Sunday April 26 2009

This is a portrait of me back when by

one of my favorite teachers, Keith Ward.

Have I showed this one yet.??

I just photographed it when I was

at Beverly's in February.

He did this in perhaps two hours or so as

a demo - a 24 x 30" Oil Painting

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Another Day

14 x 17 pencil drawing

by Lynn Thomas

This photo is pretty poor - the quality of the

drawing is a lot finer than this shows.

It was reproduced on rough notepaper

and I scanned the image off the notepaper.

Still trying to scrape up photos I haven't used yet. Went to church this morning. Getting dressed and presentable and being on time is a real chore. It's very frustrating. Sat with Bonnie and her family. In Sunday School I used my new book of Scriptures for the first time. Will have to get more familiar with it, because by the time I found the passage they were discussing, they were on the next topic. Afterwards I stopped by the store for a few things - mainly some chocolate ice cream. Bonnie and Craig gave us some native grass seed to sprinkle around the yard. We're just going to have to buckle down and decide where we want grass and where we want gravel. Its a good time to get it out, because we've been having rain and snow every day. Today it was blustery and cold.

During the recent quiet days I have been working on my book, mainly by furiously typing or transcribing into the computer, letters from a friend who worked for me for three or four years. I'm about to have these finished and can send them back to her. She may (or may not) want to keep them just for the memories. I've finished two sets from other people, and have another very large collection to do next.

Last night I watched two of the movies Bonnie loaned me on the new DVD player - Louis L'Amour's The Quick and The Dead, and Thunderheart. Am enjoying them very much, as long as I can stay awake. I tend to doze and wake, and it took playing it three times for me to see all of Thunderheart. I made it through The Quick and the Dead all in one sitting. Tonight I'm going to watch Breach. And I'm about ready to go get it started. The TV in my bedroom was out of whack for more than a day, but is back on now. Figured I'd have to call tech support, but it was back on this morning. Maybe it was the storm, I don't know. The other two TVs worked fine.

Saturday April 25 2009

Bandit

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Rascal checking out the bird feeder.

l to r Rusty, Tigger, Smokey, Mom Rascal and Bandit.

I'm out of relevant current photos at the moment. Figuring I need to get a little further afield and find something new and interesting to photograph so I don't keep showing to variations of the same thing. Anyway I went looking for something else to put on the blog and one of the first things I came to was the folder "Cats". The bottom picture is my mother cat Rascal with four of her kittens Bandit disappeared about the same time as Rascal's sister Scamp. something must have gotten them both. About that time Traveler the male showed up and decided to "mostly" stay, he would come and go to and from someplace, but finally decided to stay for good. They made a wonderful family and he probably was their father. So Rusty, Rascal and Traveler were the ones trapped and taken to Twila's. Smokey, my favorite, and Tigger are the ones Joe is feeding. Bandit was sooo darling with her little dark eye and ear patches and blue eyes.

The photo of Bandit drinking is in the shed. Remember how I said Joe was giving the plumber friend fittings - those are some of them I'm sure. Hope he takes everything he could possibly use.

It started off very cloudy today and eventually began to rain or spit snow which melted right away. At the moment we have blowing small hail dancing on the windows. Bonnie said that they had snow on the ground this morning before we had anything. Joe went to coffee with the dogs. Then used the pooper scooper in the back yard for a while.

Bonnie called and came over to clean my oven. It is all sparkling clean now. THANK YOU BONNIE! You are so kind and gracious to help me. It was in bad shape. We didn't plan well enough, so it would have been better to have sprayed the cleaner in there last night. She really had a tough scrubbing job. But its done now.

After Bonnie left I took the dogs for a short walk. Sparky will run at Raven and try to bowl her over. He really got her good once and she went rolling. She's not a puppy anymore and he has to quit that. Trying to be dominant over her.

It was on this day in 1953 that Watson and Crick published the article in which they proposed the structure of DNA. The article appeared in Nature magazine, and it was only about a page long. It began, "We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest." Their hypothesis about the double-helix structure of DNA revolutionized biology and paved the way for the field of genetics. Some science historians rank their feat with Newton describing the laws of physics.

Friday April 24 2009

Garbage Day

The garbage truck came. He even is able to close the lid back up with that mechanical arm after he dumps the trash. We both seem to be fascinated by the garbage truck. Is this the most exciting thing today? It looks like that is so. My friend Joan called from their second home in Arizona and we laughed a little and whined about getting old. They are having a good time there though. Joe went to breakfast. He takes my car on Friday so his coffee friend Ed can get in it easier than the truck. Joe picks him up. The dogs went along. Ed's kind of stove up, too many horse wrecks I suppose. Did I say it's been raining here since this morning. It's not cold enough to snow but we’re supposed to get more snow. The prediction is for some kind of moisture every day through next Tuesday - as far as the forecast went. This country can sure use the moisture. Hasn't gotten out of the 40s today. I had five or six pretty old packets of wildflower perennial seeds. Altogether it might have amounted to a tablespoon or two of seeds. So mixed them all together in a baggie and sprinkled them in the area of the front yard out near the street. There's a little native grass out there. Hopefully they will be hardy enough to sprout and bloom pretty much on their own. I doubt they get much attention. Hmmmm ..... what else!! I think I'll go watch a movie and maybe take a nap. I may or may not be back with something more interesting.

Thursday April 23 2009

Pine Street Yesterday

Our House in the Center - Yesterday

Another Panorama from the Corner Yesterday
A good one to click on to see it larger.
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To the northeast zoomed in
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We saw these three riders yesterday. Lots of

people have been using the bike path,

jogging, walking, riding bikes and even horses.

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Ruth stopped by yesterday in the midst of all the repairs going on. It was wonderful to see her and get to visit. She brought me a photo CD she made of things at the convention, including the oil painting workshop by M.C. Poulson. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but know I'll enjoy it. And then will pass it on to the others who didn't get to go to the convention. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Ruth. Raven always remembers Ruth who is her "mom" even though we got her when she was about 6 weeks old. Ruth's dog Ivy is Raven's mother.

I've been walking the dogs a little more often. It's good for all of us.

Same old routine for this morning, Joe and dogs to coffee, and me getting up late and reading email and other blogs. I feel a little worn out from the last two days and also kind of grouchy or irritable. But I am so happy to have everything that has been wrong with the house all fixed up. Just looking at the windows where the two screens were torn, and to have them repaired. is really a good feeling. The kitchen sink that they replaced is much nicer. The big chips broken out of the cement in front of the garage look great now. No ugly holes in my bedroom or the untility room. So taking some deep breaths.

Started off to be a nice day but has clouded up with the wind howling like a banshee. It was in the 60s this morning. I heard snow is coming again, but not sure when it will be. That means more mud, just when the yard was drying up. We drove down into town and there was a regular dust storm, and all the flags whipping as if they would be ripped off their tethers. The sand that they sand the icy roads with was blowing everywhere. Each day you can see a stronger tinge of green, starting in the warmer spots first. The dogs don't want to go out in this wind.

Joe asked if I wanted to go to lunch so we went to the Wind River Pizzeria. We hadn't tried eating there yet. The pizza was not the most wonderful I've ever had but o.k. I doubt we go there much because Joe's not crazy about pizza. And there was a table full of oil field engineers having a very loud meeting. One bit of information was that they were drilling 1000 wells. That is just one company. A window was open and highway noise was too loud. So not the most pleasant atmosphere for lunch.

No news to speak of. I got the two books by Judith Orloff I ordered from Amazon.com a few weeks ago. Perhaps I can get a few tips about "Positive Energy", and getting to feeling a little better, maybe get some ambition back.

CAR WASH

The carwash is enlarging it's space.

Looks like maybe two new bays that will

take bigger vehicles. The tall object is

putting cement into some columns.

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Quite startling at first was the rainbow

colored stuff that they are using to

clean the cars.

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Just for the Fun of It.

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Wednesday April 22 2009

The cookie jar

Pocket Creek Pastel -
I might have shown this one earlier, but this
is a better photo of it

Another day with the builder and his crew here. I got up a little earlier than usual and made a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies and had coffee ready when they got here about nine. They came in and finished up every other thing that was on our list. Even painted three walls where there were very large paint touch up marks that were a slightly different shade than the wall in general. We could have lived with most of this stuff and could have called it minor. Howeve I can’t believe what a relief it is to have those mostly minor things taken care of. I didn’t realize how much it was bothering me to buy a new house and not have so many things properly done. Also was worried that he might be some kind of ogre/grouch and wouldn’t want to take care of most of it, and I would have to deal with him, but he was very nice and they did everything.

There are only a couple of things left that Joe is going to take care of and actually they are more major. It looks like the septic tank has settled somewhat since it was put in, low enough that snow melt water was covering the cleanout by quite a bit. Worrywort me I'm hoping the tank settling - if it did - won't affect the way it drains. Joe's been worried water was running into the tank, which wouldn't be good, but it probably wasn't. Dave the builder bought a lid and they did put that on - as it had no lid there at the above ground access - there is a lid further down on the tank itself. Joe will decide how to handle this depression and level out the yard there. Perhaps at the same time we might get some gravel hauled in for the back yard, and a bit of landscaping done.

Joe also has his plumber friend coming over and lined up a backhoe to dig the trench to put the waterline deeper - continuing it's 7' deep course - where it comes under the foundation and supplies water from the well to the house. The line should not have been raised out in the yard, but under the house after it comes in to the crawlspace. That is right where the water froze up last winter. That will be done in about a week. These two things are quite major and will be more expense. But it will be done right. The builder did a lot of things on this house like they do in California where he is from. Big mistake. That mentality is also what caused our furnace trouble.

They left about 3:30 after visiting with Joe. They were all impressed that he had been an outfitter etc etc. and they all are into hunting and outdoors things. They will take a sightseeing trip back to California. I went to the store after they left and got the car washed. It was awful with the mud, couldn't even see out the back window. Put away groceries and made us chicken fried steak for dinner.

I was pretty tired. But before I went to bed I called Beverly to thank her and Brent for the book of LDS scriptures and a microfiber bag to hold it they sent me for mother's day. It came by Fed Ex yesterday afternoon. It's a maroon leather bound book in large type (so I can read it) with King James Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price all in one volume. Very vey nice. Sounds like things are going pretty well there. She was doing her usual thing of trying to get Clayton to do his homework. And Brent had gone after work to help build a pavilion at one of the churches where they have an outdoor park for gatherings. He will do the roof.

Tuesday April 21 2009

This is the Wyoming Range which is to our West.

You can get this view from up the street.

Pine Creek runs just over the sagebrush hill.

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Here is Raven on our walk yesterday.

I mainly wanted to show you how things

are getting green here now!!

Trees and willows are still totally bare.

This was an interesting day. Warmer, but still breezy. Finished up the housecleaning and laundry which carried over from yesterday, so that is done and hope it will last for a while.

Yesterday afternoon Dave the house builder called and said he was ahead on his schedule and could be here today to start working on our punch list. I told him we would be here and to come on ahead. He has another house in Daniel, the same as ours, and was there doing their list. No, I don't know what all that one involved, but they finished it all up yesterday. He said it was a long and hard working day for them.

So he and three helpers arrived about 1 p.m. here and got right to work - one is a friend, one a nephew and one his son-in-law. So far most of the things are already corrected. They will be back tomorrow to finish the rest. We had about 30 things on our list, nothing hugely major, many just annoyances that a person could live with. They fixed plumbing in the crawl space where the condensate from the furnace in the attic had been piped down and should have been connected into the sewer system pipe, but was left to drain onto the crawl space floor - that is fixed now. They put in a new kitchen sink, which was scratched in installation - the son-in-law said he did it when he put it in. They fixed the torn screens in a jiffy. Tightened up that humongous chandelier over the dining room table and assured me it wasn't going to come crashing down. They got Joe's jacuzzi tub going - wiring had come loose, and he thought probably it wasn't hooked up right at the factory. One of them fixed that ugly hole where the TV wiring comes in in my bedroom putting on a receptacle. They got paint which Pinedale Lumber was able to match to the walls to touch up three walls that had places that didn't match the original wall color. He put some on the wall to cover one of the spots and it looks better, will see when it dries if it matches. If it is still noticeable they will paint the whole walls.

Tomorrow the biggest thing is they will work on that septic tank outlet that I put the photo of on the other day and get a drain for the water, and put some gravel in there and fill it so the ground is level. They will paint the walls, fix holes in the drywall and paint those repairs, fix some cracked cement in the garage, glue and nail some rug molding down, look at all the electrical outlets, fix a can light that doesn't work - there's more I can't think of offhand. Surely they will be here most of the day to get the rest of it done. In the meantime we got a little acquainted. They are are all very nice. Joe was able to personally ask him all the questions that he has had and got the answers.

Dave and his family lived here in a trailer while he built the house. His daughter was pregnant and started getting sick. She and the son-in-law flew home and turned out that she had a brain tumor. It wasn't malignant, but very dangerous for both of them, the drs. didn't expect the baby would live. Sounded like such a scary story, but she and the baby are fine now. The baby's first birthday is tomorrow. So many people having such terrible difficulties.

So that was our day. We went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. I'm kind of wired tonight. Joe fell asleep in the chair, well that's nothing new though. At least he can sleep good. I sure keep noticing that I feel a lot better when things are going on and people are around.

Betty called and a friend of hers is a missionary in Africa. Her father passed away and they lived in Cedar City which isn't far from Mesquite, so Betty is going up there tomorrow to go to the funeral and take some pictures for her friend, who can't come from Africa now. The rest of the story is that our other high school friend Nancy who is from Coos Bay OR is down visiting her sister in Caliente, also near Mesquite, and she and her sister will drive over to Cedar City to have lunch with Betty. I will be envious not to be there with them, but Betty will fill me in.