but since they will be free ranging during the day the coop will only be for sleeping in at night and we'll only have 25 until the cockerels are processed. I could do broilers in a separate chicken tractor, I suppose, but those things are just so darn ugly! And it seems a little cruel to deliberately breed a bird that can just keel over dead one day because their organs can't keep up with their growth. My current plan is to do a heavy assorted straight run of 25 chicks from McMurray. Since I know nothing about breeds it will give us exposure to different breeds. Ray says no roosters but at some point I am going to want one. Otherwise we will have to keep buying new chickens.

Too Darn HOT

My last day off I looked at our (bonus) cherry tree in the front yard and the cherries were looking great. I was anticipating making a cherry pie my next day off (today). Not to be - it's been so hot that the cherries ripened, peaked, and rotted in a couple days! I was SO looking forward to that pie!

The Garden

A while back Ray built a 4x12 foot raised garden bed for me. I filled it with a mix of topsoil, manure compost and peat moss. So far I haven't been able to plant much but there are a few tomato plants, some green beans and of course Destiny's sunflowers. For the first month the tomato plants just sat there and shivered in the cold and damp. Then suddenly at the beginning of June the weather decided to go from below normal to way above normal. The tomatoes are off and running. Not that I'm a big tomato fan, but I do like some on a sandwich now and then and Ray loves them. With the price of them in the store, and the salmonella scare, I can't see paying for the anemic looking ones the store offers.

We also discovered while we were clearing some of the weeds and brush that there was a tire flower bed out by the road. That now has geraniums, vinca and marigolds in it. We'll see if it survives the deer, although I haven't really seen many in our yard after the first couple weeks we were here. I guess they have figured out the place is occupied again.

We've come to the end of our money so any construction projects are on an as you go basis. Right now Ray is working on getting our fleet of lawn mowers working. We brought down with us the old green Bowen, and the trusty old Sears hand mower Ray bought in 1979 that still works like a champ. Then Jim mentioned to Ray he knew a guy with a larger riding mower for sale. We went to look, the guy said Ray could have both the 36 inch and the 30 inch for $20. Heck, who can turn down a deal like that? He threw in an extra engine he had laying around for extra measure. So now Ray has gotten new tires on the Bowen and got it back to electric start with a key again, and has the 30 inch Murray going. He's started working on the 36 inch Murray, although since it's just the two of us we only really need 2 of the riders working.

Into summer

Time flies! Such a lot has happened since I posted last.

We flew to Las Vegas to see our son Drew get married. I took pictures of course but Shayna took the camera (more about that later) so I can't post them yet. I will as soon as I get the pictures back!

It was quite an interesting trip. First off, I forgot the paperwork for our tickets. We were already a half hour into the trip to the airport and had to turn around and go back home. Yes, we really didn't need the paperwork because we had e tickets but I couldn't remember when our return flight was and wouldn't have access to the internet to find out at Expedia. So back home we went, eating up the extra hour I had added for emergencies.

We get to Lambert in St Louis about and hour before flight time. The first leg of the trip was uneventful after that. We actually got into Dallas early. We checked the board for our connecting flight and it was listed as being at gate D30, on time. Great! I don't know if you are familiar with Dallas International, but it has a tram that connects the different terminals. In the time between getting on the tram at our arriving terminal and getting off at D terminal, our flight disappeared from the board. There was a flight going to London at gate D30. No info from the airport or airline at all. We sat down next to a man who turned out to be from England and had arrived on the plane sitting at the gate. He was also waiting for the connecting flight to Vegas. They called him up to the counter (because he was an international travelor? Don't know) and told him that the flight to Vegas WOULD be leaving from this gate but would delayed at least an hour, they had to get the plane to London off first. Another woman had booked through Orbitz, they had sent a text message that the flight would be delayed but would be leaving from gate D10. Good thing for her that she overheard us talking or she would have been sitting at the wrong gate! So much for notifications from online booking services.

There was a group of young women who spent the delay in one of the airport bars. They were already loud and rowdy before even boarding the plane. We figured they were going to be obnoxious during the flight, and they were. One in particular spent the whole flight standing up leaning over the back of her seat talking to the others behind her, even though she was repeatedly told to sit down. The seatbelt light was on the whole trip because of rough weather conditions. Then she wanted to go to the bathroom (need to get rid of all that alcohol eventually, you know) and gave the flight attendant a hard time because she couldn't get past the drink cart. When we got to Las Vegas we had to wait while the cops came on board and hauled her off.

The wedding was nice. We stayed at Circus Circus and there is a wedding chapel right in the hotel (most of the hotels in Vegas have one, I would think) so they got married there. Drew wore a white tux and Andrea had a knee length white strapless wedding gown. Afterward we walked through the casino and they got a LOT of attention. You would think people would be used to couples getting married - it was Vegas, after all.

It's supposed to be warmer here!

We've hit a standstill in our working on the place. A week ago Southern Illinois was hit with one of the nastiest ice storms in history. I have NEVER seen ice like that. In Goreville it looked like a tornado had gone through, there were so many trees and branches down.

Of course with so many trees breaking from the ice pretty much everyone down here lost power. The first couple days we were doing OK, it would go off and then back on again. A couple times the temperature in the house would go into the low 50s but then the power would come back on. Luckily it tended to happen at night so we were plenty warm until it was time to get out from under the covers. Then on Thursday, when the bad weather was over and the ice started to melt, our power went out for good. It didn't come back on that time until Saturday night. When the temp in the house got into the 40s we decided it was time to bail. Jim and Kathy had finally got their power back but still didn't have water, but we decided to spend Friday night there. Of course in the middle of this Directv finally showed up to install the satellite. The power literally went off as the tech was pulling into the driveway. He went ahead and installed everything and just had to come back when the power came back on to activate it.

Then Ray started having trouble with a tooth and we had to find a dentist who would get him in. It meant a drive all the way to Metropolis but by then it was sunny (still cold, though). So he's been out of commission the past couple days, between the pain med and the antibiotic he's not feeling really great.

Hopefully we will be able to go back north soon to get the rest of our stuff. Pretty soon I'm just going to buy new garden tools to be able to start working outside!

Some days are best not remembered

Ray had already asked my brother John if we could borrow a trailer. John has an older 22 foot car hauler that he uses mostly for storage these days. He said no problem, just give him some notice before we needed it so he could get it cleared out.

Jim called Ray one night and said he could borrow two trailers and go with us to get our stuff. We thought this would probably be a good idea, because it would mean just one trip up and back. Even with paying for the gas for Jim's truck, it would be less because he gets much better gas mileage than the Suburban does. Little did we know what the trip had in store for us.

Half way down Ray noticed that one of the tires on Jim's trailer was flat. Luckily both trailers were double axle so it was still drivable. Ray called Jim and they decided to pull over in Arcola. Gotta love those cell phones! We needed to eat anyway. Jim asked the waitress for the name of the nearest tire place and off we went after lunch to get the tire fixed. That lost us about an hour.

We got up there too late to do the running to the banks and post office we needed to do to close out the bank accounts and post office box. We did manage to take the flat tire my car had off and get it to Farm and Fleet. The guy there said there was nothing wrong with the tire but the rim had rusted. Ray asked him what could be done and he said, I can clean it up and put new bead sealant on it. OK, fine.

The next day we got up and discovered the snow that was supposed to start falling that evening was already falling! We went to Aurora to pick up Ray's recliner that his brother Bob had recovered. It was beautiful and goes with the living room furniture wonderfully. Jim met us there and off we went back to Sandwich. Ray dropped me off to get my car, they went to the storage place and I started running around to the banks and post office. By the time I got to the storage place they had Jim's trailer half loaded. We finished loading his trailer, then I went for a coffee run while they moved that one out of the way and got the 16 footer in place. We loaded that one, tied everthing down, and headed to Shayna's house to get our stuff from there. We managed to cram everything onto the trailers and into the vehicles, and covered the trailers as best we could with tarps and tied every thing down as securely as we could. Destiny gets home from school around 3 so we did get to say goodbye to her, and took off.

The roads were HORRIBLE. Jim wanted to go the way he usually does, avoiding the interstates for the first part of the trip by going south on IL 47 to US 24 in Forest, then getting on I-57 from there. MISTAKE. 47 wasn't too bad but 24 was completely snow covered. We stopped to eat supper at a Subway at the intersection of US 24 and I-57, then got on the interstate.

It was slow going. There were times we were going less than 30 mph, on the interstate! Every time a semi would go by the trailers would shake. Finally, a semi passed Jim just as he was on a slick spot on an overpass and he lost it. Thank God there was so little traffic, he spun out but didn't hit anything but the guard rail. It dented his truck and bent the trailer somewhat but Jim is OK and the truck was drivable. Finally, around 10:30 Jim decided he's had enough and pulled over. We spent the night in a Motel 8 in Matoon.

The next day (Friday) we got up and saw it was still snowing. Luckily it stopped shortly thereafter and we got back on the road. We got home about 1pm that afternoon.

Today Ray went to take the trailers back. The 16 foot one had fallen off it's block, they picked it up and got in on his hitch but forgot to crank the stand up so it got bent. Now we have TWO trailers that we have to pay to fix or replace. Wonderful.

Making progress

The carpet is almost in. The installers were here all day yesterday and will be back today to finish. Tomorrow, then, we will be heading back north to pick up the rest of our stuff. Jim borrowed two trailers, one sixteen foot and one twelve foot. We'll pull one and Jim and Kathy will pull the other with Jim's little red pickup truck. Hopefully we will be able to get everything in the two trailers and three vehicles (I still have to bring back the Hyundai Accent, so Ray and I will have a long, lonesome trip back this time).

We had frozen pipes twice. Lucky us, we came down here in the middle of an unusual cold streak. The first time we didn't have any damage to pipes but the second time the pipe to one of the outside faucets broke and a whole section fell to the ground. Ray just capped off the pipe, we won't need that any time soon and it got us our water back. We have borrow a propane torpedo heater from Jim that worked really fast in getting the pipes thawed.

My friend Maureen, daughter Shayna and the granddaughters came down for the weekend. It was nice seeing them, but I sure enjoyed the peace and quiet again after they left! Ray got a little depressed, though, he really missed the girls. He's all gung ho now for them to move down here. I'm mixed on that. They can if they need to, of course, but I think I'm getting too old to deal with the chaos of little kids.

Heading back

We have been back at Shayna's for the past few days. We came back up here because she needed to go to court yesterday to get a permanent order of protection against her ex boyfriend. It was granted. Mike blew a gasket afterward, yelling "fucking bullshit" and slammed the doors going out of the courtroom. What an idiot, he was in handcuffs and with 2 sheriff's deputies because he was brought over from the jail. I almost laughed when the little old gray haired court bailiff went toddling over in case the strapping young deputies needed help.

I can't wait to get back. The kitchen has a new floor but still plenty of work to be done. We have running hot and cold water and a toilet that works, but need to finish the little bathroom and get started on the master bath. Ray wants to get the pump hard wired. We need to get the new carpeting in so we can get our stuff moved down there.

We went and talked to my brother John today. He has several large car hauling trailers and has said we could borrow one. We just need to call him several days before we need it so he can get the stuff out of it. He uses to store at least one of his GTOs and other parts.

We took Ray's huge recliner to his brother Bob and picked out fabric to recover it. I could live without taking that thing with us but Ray likes it, so at least I got to have it recovered so it won't be quite so ugly.

We get started

So now we had a property that we own and no one can take away from us (well, except for non payment of the $2.31 property tax). We realized when we bought it that there would be work to be done, but it was so cheap it left us with money to be able to do the work. We both put our notices in to work. Ray's last day was set for January 4 and mine for New Year's Eve (I just wanted to finish out 2007 at the clinic). January 5 we headed south.

The man we bought it from told us that he had just put a "new" pump in. It might have been a DIFFERENT pump but it has been decades since it was NEW. We connected power to the pump and watched the smoke pour out. It was fried.

Off Ray and his brother Jim go to the nearest Menard's 25 miles away to buy a new pump and while they were at it, a new tank. After much discussion they had the new stuff installed. Connected the power, and it immediately powered up and started pumping water - right onto the ground under the trailer through broken pipes. Another day of work got the pipes connected, but not until after Ray had one of the waste pipes break open on top of him. Wouldn't have been a problem except it was from the toilet we had been using and flushing with water we hauled in from Jim's house. YUK.

Finally we have running water. It's still COLD running water, though. Time to get the water heater going. Turns out the circuit marked WATER HEATER doesn't go to the water heater. Ray had to tear down the inside walls surrounding the water heater to get to it. We though we were going to have to buy a new heater but figured out that there was an unmarked 220 circuit that actually went to the water heater. It's a small one, 30 gallons, but at least we now have HOT running water! We can shower!

New year, new beginnings

It's always best to start at the beginning, I guess. However, to start at the beginning of this story would go back more years than I care to think about, so I'll start at the beginning of the end of the last chapter.

In October 2005 my husband Ray was laid off. Ray is a union carpenter. We thought he would fairly quickly get another job. Carpenters always come and go from one company to another so it was no big deal. The housing market was already starting it's downturn, though, so after 6 months on unemployment he still hadn't found another job. Then in July 2006 he finally was hired again. We thought our luck was turning upward again. Two hours into his new job, his legs went numb. He came to the clinic where I work looking absolutely terrible. I took him to Walk In Care where they immediately sent him by ambulance to the nearest ER. He ended up in ICU for several days, he had 100% blockage of one femoral artery and 95% in the other. Employers take a dim view of new employees working for 2 hours and then being off for 2 weeks, so he was again unemployed. The only other job he was able to get was a low paying night shift at a distribution warehouse. Certainly not enough to keep up with our house payments. We were able to sell the house in July 2007, just ahead of foreclosure. Because of the housing market we had to sell for far less than we liked, but still came out with enough to be able to look for property that would be paid for. We moved in with our daughter Shayna temporarily and started looking.

Ray's brother Jim lives in Southern Illinois. Jim had been after Ray for years to move down by him. We had Jim contact a realtor and set up a Saturday to look at properties. We made the 6 hour trip down the weekend after Thanksgiving. Jim mentioned that an aquaintance had a property he was trying to sell. Less land than we wanted, under an acre, but it had a 3 bedroom 2 bath mobile home and he only wanted $10,000 for it. We said sure, we'll look at it. When we got there, Jim told us the owner dropped his asking price to $8500. There was no way we could turn that down so we bought it. Easiest closing I've ever been through, the title company faxed me the paperwork, we signed it, and mailed it back to them with a cashier's check. The woman at the title company very apologetically said that after we cleaned and fixed up the place the property taxed would probably go up. No sweat, the taxes for 2007 were $2.31. It could increase by 1000% and it wouldn't be a problem.

Now we are ready to make our new beginnings