Friday night I had my home visit with a rep from Cruz' rescue group. It went really well and the rep said she would contact the rest of their group to say they should proceed to the next step with me - have Cruz and Butler meet.
The evening of the 4th I decided to run to Michael's to see if they had something that would work for my greyhound tree and viola - check it out below.
I had bought my white hibiscus plant several weeks ago at Home Depot - only because it was a white hibiscus (which you rarely see) and the only way I knew that was because it had a bloom on it - none of the hibiscus had tags to tell you what color they would bloom. Of course after bringing White home, it didn't bloom until late last week! Check out the one and only white bloom so far.
When I was in college my uncle - the sign painter aka bandana dude - moved from Bloomfield to Pella to live in Pella Manor where my dad was the administrator. At Uncle's sale before his move I saw the sign pictured below and wanted it. When Mike and I moved into the house in '85 up came the sign from my folks storage area and into a small room in the basement of the house. I got it out Friday or Saturday and put it on my enclosed back porch. A friend is going to stop by this next week, and see if he can come up with a small stand for it to rest on to sit higher up on the wall behind the lounger that I have in front of it. And sign is supposed to be spelled that way - Uncle loved to spell sign several unique ways.
I've been waiting for Stick to bloom and here is the first one - it opened Friday or Saturday and was beautiful! There are a bunch of buds ready to open..........
WARNING, WARNING - the next picture is a little gruesome. I got the new frame to my solar fountain and had it together in 30 seconds - seriously. But because it was evening, the fountain wouldn't run - the sun must be shining on the solar panel for it to work. Saturday morning I looked out my kitchen window and saw water running! I was overjoyed, ran outside to take this picture - and found the dead baby bird in the big bowl. I'm like, "really, really, really?!" This would only happen to me.
So to continue my morning I went to the basement, opened the door from the hallway into the basement and was over powered with a terrible smell. My first thought was gas so I called MidAmerican Energy. They sent a tech out - I had to get out of my house and wait for him outside. The guy was really nice and when he walked into the house he said it wasn't natural gas but something chemical. He asked if I'd used paint thinner or something like that recently - nope. He went ahead with his meter reader dealie - all throughout the house except my bedroom upstairs and found a slight leak at my furnance. I have a 1/10 of 1% of a gas leak and it takes 5 - 10% before the gas will combust. So, I figured God made me have a smell to get MidAmerican out to find this itty, bitty leak so I could have it fixed before it became a problem.
I head out to run my errands and talked to Cruz' foster mom while parked in WalMart's parking lot. We decided I would head out to her business in Clive around 4:00 to pick up Cruz to bring back on my own to see if Cruz and Butler would get along. I mentioned that my sister-in-law and niece would be at my house at 2:00 and would it be ok to bring them with me to pick up Cruz or would that be too many people. Foster mom's first question, "how old is your niece." I kind of snickered before saying "42." To which there was a slight pause on foster mom's end and then we laughed. While at WalMart I thought I deserved some pretty flowers to celebrate Cruz' possible home coming so check out the pic below.
I get home from running errands, grabbed my push mower to mow down the weeds in the yard and ran into the house to take a shower before Marcia and Chrissy got here. The chemical smell had disappeared in the basement - and while I unloaded the car I didn't smell anything when in the basement. Well, I walked into the basement after mowing and had THE worst rotten egg smell in the basement - lovely. I figured it was sewer gas and the trap in the drain in the basement floor had gotten dry - so I ran some water down it. I wasn't going to call MidAmerican Energy again - but something prompted me to - but I had to shower!!! I called MidAmerican and asked the dispatcher if sewer gas smelled like rotten eggs - she sort of answered me. I finally got her to say that natural gas can smell like rotten eggs too and she had to dispatch a tech because of my call. I'm sweating like a stuck hog, needing to shower, and I'm being told to evacuate my house again. I told her it would take me 10 minutes before I could do that and jumped in the shower really quick :)
A different tech showed up and immediately when he walked into the basement he said I had a sewer gas issue - like I thought. He told me to put some bleach down the trap too. I'm not sure why he wanted to check my hot water heater out but he did - and found out it wasn't filtering/funneling fumes properly - it was probably plugged somewhere. The hood dealie above the tank was stone cold and he said it should be so hot, he couldn't even touch it like he was doing. He said it was a carbon monoxide issue and had to turn it off. I looked at him and said I had woken up the past two mornings in the middle of the night with a headache and wondered if that was why - maybe. So God works in mysterious ways giving me a chemical smell to get a tech out to find one problem (the furnance) and after that tech didn't find the water heater issue - God made another awful smell happen in my basement so a second tech would find the possible carbon monoxide issue. Bad part is I'm out of hot water and it's Sunday night. Should be a fun shower in the morning before work.
Marcia and Chrissy showed up and we had a fun time together and it was time for me to head out to get Cruz. She was really happy to go for a car ride and the next two pix are of her in the car before I even left the parking lot of where she was staying.
Chrissy took the pic below of me and my two kids. Cruz and Butler have gotten along perfectly. They had a couple of nose-to-nose moments to check each other out and that was it. They get along great. I have Cruz' crate in the spot she is standing in the picture below. The crate and couch jjjuuussstttt fit between my solarium door and my front door.
We had an uneventful night last night - except for Cruz running up and down the stairs from the living room to my bedroom. I finally got the baby gate up in the bedroom so she'd stay upstairs all night.
I decided it was time to wash the stuffingless toys I had bought for Butler and Milly a few years ago - so here they are hanging out to dry before I went to church. I checked the sky on the way to church and it was a little dark so I was really hoping that if it rained (which we need rain desperately) it would hold off until I could get the bodies back inside the house.
After church I went to Petco to buy some more things for Cruz, like her name tag, then went to my last line dance class. There were only four of us today in class - it's normally 8-10 - so we had plenty of room to spread out to dance.
The pic below is Butler and Cruz in in the back yard enjoying the cooler weather.
