Chrissy and I survived the FOUR HOUR concealed weapons permit class last Sunday afternoon. It was getting a little warm in the small classroom for the 20+ of us there plus the two instructors. I have submitted paperwork to get my Iowa permit to carry concealed. The class was for the Utah concealed permit, so once I have my Iowa permit, I will submit paperwork for my Utah permit - Utah has more states I can carry in than Iowa's permit. I had hoped to carry Mike's 9mm Glock but it's a four inch barrel and I bet I will have difficulty being concealed - I'll either "profile" that I'm carrying, or the barrel will be longer than some of the shirts I'll wear - so I need to find a smaller barrel gun. I'm not looking to carry all the time, but it would be nice to have the option to protect myself if I feel it's necessary now that Mike's not always with me.
I had some home owner issues this past week. The first was realizing that I shouldn't keep my paper lawn bag to collect twigs/branches for more than a month. I forgot they can spontaneously combust.... The bag was sitting outside between my regular trash bin and my recycled bin and when I went to move it the other day I found out the bottom had burned out of it - lovely. That reminded me of the time Mike had kept one of the lawn bags INSIDE the garage for a few weeks and it combusted. Thank the good Lord I have a concrete stucco house..........
My weed eater's guard started to fall off this year when I was using it, but I would be able to pop it back on and continue to weed eat. Sometime a week or so ago - I couldn't get it to stay on and I actually weed eated without the guard - I'm sure Mike would not have approved of that move on my part. A good friend at church figured out a screw had come out that helped hold the guard in place. He figured out what type of screw, put one in my weed eater for me and left me some extra screws. I taped the screws together in a long hunk of doubled over Duct Tape and marked it with a black Sharpie that those screws are for the weed eater.
Then yesteday before running errands, the very old door knob for the door that connects the downstairs hallway with the basement fell off - great. I put the long part back through the door and stuck the door knob on the other end and it stayed - awesome!!! That was easy I thought - until I went to use the door and everything fell onto the floor again. I looked at the door knob contraption closer and saw that it needed - wait for it - another screw. Off to the True Value at 63rd and Grand I headed where a couple of the guys looked at my door knob - saw the threads were stripped out of the one part - did some minor surgery and figured out what screw I needed. I bought a couple extra screws and have the little paper bag with the screws taped shut and marked with black Sharpie those are for the downstairs hallway door knob.
Then the fan that I have running upstairs to help the AC keep the upstairs cool was starting to make a noise each time it rotated - that was annoying. Sprayed some WD40 into the fan and no more squeak. So when they say that all you need is WD40 and Duct tape they are right - I just added a black Sharpie pen and zip ties to this list and you should be able to fix anything with these four items.
Had to take a pic of Butler sleeping on the bed the other night. Cruz is still getting used to me - one day I hope she'll realize I'm not the anti-christ when I clean the gunk out of her eyes. We have been able to take walks and she is a good little sister to Butler staying outside with Butler while he's going potty as I get either my bed ready for him to lay on - or the couch. The days of the ease of just letting a dog out, back in and making sure they are settled before I leave are long gone as long as I have Butler. After helping him outside, I help him lay down on the ground, go back inside and fix the bed or couch, go back outside, help Butler back in the house and either upstairs to the bed or into the living room onto the couch, get him settled - then finish getting ready so I can finally leave the house. If Butler is headed to the couch I have to get his "speedo" with Poise pad inside, Duct taped around him so if he has an accident while I'm gone, the pad and male wrap absorb most of the mess.
Cruz now has her WDM dog license - still can't believe I had to send in an application to a company in NEBRASKA for this. And had to pay a $4.00 processing fee - my vet never had a processing fee when I would purchase dog licenses from her in the past for the dogs. And a first for me - Cruz has pet insurance. I got a 30 day free plan from the rescue group so did a little investigating regarding other pet insurance companies and have her covered with VPI starting August 6th. It's $25/month but if something happens to her - like hip displasia which German Shepherds are prone to get - almost all of the vet bill expense will be covered. A friend I worked with at the WDMPD has been with this company over 12 years and said it was amazing the coverage when one of her Shelties got cancer.
Thursday, August 2nd is Dad's birthday. I'm not sure if he will want to come up to do dinner that day or wait until the weekend - but hopefully we'll be able to get together.
The next pix are of The Well - the building my church bought (debt free) to renovate to house the church offices and be an outreach to the community we meet in. We hope to partner with River Woods Elementary (where we hold our Sunday church service) with after school tutoring, along with a clothing closet and more. The past two Saturdays men have shown up in huge numbers to get the siding up so the "blue building" is no longer blue.
The next two pix I took this morning before church. More guys showed up yesterday to finish the siding on the back side of the building and get the front of the upstairs ready for siding. What a HUGE difference.
I'm still on a shoe and house slipper quest. I found my zebra slippers today at the Half Price Store/Gordman's. I don't know if I'll ever find shoes to replace the ones Cruz chewed up....
The pic below is just a cool idea I saw posted on Facebook. What an awesome way to show your family "tree" in pictures.
And while my first love will be the greyhound breed, I "liked" a German Shepherd group on Facebook and they have some of the coolest posts. Enjoy the next two pictures of military and shepherds.
