It stayed hot for a week after the SLR Rendezvous but projects still proceeded on their merry little way. Well OK, the projects inched along very very slowly with heat, humidity and rain impeding things every step of the way. But inch along they did.
I had gone through my tools before Urchin’s major move in day and put together a decent maintenance tool set for her. Now I loaned her first my 6 ft. ladder and then the 12 ft. one so she could change light bulbs, mount curtain & shower rods and the like. I crawled up the 12 ft. ladder and cleaned out the rear gutter so it would drain properly and Urchin reinstalled the downspout once the thick layer of decayed plant material had dried out and blown (or been washed) away. I also repositioned the cement pieces that go at the bottom of the downspout so that the water doesn’t make a muddy ditch in the yard.
Her yard was looking good after its second mowing so my mower came home and I got my yard looking decent too. There were a bunch of woody bushes on the hill behind the Urchin’s place that just had to go. They didn’t show any signs of producing berries for the critters but they did have many many little quarter inch long thorns all over. A good lopper and hand ax took care of them all. (The ones down near the road will follow sometime this fall.) My Thompson Water Seal sprayer has moved to the Urchin’s permanently and got used to do the underside of the veranda. The back deck and veranda will get sprayed again in late September or early October. Water is beading up on the wood nicely now but after 3 years of no maintenance a second treatment before winter seems in order.
Back at my place I first attacked the crawl space. The last of the metal shed pieces have been recycled and various other pieces of junk have been hauled away. Then I sorted through the boxes in the Urchin’s old bedroom. A van load of stuff went to her house including her long misplaced DVD collection, a VHS/DVD player and a largish TV. I’ve still got more work to do in her old room but its about 3/4 done and thus well on its way to being a guest room. I also did some more work in my room – got the CD’s moved into the going-to-be guest room, the DVDs into the front room and the maple bookcase into my bedroom plus added pegs for 2 more bows to my bedroom wall. I even got the fishing gear all together, cleaned all the rods and reels, put new line on my freshwater spinning & casting reels, sorted out my tackle box, and took my Urchin’s fishing gear and a tackle box of basic stuff to her place.
Somewhere in there I also drove up & visited D&D. We had a grand time complete with a dinner at the Kabob Tavern in Vienna. The Kabob Tavern is a wonderful little family run place and I plan on eating there again when I’m down that way.
About mid month I moved into the 21st century. I started looking into adding texting to my cell, decided I would like some data too and started comparison shopping. The best deal I could find was with Virgin Mobile. For $35 a month I get the same number of minutes I had on my nTelos plan plus unlimited text and date. (I also lost no-minute cell-to-cell and unlimited nights and weekends.) Now texting was going to mean a new phone since texting on a phone with a alpha-numeric pad is an exercise in frustration. Target had this nice Samsung Intercept at a price I could afford. Yes an iPhone is spiffy and yes there are very cool fancier Androids out there, but if I wanted that many bells and whistles I’d get a tablet with a bigger screen and a smaller price tag. The Intercept has a decent screen, is fast enough for the limited applications I use (weather, maps, bank balances etc.) and slides open to a wonderful keyboard with a nice tactile feel. The battery is handling my usage just fine - I charge it once a day when I’m sleeping. And for those of you who want to know, the screen photo is my name-day patron St. Susanna of Palestine.
